Webmaster forum - Site check

Author

Site check

Alfred Molon

2007-04-19, 10:18 pm

I've set up a site for the Malaysia Club Bavaria:
http://www.malaysiaclubbayern.de/

It's non-commercial site and its purpose is to post the list of the
upcoming events, share photos, news etc. It also should help Malaysians
who are new in Munich to find the Malaysian club.

I'd be interested in your opinion about the user interface and the site
concept.
--

Alfred Molon
http://www.molon.de - Photos of Asia, Africa and Europe

paul@paulwatt.info

2007-04-20, 6:17 pm

On 19 Apr, 23:23, Alfred Molon <alfred_molonCAN...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> I've set up a site for the Malaysia Club Bavaria:http://www.malaysiaclubbayern.de/
>
> It's non-commercial site and its purpose is to post the list of the
> upcoming events, share photos, news etc. It also should help Malaysians
> who are new in Munich to find the Malaysian club.
>
> I'd be interested in your opinion about the user interface and the site
> concept.
> --
>
> Alfred Molonhttp://www.molon.de- Photos of Asia, Africa and Europe

Hi,
Its a bit bland isnt it? The graphic in the title bar looks squashed.
Also it fails validation with 3 errors.
Apart from that, not bad.

HTH
Paul
http://www.paulwattdesigns.com

paul@paulwatt.info

2007-04-20, 6:17 pm

On 20 Apr, 14:05, p...@paulwatt.info wrote:
> On 19 Apr, 23:23, Alfred Molon <alfred_molonCAN...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
> Hi,
> Its a bit bland isnt it? The graphic in the title bar looks squashed.
> Also it fails validation with 3 errors.
> Apart from that, not bad.
>
> HTH
> Paulhttp://www.paulwattdesigns.com

I forgot to give you a gentle nudge in the ribs for using tables for
layout, consider yourself nudged.

Paul
http://www.paulwattdesigns.com

Alfred Molon

2007-04-20, 6:17 pm

In article <1177074358.667842.199390@d57g2000hsg.googlegroups.com>,
paul@paulwatt.info says...

> Its a bit bland isnt it? The graphic in the title bar looks squashed.
> Also it fails validation with 3 errors.
> Apart from that, not bad.

Ok, I've corrected the errors (` instead of ' characters) and now it
validates. I assume that bland means unexciting? You are probably right,
but the site serves a simple purpose - it's not meant to be cool or
exciting.

By the way I noticed that the PNG graphic on the top right does not
display properly in IE. In Firefox the background is transparent as it
should be, while in IE it is grey. Why on earth can't IE display
properly PNGs?

To Matt: thanks for the message in the guestbook. The site language is
English, because the club's language is English as the members are
Malaysians living in Bavaria.
--

Alfred Molon
http://www.molon.de - Photos of Asia, Africa and Europe

paul@paulwatt.info

2007-04-20, 6:17 pm

On 20 Apr, 16:48, Alfred Molon <alfred_molonCAN...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> In article <1177074358.667842.199...@d57g2000hsg.googlegroups.com>,
> p...@paulwatt.info says...
>
>
> Ok, I've corrected the errors (` instead of ' characters) and now it
> validates. I assume that bland means unexciting? You are probably right,
> but the site serves a simple purpose - it's not meant to be cool or
> exciting.
>
> By the way I noticed that the PNG graphic on the top right does not
> display properly in IE. In Firefox the background is transparent as it
> should be, while in IE it is grey. Why on earth can't IE display
> properly PNGs?
>
> To Matt: thanks for the message in the guestbook. The site language is
> English, because the club's language is English as the members are
> Malaysians living in Bavaria.
> --
>
> Alfred Molonhttp://www.molon.de- Photos of Asia, Africa and Europe

IE 6 doesnt support transparant pngs, apparantly theres a JavaScript
work around, but I've never bothered. IE7 displays PNGs properly

Paul

http://www.paulwattdesigns.com

Matt Probert

2007-04-20, 6:17 pm

On Fri, 20 Apr 2007 17:48:56 +0200, Alfred Molon
<alfred_molonCANCEL@yahoo.com> wrote:

>To Matt: thanks for the message in the guestbook. The site language is
>English, because the club's language is English as the members are
>Malaysians living in Bavaria.

Of course! Silly me!

<BG>

Matt

--
The Probert Encyclopaedia
Reliable, accountable, data for serious researchers

Chris F.A. Johnson

2007-04-20, 6:17 pm

On 2007-04-19, Alfred Molon wrote:
> I've set up a site for the Malaysia Club Bavaria:
> http://www.malaysiaclubbayern.de/
>
> It's non-commercial site and its purpose is to post the list of the
> upcoming events, share photos, news etc. It also should help Malaysians
> who are new in Munich to find the Malaysian club.
>
> I'd be interested in your opinion about the user interface and the site
> concept.

I have two problems with the site:

First, it is a fixed width; if the browser window is smaller than
~800 pixels, it requires scrolling. If the window is bigger,
there is empty space at the sides.

Secondly, the text is justified, which makes it harder to read
due to very large spaces between words. The problem is
exacerbated by large font sizes and the fixed width layout.

Apart from that, it looks good.

--
Chris F.A. Johnson <http://cfaj.freeshell.org>
========= Do not reply to the From: address; use Reply-To: ========
Author:
Shell Scripting Recipes: A Problem-Solution Approach (2005, Apress)

Alfred Molon

2007-04-20, 6:17 pm

In article <9ehnf4-sga.ln1@xword.teksavvy.com>, cfajohnson@XXXXXXXXXX
says...

