Honest opinion

[MKJ]

Ok - give me your best shot. Is the design of my site any good now or just nasty? Are the colours a bit scarey? Is the navigation good? Whatever. Slag it off if you want but try and be constructive. Still tons and tons of work to do yet with regard to the software especially - product links as opposed to site links. But overall?

Site development

 

[Draylor]

1. Its ugly as fuck - my opinion anyway
2. Black backgrounds are sooooooo 5+ years ago
3. It looks like just another generic domain squatting advert/fake search engine bullshit site. If thats what your aiming for then fine.
4. What the fuck is it doing - reloading something or other every couple of seconds?

Thats enough entirely unconstructive complaints I reckon, and I didnt even get as far as clicking a link

 

[MKJ]

There yu go. Knew you could be constructive. Taken out the refreshing scripts that were causing the reloading. Was a bit concerned about them anyways and you confirmed it. As for the colours - was in a black period so maybe time to redo the colours for sure.

See - constructive criticism - nice one.

 

[Shovel]

OK, here's a list of things I think you could improve on and which should help you maintaining your site.

• Try to use all lower-case HTML tags. Although not a requirement for standard HTML, it's somewhat defacto and good practice to use all-lowercase tags. It's also a mandatory requirement for XHTML in the future.
• Close all your elements. There are cases where in the same list you have closed some of the <li> elements and not others.
• Even if not changing all your tags to lower-case, try to be consistant. You've got cases where you open with a DIV and end with a /div. That makes it rather harder to read.

I know you've been playing with CSS a fair bit, but there are still a number of data tables in your site being misused for layout. You could get rid of a lot of them and work towards making your site truely device independent (although to have it working on mobile phones etc. you'll need to stop using iframes).

For example, on your front page grid (with all the categories) you don't need a table. Instead you could put each catagory in a semantically correct unordered list, and use CSS to style the list items. Remove the bullet points, make them display:block and give them a fixed width (so that they will fit 3 to a . Then float:left each of the list items to give the same visual appearence. This will look the same, but if displayed on a small screen it will magically wrap to have less columns, or just revert to a simple list when unstyled.

Finally, there are a horrid number <font /> elements in there. You should really try to remove them in favour of CSS.

You've got good progress though - using divs in places shows you've got the right idea. It seems like a good time to open yourself up to some fancier CSS techniques like the above to replace the last of those tables.

 

[MKJ]

Cheers Shovel

Will take all of it onboard and sort it out. Time for a good clean out for sure as the coding is starting to get messy.

 

[MKJ]

I reckon the design ain't bad but the colours are aggressive. Same colour scheme as used by potentially lethal spiders . Anyone have any ideas on an acceptable colour scheme?

 

[Shovel]

There's no way someone else can really 'tell you' a colourscheme. You really need to explore that for yourself. By all means take advice from existing websites, but you'll produce a much better project if you're the one who decides on the colours.

There are a number of colour scheme generation aids out there - give them a try. I have a couple tagged in delicious: http://del.icio.us/BenWard/colour+webdev

 

[Maljonic]

Don't know how much of the above you've changed, but looking at it as if I were a normal, none web designing visitor, I think it looks pretty damn good. Perhaps you could mess around with CSS to make a few themes that visitors can choose, nothing too drastic, just a choice of backgrounds and such - say a dark layout like you have now, and a light layout for those who prefer that. Don't do away with what you've got now though, it looks good.

 

[MKJ]

Thanks for the words of encouragement . Just redid the site infact - just before you visited. Found this nice darkblue Dell keyboard so decided to redo the site around it. I kinda like the 'glassy slick' feel of the site with this colour scheme. Didn't take too long. As you say dark isn't to everyone's taste and to offer a choice is a good idea for sure. Stop me wrecking this one too come to think of it. Still need to adjust bits and pieces yet on this one though.

Some big companies just came onboard and they have turned me down in the past so the site must be looking improved now .

 

[Maljonic]

Exactly, making seperate themes is also a good way of keeping what you've already done and not messing it up.

 

[MKJ]

Hi Majonic

You should take a look at the site now infact - just altered a fading text script to accept images. The images rotate. Looks damn good to me and I am going to put it on all the shopping pages. Can put as many pics as I want. If you want the script let me know. Still have to adjust for low res yet.

 

[Maljonic]

Looks good, is it an actual proper site then? I didn't realise, you've been messing about with it for so long I thought it was just something that was made up with no real purpose other than testing and increasing your skills. If it is a proper site I'd leave it just how you have it now and focus on filling it up with content, maybe get a few links to it too once it's properly indexed in Google etc.

It could maybe do with a proper front page with the address: http://sites-4u.com/ not redirected. Keep building on it with the existing design, make other themes rather than redoing the whole lot.

