Site Ratings & Reviews - Please critique page

Author

Please critique page

Carolyn Marenger

2006-03-26, 6:29 am

Good morning everyone...

I have pretty much finished the layout for a page, to be used as a template
for a site. I have not put much thought into the colours, for the moment I
have just tried to avoid the standard black on white but not get into the
primaries.

My goal was to have each section appear in a 'raised box', with roughly the
same spacing between each box. The menu links are meant to look like
buttons, that are depressed when the mouse is hovering over them, and stay
depressed when they have been visited. I did keep the traditional
blue/purple/green look to the menu links, however I extended it to the
whole button, not just the link itself.

I have validated the code at W3C's site, fixed the three errors it reported,
and then passed both html and css validator tests. I am hoping that puts
it in the category of structurally sound. I am sure there are a few bugs
in various browsers, so far it works just fine in Konqueror 3.3.2.

I will be firing up a windows 95 box to take a peek at it from the window's
browsers I have access to. Currently that consists of IE, Opera, and Fire
Fox. Are there any others you might suggest I download and install for
testing purposes? I avoid the windows side of life, so I don't know if
there are any new browsers in even semi common use.

On the Mac side of things. I can get an apple out of the fridge and eat it
while I look at the page. That won't help me very much, so I would really
appreciate your MAC browser comments!

Thanks,

Carolyn
--
Carolyn Marenger

Jim Moe

2006-03-26, 6:44 pm

Carolyn Marenger wrote:
>
> I have pretty much finished the layout for a page, to be used as a template
> for a site. I have not put much thought into the colours, for the moment I
> have just tried to avoid the standard black on white but not get into the
> primaries.
>
Seems fine for a template. Sound coding.
It may be worthwhile to isolate the styles for different aspects of the
layout (navigation, main body, headers, footers) into separate
stylesheets. It would make the template more flexible.
The only design weakness I really see is the darkened background for the
main content. That would be an aspect where I would increase the contrast,
not reduce it. It also draws the attention of the visitor to the content
rather than to the ancillary features.

--
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Nik Coughlin

2006-03-26, 10:38 pm

Carolyn Marenger wrote:
> Good morning everyone...
>
> I have pretty much finished the layout for a page, to be used as a
> template for a site. I have not put much thought into the colours,
> for the moment I have just tried to avoid the standard black on white
> but not get into the primaries.
>

Hi,

I realise that the colours aren't final (hey, you know how to spell colour
properly, hi from New Zealand!), but whatever colours you end up with, the
main content section needs to be lighter (assuming you keep the same levels
of contrast). I also think that sans-serif fonts look a lot better than
serif ones on screens, I prefer serif for printed material though. Nice job
code-wise.

Carolyn Marenger

2006-03-27, 10:54 pm

Nik Coughlin wrote:

> Carolyn Marenger wrote:
>
> Hi,
>
> I realise that the colours aren't final (hey, you know how to spell colour
> properly, hi from New Zealand!), but whatever colours you end up with, the
> main content section needs to be lighter (assuming you keep the same
> levels
> of contrast). I also think that sans-serif fonts look a lot better than
> serif ones on screens, I prefer serif for printed material though. Nice
> job code-wise.

(Say "Hi!" to my Dad for me will you? He's visiting the South Island for
the next couple of weeks and then the North Island. Or is it the other way
around. After that, he's back to Canada via 3 days in Sydney.)

Thanks for taking a look at it. I do plan for a lighter main content
section, for the moment, I just wanted to use a different colour. I have
an artist lined up for the colour selections. If I did it according to my
taste it would be a very plain black on light grey.

Carolyn
--
Carolyn Marenger

Carolyn Marenger

2006-03-27, 10:54 pm

Jim Moe wrote:

> Carolyn Marenger wrote:
> Seems fine for a template. Sound coding.
> It may be worthwhile to isolate the styles for different aspects of the
> layout (navigation, main body, headers, footers) into separate
> stylesheets. It would make the template more flexible.
> The only design weakness I really see is the darkened background for the
> main content. That would be an aspect where I would increase the contrast,
> not reduce it. It also draws the attention of the visitor to the content
> rather than to the ancillary features.
>

Thanks for taking a look at it. I do plan to isolate the different aspects
into different files. My problem, I can't see external stylesheets without
uploading to the server first. It is much easier to edit, save, switch
windows, reload, and see the new version. Once I have it all worked out,
then I'll separate the css from the html and then break up the css into
smaller self contained files.

Thanks again!

Carolyn
--
Carolyn Marenger

Jim Moe

2006-03-27, 10:54 pm

Carolyn Marenger wrote:
>
> [...] My problem, I can't see external stylesheets without
> uploading to the server first.
>
You do not have HTTP server locally? Not even on your development
station? A web server is trivial to install for local testing.

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Carolyn Marenger

2006-03-28, 6:46 pm

Jim Moe wrote:

> Carolyn Marenger wrote:
> You do not have HTTP server locally? Not even on your development
> station? A web server is trivial to install for local testing.
>
Yeah, I know. I had a full server up and running, when the IDE controller
on the system died and took out a couple of hard drives with it. It then
took out a third hard drive when I was testing to see what the problem was.
I haven't replaced the motherboard and drives yet - so that system has been
collecting quite a layer of dust and cat fur. I also haven't bothered to
configure Apache on my desktop - even though it is installed. One of these
days. :)

Carolyn
--
Carolyn Marenger