Posted by Mark Stahlke on September 19, 2009 at 11:20 PM
I finally got a web site up and running. A this point I'm calling it a release candidate - version 0.9.
I'd be grateful if folks could take a look and give me some feedback on the design, layout, and rendering. I have two slightly different layouts for the galleries. I'm leaning towards the layout of the landscape gallery. I'd like to know what others think.
If you notice any rendering anomalies it would be helpful if you could tell me what browser and OS you're using. It seems to render nicely in Firefox 3.5.3 and Safari 4.0.3 on Snow Leopard (Mac OS X 10.6).
The entire site, with the exception of the contact form, was created with Apple's iWeb 09. I find iWeb to be amazing and frustrating by turns. Stuff that should be hard, like creating image galleries, is sinfully easy. Stuff that should be easy can be incredibly frustrating. That contact form had me tearing my hair out for a day and a half.
Thanks,
Mark
Posted by Dan Borzynski on September 19, 2009 at 11:45 PM
The only site related thing I saw is that your trip reports come up in a separate window while the rest of the site are straight links.
I saw on the links page that you have both Badger and Midwest Photo listed and wondered immediately if you were a LF shooter. The Shen Hao recovering from its wounds at Decker's Lake?
Posted by Benjamin Glatt on September 20, 2009 at 12:04 AM
Looks great, Mark!! Nice work.
Posted by John Mumaw on September 20, 2009 at 8:12 AM
Looks real good to me.
Easy on the eyes, fast loading, intuitive and all spelling and grammar is correct, which is a big deal to me.
I prefer the layout of the landscape gallery, as well.
The framing style is what I like there. Well done!
I sent an e-mail from your contact form. I saw the confirmation page, so your form appears to work. Good job!
One thing you should consider for your e-mail form is a validation to prevent spammers. It could be something as simple like asking a simple true-false question where the user ticks a check box either true or false. There are lots of e-mail form validation tools out there--just google for it.
I'd say, that for a RC, you did very well!
-P
Posted by Kenn Leonhardt on September 20, 2009 at 12:45 PM
Looks good. I'd recommend making the navigation links bold, just so they have a greater contrast with their gray background. I prefer the landscape gallery layout.
One small issue is that the dark background on the photo galleries and trip reports pages is lighter than the dark background on the welcome, links, and contact pages.
Posted by Lee Sacrey on September 20, 2009 at 9:21 PM
Hi Mark,
The website looks good. Reminds me of some of the things on my site (it appears we use the same site building software, lol). If we are using the same software than only one of Kenn Leonhardt's comments can be corrected and that would be the dark background on the photo galleries. I don't think the trip reports one can be changed. If you find that it can be let me know how. I have to go and do a better job on my links page, now that I have seen yours.
Posted by Kenn Leonhardt on September 21, 2009 at 12:15 AM
There are a few ways you could go about making the backgrounds uniform across all pages. The overall coding could be made much more efficient and cut down on the total number of images that are downloaded, but that's a cost of using programs like iWeb. Anyways, here's one easy way:
Open the raw HTML files of the pages with the lighter backgrounds in a text editor (I'd expect iWeb has a text editor option built in), and find the <body ... > tag. Within that tag you will find url(...). Change whatever is within the brackets (eg. Trip_Reports_files/PhotoGray_browser_bg-3.jpg) to identify the image file of the darker background (eg. /Welcome_files/PhotoGray_browser_bg-2.jpg ).
The result should be:
<body style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255) url(/Welcome_files/PhotoGray_browser_bg-2.jpg) repeat scroll top left; margin: 0pt; " onload="onPageLoad();" onunload="onPageUnload();">
Save the file and upload it.
If you have that body tag on every single page, then you'll have the same background on every page.
Posted by Mark Stahlke on September 21, 2009 at 2:22 AM
Thanks for the kind words and all the input. I really appreciate it. I'm making some minor adjustments based on people's thoughts.
Kenn, thanks so much! After looking at the site for three days, I no longer noticed things like the browser background. I fixed the background on all the pages, opting for the slightly lighter background. It's those little details that make a polished looking site. Thanks.
Lee, nice web site, I like that.
My niece, who has some expertise in printed page design and layout, has agreed to take a look and make suggestions. It'll be interesting to see what she comes up with.
Thanks again,
Mark
Posted by Austin Booth on September 22, 2009 at 4:56 PM
Overall it looks pretty good. One thing I noticed is the trip report "disaster at deckers lake" has the date spelled out "JUNE 6, 12:32 AM" and no year. The next one down is "The Middle of Nowhere, Part 12" and the date on is in MM/DD/YY format "08/15/08, 7:45 AM" I would fix this so that they both have the date in the same format.
Discussion
10 repliesI'd be grateful if folks could take a look and give me some feedback on the design, layout, and rendering. I have two slightly different layouts for the galleries. I'm leaning towards the layout of the landscape gallery. I'd like to know what others think.
If you notice any rendering anomalies it would be helpful if you could tell me what browser and OS you're using. It seems to render nicely in Firefox 3.5.3 and Safari 4.0.3 on Snow Leopard (Mac OS X 10.6).
The entire site, with the exception of the contact form, was created with Apple's iWeb 09. I find iWeb to be amazing and frustrating by turns. Stuff that should be hard, like creating image galleries, is sinfully easy. Stuff that should be easy can be incredibly frustrating. That contact form had me tearing my hair out for a day and a half.
Thanks,
Mark
I saw on the links page that you have both Badger and Midwest Photo listed and wondered immediately if you were a LF shooter. The Shen Hao recovering from its wounds at Decker's Lake?
Easy on the eyes, fast loading, intuitive and all spelling and grammar is correct, which is a big deal to me.
I prefer the layout of the landscape gallery, as well.
The framing style is what I like there. Well done!
I sent an e-mail from your contact form. I saw the confirmation page, so your form appears to work. Good job!
One thing you should consider for your e-mail form is a validation to prevent spammers. It could be something as simple like asking a simple true-false question where the user ticks a check box either true or false. There are lots of e-mail form validation tools out there--just google for it.
I'd say, that for a RC, you did very well!
-P
One small issue is that the dark background on the photo galleries and trip reports pages is lighter than the dark background on the welcome, links, and contact pages.
The website looks good. Reminds me of some of the things on my site (it appears we use the same site building software, lol). If we are using the same software than only one of Kenn Leonhardt's comments can be corrected and that would be the dark background on the photo galleries. I don't think the trip reports one can be changed. If you find that it can be let me know how. I have to go and do a better job on my links page, now that I have seen yours.
Open the raw HTML files of the pages with the lighter backgrounds in a text editor (I'd expect iWeb has a text editor option built in), and find the <body ... > tag. Within that tag you will find url(...). Change whatever is within the brackets (eg. Trip_Reports_files/PhotoGray_browser_bg-3.jpg) to identify the image file of the darker background (eg. /Welcome_files/PhotoGray_browser_bg-2.jpg ).
The result should be:
<body style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255) url(/Welcome_files/PhotoGray_browser_bg-2.jpg) repeat scroll top left; margin: 0pt; " onload="onPageLoad();" onunload="onPageUnload();">
Save the file and upload it.
If you have that body tag on every single page, then you'll have the same background on every page.
Kenn, thanks so much! After looking at the site for three days, I no longer noticed things like the browser background. I fixed the background on all the pages, opting for the slightly lighter background. It's those little details that make a polished looking site. Thanks.
Lee, nice web site, I like that.
My niece, who has some expertise in printed page design and layout, has agreed to take a look and make suggestions. It'll be interesting to see what she comes up with.
Thanks again,
Mark