Site review please

[bcarl314]

I'm not sure if this is the best place to post this, so Mods if it needs to be moved, please do so.

I'm trying to come up with a new layout for my site. Please let me know what you think of this design...

http://www.artisticphotoz.com/test/index.html

Please let me know if you see any rendering problems. I've tested locally on Win98 in IE5, NN4.04 and NN6.1. Really interested in knowing how this renders on a Mac and Linux.

Anyway, your feed back is really appreciated. Thanks

[whackaxe]

i find that hte white banner on the blue backround looks a bit wierd. maybe you shopuld feather the borders of the banner or sumthin like that. its just the contrast that looks a bit ugly but for the layout it very good! i like the menu on the left especially

[ضkii]

I thought the top banner bit was the downfalling too - should be
more in line with the #666677 background.

The 'hello' in the lil box on the left should have cellpadding = 2+
Centreing the lot would help too.

Oh darn - now I started finding niggly things I keep noticing
more - d'oh...

The grey based blue is wonderful - the other blues just glitch for
me - maybe running through the blue+=11 system for the colour
base might work #111122, #222233, ....#AAAABB... - haven't
looked at those colours, often works though - increasing each
rgb value the same amount.

Subnote: If you haven't as yet got a sytem for the Artist's
Galleries, just keep an eye on the PHP forum in a week or so. - oh,
errrr is advertising [even post beta] allowed?

[bcarl314]

Thanks for the feedback. I added a little feathering on the top of the banner. I tried to make the banner in a darker color but just can't seem to get something I like. I suck a graphics.

Okii (aka pootergeist) the blues you are referring to, is that the top nav bar (Nature, Waterfalls, etc) ? I was debating what to do with that. Go with the prograssively darker theme or pick one of the combos there and make the whole bar the same. In the "hello". Still working on that. It will change.

Anybody test the rendering on a Mac or in Opera??? Let me know if you see anything goofy. Thanks

[mouse]

Quality except for the white bg'd title and the title's font; it's not cool like the rest of the page. Also users with poorer monitors than mine may find the contrast between bgcolor and text on both body and menu's difficult, it maybe they're a shade too close.

[justame]

bca...
/me would put your 'header' jpg in the same just a table® as your 'shaded/4/tds'...n' thennn it twould be the 'same' width...:O))) n' not have just a jagged® edge...
n' /me thinks your 'pics' stood out n' made ya take notice on the ol' site vs this dark grey one...mayyybe have your 'header/links' fade into the bgcolor??? which like /me said earlier thinks should be just a lightned®...

/me would just a center® the ol' site tooo.../me doesnt like when ya have just a blank® space left there...:O(((

ifin' youre wanting to doublematt your graphics though??? donttt have such just a wide® 'white' part...:O)))

evvven though /me doesnt just a do® graphics/nordesign.../me would just a do® that stuff...lol...

just a btw® tooo...niccce pics...:O)))

[ronaldb66]

First, i'd like to second Mouse on the contrast; maybe lighten up the body text a little. It isn't too big as it is, so it shouldn't hurt if it stood out a little more.
Second, the content neither scales nor centers; my personal favorite is having the content fit the available window size as far as possible, but if you don't fancy that i would at least suggest centering it in the window as opposed to sticking it to the left.
Otherwise: looking good!

[bcarl314]

Justame - Good call on the table for the banner and the navbar. Originally the divs were seperated, but I didn't like the look so I moved them together. I don't get the jagged edge except in NN.

Also, I'll be shading the yellow from bright to dark to keep with the navbar theme.

I'm thinking the biggest thing is the header. I'll try to work on something that mixes well with the blue-grey theme.

I think I will bump up the contrast a shade. I've developed this on a laptop and haven't had a chance to look at it on a normal monitor until now. I see.

Thanks for the help all.

[QuackHead]

My suggestions...

Change the little yellow arrow when you roll your mouse over the side bar - it's kinda choppy - see if you can soften the edges up a bit, maybe even get a 3d effect or something...

When you're advertising pictures - you gotta make sure your own graphics are of top quality.

Also, get rid of the 'hello' box

~Quack

[bassleader]

I should point out that in Opera 6 the text of the links under the banner shows up blue, which doesn't go well with the blue background. I think this is something to do with Opera ignoring something in your CSS, but as for how you'd fix that I'm not sure.

Also (still in Opera 6), the arrows don't always dissappear when the mouse leaves each menu item, and if I was being really picky I'd suggest making the mouseover effects work across the whole width of the menu, not just the text of the anchors.

On the whole though, I do like the layout of the site. I voted the middle way.

BL

[applesauce]

looks nice. you might want to center the whole thing, since on higher resolutions it's by itself on the left, with a lot of blank space on the right. this is just a personal preference, though.

[bcarl314]

As you can see, I'm using CSS to position DIVs in this design. I've done some experimenting with relative positioning and using %s instead of pixels, but I can't get something that display well in all browsers (NN4+ and IE4+)

I suppose I could use tables, but I want to "expand my horizons" and start using more css. Ah, maybe I'll just scrap the whole version 4 thing and go for version 6 instead with xml. Nah. Maybe later. (2010 or so)

[Graeme Hackston]

I think it looks great with the same exceptions listed above.

Have you tried serving old browsers there own Stlye Sheets? It will allow you to position and use DHTML for the DOM browsers and (hopefully) dump everything nicely on the page for v4

[duniyadnd]

Pretty good...

Find the glare of the banner there still however...

what you could do is if you are using photoshop and have layers and that white layer is seperate, you could tone it down with either "Hues" (Ctrl+U) or change the color balance (Ctrl+B) or perhaps change the contrast/brightness.

Hopefully that would help.

Good luck.. Like the layout a lot though, can't wait to see it fully functional.

Duniyadnd

[jscript_junkie]

Have you ever thought of making your banner transparent? I think that would make it a lot nicer. If you want to do this, you'll have to open your two banner images and save them as a BMP. Then, find a program that can convert BMPs to GIFs. A program that I have for that is called BMPtoGIF - fitting title huh? The, go to gifworks.com and you'll be able to open them and add a transparency. If you want me to do it, I'll be happy to. I'll post the images here. Good luck on your website!