If you really do want to try something completely different, make another website at another address; I know I said this before, but you wont get anywhere if you keep deleting everything and starting again. Build build build your own virtual empire, or at least a couple of websites with at least one stable one you don't fool around with. That way you'll always have something to show people what you've achieved. If you keep remaking the same website you only have a portfolio with one thing in it, and a none excistant web presence too. I mean I guess it depends on what you want out of it, if you like tinkering around and you're not too bothered about getting visitors and making money out of it then it doesn't matter too much what you do. Even then though, if it's just for you; you could compare it to being an artist who only has one painting because he keeps painting over the last thing he did, you have nothing to compare anything with, nothing to check your progress with. You need a couple of different works so you can see both at the same time to evaluate your work.

That's what I think anyway.

Edit: just to add you might want to make a logo too if you're sticking with it as a proper site.

 

[MKJ]

Yeah time to stick with this design and just clean it up now. Just adjusted it a great deal for low res and to my eyes it looks even better now. Think I finally have something I can build on. I keep saying that but others know more than me and can be objective. Still some big businesses came along today and accepted it which uptil now they haven't so that really speaks volumes. Tis a site I am developing for sure but this website designing lark is one hell offa challenge and I tend to learn through my mistakes when I rip the site apart. But like you said this site needs polishing now and not scrapping. I have a few domains infact so will see what I can do. Am quite excited by how this one has finally turned out though as I think it looks quite impressive now - at last. Still you never know what tomorrow will bring .

Thanks for the appraisal and ideas.

 

[Shovel]

You might want to put a fade-to-black on the edge of that background image and set it not to repeat, since it has a rather ugly join.

 

[MKJ]

I stopped the background from repeating. Was a bit lazy not doing it before but the image I used is a large one and didn't think anyone would view the site with such a high resolution. Not sure how to apply a fade to a background image edge? What code is used for that?

Thanks for the advice by the way and I will be tidying up the code soon and sorting out the tables - or trying too. You mentioned about phones well my mate asked me something about them as well. There are ringtones etc on the site so perhaps I need to look into making the site ok for phone users too. Not really got any idea about that though.

 

[Shovel]

It's not code to do a fade to black. You'll need to edit the image in Photoshop/Fireworks/PaintShopPro/etc.

 

[MKJ]

Ah right - will have to fire up Photoshop and have a mess around with that fade.

Just put on a 'Software Shop' . Thousands of products that people can buy directly off my site. Pity the downloadable trial stuff isn't with it because that is a hell offa lot of work to sort out. Still each day there will be more content added. Still got a lot of adjusting to do with the shop as I don't like the way low res shows it but then again I never do like the way low res view anything anyways.

I have a choice of a few servers, as well as a home server. The b-one server wouldn't allow the Software Shop script to function for some reason but the other one I have with Streamlinenet did. I think I will put a computer that just runs my site soon at home and split my broadband connection. Bits of sites on different servers is getting a bit confusing at times.

 

[MKJ]

Whoaa - not sure why but I starting to get hits from here now?

Look for Sites-4u.com in 'Featured Resources'

Something to do with my new design?

 

[MKJ]

Ah found out what it is. Google Adwords. My account has been reactivated. Hell it sure is effective.

 

[MKJ]

Given up on website designing now. Think all the sites I created were nothing more than me on a learning curve. Now? Realize that you need the knowledge but visitors need stability and easy navigation. Gone back to using Mambo now - well infact Joomla. No more destroying websites for me. Just gonna build up the information, links etc. Got all the tools at my disposal now and will use them to make a damn good site - a stable one .

By the way anyone matched a forum to Mambo bar for the SMF one? Would like to use the same login and out for Joomla (Mambo) and the forum if possible.

My nice green stable site.

Still upto my old tricks though cos I am using a Link Manager script to more or less run my site now. Altered it a bit and intend to alter it a bit more yet. Makes for very clear displays of sites and software.

 

[Chilly]

It is quite easy to integrate the phpbb2 user system with an existing site (or possibly the other way round) there are guides to do it and what bits of code you need where. Beware: you will have to edit *every* link so that it includes a session ID in the GET data.

 

[Maljonic]

Given up on website designing now. Think all the sites I created were nothing more than me on a learning curve. Now? Realize that you need the knowledge but visitors need stability and easy navigation. Gone back to using Mambo now - well infact Joomla. No more destroying websites for me. Just gonna build up the information, links etc. Got all the tools at my disposal now and will use them to make a damn good site - a stable one .

By the way anyone matched a forum to Mambo bar for the SMF one? Would like to use the same login and out for Joomla (Mambo) and the forum if possible.

My nice green stable site.

