Critique Please

I have been asked to build a site for some people who breed Cavalier
King Charles Spaniels. They didn't give me much input, just a few photos
and some text, so I'd appreciate some feedback on the layout and banner
design before I let them see it:

http://www.blaenpennalcavaliers.co.uk

TIA

Al.

--
Alan Cole. E-mail: justal at lineone dot net
http://www.forces-of-nature.co.uk [Coastal Sports]
http://www.tsunami-site-design.co.uk [Website Design]
http://tinyurl.com/64xrd [Plusnet ISP]

Quoth the raven Alan Cole:

http://www.blaenpennalcavaliers.co.uk

Why not make the center column float so there isn't a lot of wasted
space on either side if my browser window is wide?

"Waldo is sibling some lovely litters." ??

It barks. On every page. (Well, maybe in IE) Get rid of that.

IE warns me of a nasty ActiveX component.

Old fashioned markup, uses tables for presentation.

You have a style sheet, yet the markup is littered [get it?] with
stuff like this:
<td bgcolor="#cccc99" height="22" class="navbut" align="center">

You're also specifying font sizes in pixels, so all those IE users who
find this site won't be able to resize your small fonts.

You're also using Verdana.

Bad dog, no biscuit.

--
-bts
-This space intentionally left blank.

In article <hec83xdzoymt.dlg (AT) usenetshit (DOT) info>,
brucie <shit (AT) usenetshit (DOT) info> wrote:

In alt.html.critique Alan Cole said:

http://www.blaenpennalcavaliers.co.uk

you've named the top image 'banner' which is a keyword ad
filters/firewalls/etc look for when removing ads from sites. all i see
is the replacement image for ads, not your image. rename it to something
like 'header' or 'logo'

you're also using 1x1px images which filters/firewalls/etc consider
webbugs and remove. use css margins/paddings etc to space things

http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=ht...valiers.co.uk/

if the markup isn't valid instead of rendering the document as per the
specs that it /knows how to render/[1] because the specifications are
published and freely available the UA has to guess what the author meant

a) they may guess wrong.
b) they may not bother guessing at all.
c) they may not all guess the same way.
d) they may change the way they guess.
e) different versions may guess differently.
f) some markup may change the way they guess.
g) very few people would know how search engines guess - or do they even
bother?

so, do you want to tell the UA what you want/mean or let it guess for
itself - maybe - if you're lucky?

[1] baring bugs, support etc.

All sorted (on the index page at least)... working on the others now.

Can I have some feedback on the layout/design now please.

Al.

--
Alan Cole. E-mail: justal at lineone dot net
http://www.forces-of-nature.co.uk [Coastal Sports]
http://www.tsunami-site-design.co.uk [Website Design]
http://tinyurl.com/64xrd [Plusnet ISP]

brucie wrote:

no, you wont like me anymore and start spreading rumors i smell funny.
Hmm.

Everyone smells funny.
<sniff>You smells like a walliby</sniff>
--
Edwin van der Vaart
http://www.semi-conductor.nl/ Links to Semiconductors site
http://www.evandervaart.nl/ Under construction

In article <jhJgd.31601$JS4.1846 (AT) twister (DOT) nyroc.rr.com>,
"Beauregard T. Shagnasty" <a.nony.mous (AT) example (DOT) invalid> wrote:

Quoth the raven Alan Cole:

http://www.blaenpennalcavaliers.co.uk

Why not make the center column float so there isn't a lot of wasted
space on either side if my browser window is wide?

Because I wanted everything to line up with the image across the top
which is 760 pixels wide so that it will display OK on 800x600 scren
resolutions.

"Waldo is sibling some lovely litters." ??

Don't ask me, thats what they asked me to write!

It barks. On every page. (Well, maybe in IE) Get rid of that.

Again at the request of the client!

IE warns me of a nasty ActiveX component.

Don't know where that is coming from???

Old fashioned markup, uses tables for presentation.

