Crit needed

Just finished the site for the company I work for.

http://www.westerntelecom.co.uk/

Sorry about the table abuse but this site must be viewable using a
set-top-box browser and these generally make a hash of divs etc. As it
is I'll probably need to stick in a load of attribs (bgcolor, width,
height etc) to cover the css that the browser can't handle. This is
going to be a real shame as it validate nicely at present.

The whole site should resize nicely excepting the menu.

What do you think of the resizing images? Too gimmicky?

--
Andrew @ Rockface
np: AC/DC - Back in Black
www.rockface-records.co.uk

Andrew @ Rockface wrote:

Just finished the site for the company I work for.


What do you think of the resizing images? Too gimmicky?

No resizing of anything - a horizontal scrollbar is present at 1024x768
in FF1.5.

Overall, I like the design; it's clean and simple. There are a couple
of places where text appears to be too small, by which I mean that text
at a similar level is labelled as class=text-large. Examples at
clients-overview and support-overview.

HTH

Nik

Nik wrote:

Andrew @ Rockface wrote:
Just finished the site for the company I work for.


What do you think of the resizing images? Too gimmicky?


No resizing of anything -

The images should resize if the text size is adjusted (Ctrl+MW).

a horizontal scrollbar is present at 1024x768 in FF1.5.

Really? I'm using FF 1.5.0.1 and everything's fine. How much of a scroll
is there?

Overall, I like the design; it's clean and simple. There are a couple
of places where text appears to be too small, by which I mean that text
at a similar level is labelled as class=text-large. Examples at
clients-overview and support-overview.

Do you mean that some text in the left-hand column is small (100%) in
some place and large (110%) in others? It all depends on what the design
notes ask me to do

I'm still playing with it and have trimmed redundant css, classes etc.
Much cleaner now but need the boss to check before the live site gets
updated.

--
Andrew @ Rockface
np: AC/DC - If You Want Blood (You've Got It)
www.rockface-records.co.uk

Andrew @ Rockface wrote:

No resizing of anything -


The images should resize if the text size is adjusted (Ctrl+MW).

Ahh, okay. I thought you meant with window size. No opinion on that -
I rarely if ever change the default text size on my browser.

a horizontal scrollbar is present at 1024x768 in FF1.5.


Really? I'm using FF 1.5.0.1 and everything's fine. How much of a scroll
is there?

The RHS of my screen is level with the final 'N' of "video on demand"
It's not too bad, but if I were on a low-res screen or in a
non-maximised browser I'd lose a lot. IE6 shows a couple more pixels -
maybe half the 'd'.

Overall, I like the design; it's clean and simple. There are a couple
of places where text appears to be too small, by which I mean that
text at a similar level is labelled as class=text-large. Examples at
clients-overview and support-overview.


Do you mean that some text in the left-hand column is small (100%) in
some place and large (110%) in others? It all depends on what the design
notes ask me to do

Challenge the notes. On clients-overview I see "Western's Clients" as
bold, with a paragraph of large text beneath it. Immedialtely under
that is 'normal' text "Here are a few of out clients". This loks
unimportant by comparison - it's smaller. It's not at all obvious that
this relates to the logos above and to the right of it.

On support-overview, 'supporting your guests' line needs to be made to
look like a header, and the following paragraph needs to be the same
size as the ones above it. It it's less important than the others, make
it more obvious - mabe by adding a little vertical space or indenting it.

Another note - I'm seeing '>' appearing in my tab and browser title
bars, which i suspect wasn't your intention.

Nik

Nik Thomas wrote:

Andrew @ Rockface wrote:
No resizing of anything -


The images should resize if the text size is adjusted (Ctrl+MW).

Ahh, okay. I thought you meant with window size. No opinion on that -
I rarely if ever change the default text size on my browser.

a horizontal scrollbar is present at 1024x768 in FF1.5.


Really? I'm using FF 1.5.0.1 and everything's fine. How much of a
scroll is there?

The RHS of my screen is level with the final 'N' of "video on demand"
It's not too bad, but if I were on a low-res screen or in a
non-maximised browser I'd lose a lot. IE6 shows a couple more pixels -
maybe half the 'd'.

Ahh, I think see. It all stems from the fact That I had to make the
menu unbreakable (the links will not break on whitespace). This means
that the page always has a minimum width. This minimum width is greater
than your viewport. I've reduced the spacing between the menu items and
also reduced the space between the right-hand column and the menu. This
should help. When I first coded (php function) the menu I had it so the
menu items would break on whitespace, but was then told off

Just out of interest, what is the size of your window/viewport? I know
that a decent page should be viewable at all sizes but that's not an
option at present.

Overall, I like the design; it's clean and simple. There are a
couple of places where text appears to be too small, by which I mean
that text at a similar level is labelled as class=text-large.
Examples at clients-overview and support-overview.


Do you mean that some text in the left-hand column is small (100%) in
some place and large (110%) in others? It all depends on what the
design notes ask me to do

Challenge the notes. On clients-overview I see "Western's Clients" as
bold, with a paragraph of large text beneath it. Immedialtely under
that is 'normal' text "Here are a few of out clients". This loks
unimportant by comparison - it's smaller. It's not at all obvious that
this relates to the logos above and to the right of it.

You're right, and it's something that's been niggling me too. I've move
the "Here are a few of out clients" to the top of the next column and
made it an h4.

On support-overview, 'supporting your guests' line needs to be made to
look like a header, and the following paragraph needs to be the same
size as the ones above it. It it's less important than the others, make
it more obvious - mabe by adding a little vertical space or indenting it.

Increased the font-size to 1.2em and increased font size to be in line
with previous paragraph.