> First, it is a fixed width; if the browser window is smaller than
> ~800 pixels, it requires scrolling. If the window is bigger,
> there is empty space at the sides.

True, but aren't most screens at least 800 pixels wide? I would assume
that most people who browse the web either use full-screen windows or
keep the window size to at least 800 pixels.
In any case, are there any statistics about how people user browsers and
what window size they use?

> Secondly, the text is justified, which makes it harder to read
> due to very large spaces between words. The problem is
> exacerbated by large font sizes and the fixed width layout.

Interesting, I never thought about this. When should then justified text
be used?
--

Alfred Molon
http://www.molon.de - Photos of Asia, Africa and Europe

Chris F.A. Johnson

2007-04-20, 6:17 pm

On 2007-04-20, Alfred Molon wrote:
> In article <9ehnf4-sga.ln1@xword.teksavvy.com>, cfajohnson@XXXXXXXXXX
> says...
>
>
> True, but aren't most screens at least 800 pixels wide?

It's not the screen size that matters (but how many pixels wide are
PDA, etc?), but the browser window.

> I would assume that most people who browse the web either use
> full-screen windows or keep the window size to at least 800 pixels.

They may or may not. I don't understand why, when anyone sees a
need to prevent the page using the available window. I use the word
prevent advisedly, because to create a fixed-width page, you need
to override the standard rendering; by default, HTML will fill the
window.

> In any case, are there any statistics about how people user browsers and
> what window size they use?

Who cares? Is it less work to make the page fluid than fixed.

>
> Interesting, I never thought about this. When should then justified text
> be used?

There is generally no reason to use justified text, especially on
the web where you have no idea have wide the column will be, or how
large the viewer's font size is.

--
Chris F.A. Johnson <http://cfaj.freeshell.org>
========= Do not reply to the From: address; use Reply-To: ========
Author:
Shell Scripting Recipes: A Problem-Solution Approach (2005, Apress)

Alfred Molon

2007-04-21, 6:15 am

In article <obqnf4-jnb.ln1@xword.teksavvy.com>, cfajohnson@XXXXXXXXXX
says...

> They may or may not. I don't understand why, when anyone sees a
> need to prevent the page using the available window. I use the word
> prevent advisedly, because to create a fixed-width page, you need
> to override the standard rendering; by default, HTML will fill the
> window.

There is just one problem with the variable size window. The site has
some image galleries, which are accessed through thumbnail tables.
Images don't scale automatically with the page size - they have a fixed
pixel size. So the thumbnail table will have a fixed size.

Actually the gallery pages are dynamic and each row has a variable
number of thumbnails, depending on each thumbnail width. But the server
side script needs to know how wide the table will be, and cannot know
how wide the window of the user currently is.

The only way to adapt the thumbnail table width to the user's window
width would be to use some client side script (Java), which then does
the layouting. But I'm not familiar with Java ...
--

Alfred Molon
http://www.molon.de - Photos of Asia, Africa and Europe

Chris F.A. Johnson

2007-04-21, 10:16 pm

On 2007-04-21, Alfred Molon wrote:
> In article <obqnf4-jnb.ln1@xword.teksavvy.com>, cfajohnson@XXXXXXXXXX
> says...
>
>
> There is just one problem with the variable size window. The site has
> some image galleries, which are accessed through thumbnail tables.
> Images don't scale automatically with the page size - they have a fixed
> pixel size. So the thumbnail table will have a fixed size.
>
> Actually the gallery pages are dynamic and each row has a variable
> number of thumbnails, depending on each thumbnail width. But the server
> side script needs to know how wide the table will be, and cannot know
> how wide the window of the user currently is.

Then don't use a table.

> The only way to adapt the thumbnail table width to the user's window
> width would be to use some client side script (Java), which then does
> the layouting. But I'm not familiar with Java ...

<http://cfaj.freeshell.org/web/examples/>

--
Chris F.A. Johnson <http://cfaj.freeshell.org>
========= Do not reply to the From: address; use Reply-To: ========
Author:
Shell Scripting Recipes: A Problem-Solution Approach (2005, Apress)

Bergamot

2007-04-21, 10:16 pm

Chris F.A. Johnson wrote:
>
> <http://cfaj.freeshell.org/web/examples/>

FYI, you should consider optimizing those images more. Graphics that
size should be less than 5KB, probably closer to 3KB. A couple are over
30KB. Way too heavy.

--
Berg

Chris F.A. Johnson

2007-04-22, 6:18 pm

On 2007-04-22, Bergamot wrote:
> Chris F.A. Johnson wrote:
>
> FYI, you should consider optimizing those images more. Graphics that
> size should be less than 5KB, probably closer to 3KB. A couple are over
> 30KB. Way too heavy.

I agree. This was intended as a throwaway demonstration page. I
was going to remove it when I discovered that someone had linked
to it.

What's the best [*nix] tool for optimizing images?

--
Chris F.A. Johnson <http://cfaj.freeshell.org>
========= Do not reply to the From: address; use Reply-To: ========
Author:
Shell Scripting Recipes: A Problem-Solution Approach (2005, Apress)

Bergamot

2007-04-22, 6:19 pm

Chris F.A. Johnson wrote:
>
> What's the best [*nix] tool for optimizing images?

I thought the gimp was pretty much the only graphics editor on *nix.
Doesn't it have some means of optimizing images for web use? I don't use
it, so I don't know.

--
Berg