You have a style sheet, yet the markup is littered [get it?] with
stuff like this:
td bgcolor="#cccc99" height="22" class="navbut" align="center"

Yep, OK I'll sort that. It was because I used an old included file for
the navigation buttons and didn't get around to making it CSS compliant

You're also specifying font sizes in pixels, so all those IE users who
find this site won't be able to resize your small fonts.

Will change it to percentages

You're also using Verdana.

Whats wrong with Verdana?? I always (hopefully give other options,
finally ending with a generic 'sans-serf' option)

Bad dog, no biscuit.
growl

Thanks.
Al.

--
Alan Cole. E-mail: justal at lineone dot net
http://www.forces-of-nature.co.uk [Coastal Sports]
http://www.tsunami-site-design.co.uk [Website Design]
http://tinyurl.com/64xrd [Plusnet ISP]

Quoth the raven brucie:

it would basically be what beauregard said anyway except of course
with more style and swearing.

I can't look at any more of his pages. It's 6am here and the barking
dogs woke up the wife and scared the cat. Now I'm in deep doodoo...

--
-bts
-Fortunately the cat was not on my lap.

In article <%0Kgd.340454$bp1.21507 (AT) twister (DOT) nyroc.rr.com>,
"Beauregard T. Shagnasty" <a.nony.mous (AT) example (DOT) invalid> wrote:

Quoth the raven brucie:

it would basically be what beauregard said anyway except of course
with more style and swearing.

I can't look at any more of his pages. It's 6am here and the barking
dogs woke up the wife and scared the cat. Now I'm in deep doodoo...

You wait..... The other site I am working on is for someone who breeds
horses!!! :P

Al.

--
Alan Cole. E-mail: justal at lineone dot net
http://www.forces-of-nature.co.uk [Coastal Sports]
http://www.tsunami-site-design.co.uk [Website Design]
http://tinyurl.com/64xrd [Plusnet ISP]

In article <18wc9ntxhj3jd.dlg (AT) usenetshit (DOT) info>,
brucie <shit (AT) usenetshit (DOT) info> wrote:

Whats wrong with Verdana??

Why you should avoid the Verdana font
http://www.xs4all.nl/~sbpoley/webmatters/verdana.html

Ok...I'll change it to Arial (although I must say on that page, the
Verdana font did 'look' the nicest out of all the options shown.

Al.

--
Alan Cole. E-mail: justal at lineone dot net
http://www.forces-of-nature.co.uk [Coastal Sports]
http://www.tsunami-site-design.co.uk [Website Design]
http://tinyurl.com/64xrd [Plusnet ISP]

Alan Cole wrote:

In article <18wc9ntxhj3jd.dlg (AT) usenetshit (DOT) info>,
brucie <shit (AT) usenetshit (DOT) info> wrote:


Whats wrong with Verdana??

Why you should avoid the Verdana font
http://www.xs4all.nl/~sbpoley/webmatters/verdana.html


Ok...I'll change it to Arial (although I must say on that page, the
Verdana font did 'look' the nicest out of all the options shown.
Why not specifying no font, let the visitor decide what kind of font

they like best.
The same goes for the font size.
--
Edwin van der Vaart
http://www.semi-conductor.nl/ Links to Semiconductors site
http://www.evandervaart.nl/ Under construction

Alan Cole wrote:

I have been asked to build a site for some people who breed Cavalier
King Charles Spaniels. They didn't give me much input, just a few photos
and some text, so I'd appreciate some feedback on the layout and banner
design before I let them see it:

http://www.blaenpennalcavaliers.co.uk
Lay-out looks good.

Already mentioned about the fixed font-size. The best thing is to use
percentage or em, so that the font-size is scalable.
Redundant font-families. I.M.H.O specify no font-families, because the
browsers have already a default font-family, which is specified by the
users.
Make more use of the style sheet.
For those who are using a hotmail, Lotus Notes, etc, as there email
clients. Doesn't work the mailto. The best way is the use a mailform
with a server-side proces (if your hosting support asp/php/perl). With a
mailto you can also expect spam on that email address.
--
Edwin van der Vaart
http://www.semi-conductor.nl/ Links to Semiconductors site
http://www.evandervaart.nl/ Under construction