Another note - I'm seeing '>' appearing in my tab and browser title
bars, which i suspect wasn't your intention.

One of the things I'd already fixed but hadn't uploaded. Should be all
better now.

I've changed a few other things (increased line-height, cleaned up the
css, etc) but these won't appear until tomorrow.

Thanks for all this, it's really helping.

--
Andrew @ Rockface
np: Beth Gibbons & Rustin' Man - Funny Time Of Year
www.rockface-records.co.uk

Andrew @ Rockface wrote:

a horizontal scrollbar is present at 1024x768 in FF1.5.

Just out of interest, what is the size of your window/viewport? I know
that a decent page should be viewable at all sizes but that's not an
option at present.

1024x768. With the browser maximised I also have a vertical scroll-bar
- on most pages the bottom of the graphic is level with the bottom of
the viewport if I don't scroll down.

Nik

kchayka wrote:

Andrew @ Rockface wrote:
http://www.westerntelecom.co.uk/

Sorry about the table abuse but this site must be viewable using a
set-top-box browser and these generally make a hash of divs etc.

That's no excuse for all those nested tables. You can probably get rid
of most of them without any ill effects.

Personally I hate nested tables as well and very rarely use them. I
really am trying to remove them but as there's a trade show next week
there is no way I'm going to attempt it before then.

My personal peeve is the way I've done is using tables for the stuff
that should be in a list. Really naughty.

Hopefully I'll have a new slimmed down version in a couple of weeks once
the bosses see the limitation imposed by tables and a menu that doesn't
break on word boundaries.

The whole site should resize nicely excepting the menu.

It doesn't fit in my window, which is usually a bit less than 800px

It's the menu (it doesn't break on whitespace). I've shrunk the spacing
between menu items and decreased the space between the menu and the
right-hand column. That should help a little.

wide. Horizontal scrolling sucks. You really did design this with TV

I didn't design it at all. I took a design that some wonderful (and
expensive) graphic designers put together and tried to shoe-horn it into
a tv/monitor. If I'd actually followed the design to the letter you'd be
seeing 6pt type.

viewing in mind? I can't imagine how it would look without a wide-screen
display. :-\

I know, I know. It's a case of management wanting two things 1) I follow
this pigging design and two it needs to be viewable on a tv.

BTW, the text in the left-most paragraph looks excessively large. It
makes me think of Geocities circa 1996.

It's the design again. They want one side to be larger than the other.
This means either 100%/90% or 110%/100%. I went down the later route. I
have managed to remove a lot of the super-sized text though.

What do you think of the resizing images? Too gimmicky?

I use a larger-than-average text size by default. The images look awful.

Damn it! The images are larger than average as well but I reduce them in
size with css. This is probably why they look crappy - though I didn't
think they looked too bad.

I agree (except about the graphics - which I'm still undecided about)
with you and think most of the problems can easily be solved by killing
of the table based layout and letting the menu break on word boundaries.
Give me a little while and maybe I can persuade my bosses to let me have
free reign.

All this does help - cheers.

--
Andrew @ Rockface
np: Body Count - There Goes the Neighborhood [stopped]
www.rockface-records.co.uk

Nik Thomas wrote:

Andrew @ Rockface wrote:

a horizontal scrollbar is present at 1024x768 in FF1.5.

Just out of interest, what is the size of your window/viewport? I know
that a decent page should be viewable at all sizes but that's not an
option at present.


1024x768. With the browser maximised I also have a vertical scroll-bar
- on most pages the bottom of the graphic is level with the bottom of
the viewport if I don't scroll down.

Cheers. Between you and Kchayka I think I have all the ammo I need for a
fluid redesign based on divs. Though I was hoping it would be a little
more fluid than it turned out

--
Andrew @ Rockface
www.rockface-records.co.uk
Winamp not playing

kchayka wrote:

Andrew @ Rockface wrote:
If I'd actually followed the design to the letter you'd be
seeing 6pt type.

Nope, I'd never see 6pt type. That's the beauty of using a browser that
lets me set a minimum font size. My minimum is more than twice that size.

The moral is... the web author/designer has no control over the
visitor's browsing environment. You might want to mention that to the
powers that be.

Exactly. What they did was design the site using a graphics program and
gave me the printed copy on A3 paper. In other words the design was
created for paper and not screen. We did warn them that the design was
unworkable.

BTW here's a few of the css drawbacks of the browser (Fresco) on the STB
we use:

margin doesn't work (except for margin-right for some reason)
padding - nope
float has partial support
display - nope
position - nope.

Oh, and it uses DOM 0 javascript.

The actual stb portal I created uses no css at all as it's too
unreliable. Luckily it'll never be seen except on a tv.

--
Andrew @ Rockface
np: Body Count - There Goes the Neighborhood [stopped]
www.rockface-records.co.uk

kchayka wrote:

Andrew @ Rockface wrote:
If I'd actually followed the design to the letter you'd be
seeing 6pt type.

Nope, I'd never see 6pt type. That's the beauty of using a browser that
lets me set a minimum font size. My minimum is more than twice that size.

The moral is... the web author/designer has no control over the
visitor's browsing environment. You might want to mention that to the
powers that be.

A little update. It looked pretty good on the stb and only needed a
little tweeking (I check if the browser is ANTFresco and then use a few
element attributes - valign=top and border=0). This means the page still
validates against 4.01 strict.

I think the best way to go (sometime in the future) would be to display
a different site depending on the browser. If the browser is anything
but ANTFresco it uses a nice div/css based layout, else it uses a crappy
table/attribute one. I'll pop along when/if I get the time to do this.

Cheers

--
Andrew @ Rockface
np: Lalo Schifrin - Bullitt Main Title [stopped]
www.rockface-records.co.uk