Still upto my old tricks though cos I am using a Link Manager script to more or less run my site now. Altered it a bit and intend to alter it a bit more yet. Makes for very clear displays of sites and software.

I just integrated this site: http://www.locationyork.co.uk/ with Simple Machines Forum, registration on the site also join you to the forum, actually it take you to the forums registration. Is that what you meant?

 

[MKJ]

Well yes really. Want peeps to register on the site and automatically register on the forum at the same time. I have a forum installed - SMF one - that is integrated with Joomla already but I am not familiar with it's workings. Was hoping to use a forum I know about such as the phpbb2 or minibb - even the mylittleforum one. Looks like the phpbb2 one can be sorted though like Chilly says there is quite a bit involved in the process. Not really sure I need a forum though. What I really need is a display board where I can show latest offers etc and people can leave replies. Maybe something that doesn't need registration and can run through the Joomla wrapper (iframe). Seen anything?

 

[Maljonic]

I'm a big PHPBB fan myself, it's the first time I tried SMF because there is a bridge for it especially for mambo/joomla, I think SMF actually looks pretty nice and makes a change for me anyway. Also there's always a chance a new client might be using it so I may as well learn how boards other than PHPBB2 work.

You're right about thinking on whether or not you need a message board though; they can actually be bad for your site if there's nothing happening on them, making it look unpopular and unvisited.

 

[MKJ]

Nice looking board on your site Maljonic. When you mention a 'bridge' I take it you can install a full SMF forum as opposed to the one that I have installed (integrated one) and still share the same login for the site and forum? Much rather use the full forum for sure. Will need a forum and may as well install the full SMF one like you have. Less of a headache.

Was using the Wrapper to display the Links script I have been using. It is an elaborate script with a full admin - from Comdev. Wrapper was working perfectly in explorer but Firefox was making a mess of things. Don't think Firefox likes the auto feature of the wrapper. Can't seem to get to grips with it. Decided in the end to make 2 pages by copying the actual Shopping and Software pages that were displaying on Joomla. Did this by downloading the source code when the page was displayed on the screen. After that put urls in instead of shortened links to graphics and menus etc then uploaded it with the links script installed in the new pages. Oh and also took out bits of the code in the header or the pages won't run at all (need to add some infact come ot think of it). Viola - Joomla pages with menus etc all working yet outside of Joomla. All I did then was to alter the Wrapper links to full urls. Now Firefox displays the script code perfectly as it is no longer inside an iframe yet the page is fully integrated with my theme . Neat eh.

 

[MKJ]

Found great themes from Mamboteam. The Portal Theme's wrapper is working correctly with Firefox so the previous problem has gone. Great this as I can now get back to keeping Joomla as it is supposed to be. Got a problem now though that I am trying to overcome. The Links script I am using is being displayed through the Wrapper (iframe). Therefore it doesn't take on any theme colouration etc that I care to use. I want the Links script to use the Joomla template styles. I can easily make the script use one particular style but that limits the use of the themes then. Somehow need to take code from Joomla and insert it into the head of the links script. Just the code that is adjusting the styles. Will look further into this now and post some code.

 

[MKJ]

Joomla sure is impressive. The more I work with the portal the more I am impressed. Free! You can end up with a site that looks 100% professional with all the facilities at hand that you could pay a lot of money for. I now have a site that I reckon is amongst the top. Looks good is easy to maintain etc. If anyone is thinking of starting a new site then deff try Joomla.

MKJ

Edit: By the way moderators this forum is behaving as odd as hell and has been since you upgraded the graphics. Everytime I try to post I get booted off - logged out. To post I have to login then post - log back in etc before it shows. Something is deff wrong with the forum setup.

 

[Penguin]

I like the new design, very nice. All seems good .. except those flashing "NEW" GIFS, hope you don't take this the wrong way, it's alright to say "New" but the style of that flashing GIF is ugleh,

Like i've trained my eyes not to look at ads on webpages, when i see animated GIFS like that it seems a bit.. *Can't think of word.. may edit later* but basically i don't like them. Aside from that it's great.

 

[MKJ]

Glad you like the design of the site now. In all the time I have been messing with various looks only now are people actually visiting . I finally grown up I think with regard to website creation. Had more visitors in the last few days than I have had on my sites in months. Putting tons of good quality software titles on now for trial download so there will be more and more for visitors to see and play around with all the time. This time tomorrow hopefully I will have newsletters on the go too where anyone can sign up for any section they are interested in.

Will see about those gifs. They are quite small really and add a little life to the page but maybe something else can be found instead. I am sure to come across something.

Regards

 

[Maljonic]

I don't think they're that bad myself, like you say they are very small; perhaps if they just had smooth edges instead of that old-fashioned zigzag explosion thing on the edges like old supermarket special offer tags?