Critiques on a personal homepage

Hi,

I'm a good chunk of the way revamping our homepage and trying to learn
HTML and CSS along the way. The original site was my first and was
built with MS-FP.

Original: http://home.primus.ca/~rico.jd/index.htm

Replacement: http://home.primus.ca/~rico.jd/sitev2test/index.html


Please let me know if you like the newer one. They are both really
dead simple. The new site still has a few filler pages and only one
photo gallery (first one) implemented at this stage. I'm still adding
content.

Also, please let me know if the gallery is decent or not. I'm
currently using a freeware product that touts itself to be HTML and
CSS standards compliant in the pages it generates but I'm not sure if
there are better alternatives out there. If so, please let me know.

One other thing, I was thinking of implementing a guestbook but I have
yet to see one that is decent quality IMO. I'd like something simple
but not amateurish if anyone can suggest anything please do so.

Please be honest in your comments, I can take it... (I think... )

RQ

rfq (AT) dorlan (DOT) on.ca (rfq) wrote:

http://home.primus.ca/~rico.jd/sitev2test/index.html

If you make the text a little smaller, you will spare visitors alot of
effort.

The Doormouse

--
The Doormouse cannot be reached by e-mail without her permission.

rfq wrote:

http://home.primus.ca/~rico.jd/sitev2test/index.html

Nice but, ehhh, a bit faint :-)
Text is hard to read. The p font-size (63%) is not enough compensated by
the
line-height: 1.5em

Also, please let me know if the gallery is decent or not.

Use DIV's instead of a table for the thumbnails. It makes your page more
'flexible'.
Give *all* the pictures a border or none.

One other thing, I was thinking of implementing a guestbook but I have
yet to see one that is decent quality IMO. I'd like something simple
but not amateurish if anyone can suggest anything please do so.

Learn a little about PHP and MySQL and built one yourself (or modify an
existing one)
Good luck!
--
Nico
www.nicoschuyt.nl

rfq wrote:

Hi,

I'm a good chunk of the way revamping our homepage and trying to learn
HTML and CSS along the way. The original site was my first and was
built with MS-FP.

Original: http://home.primus.ca/~rico.jd/index.htm

Replacement: http://home.primus.ca/~rico.jd/sitev2test/index.html


Please let me know if you like the newer one.

I prefer the old one. On the new one the print is too small to read
comfortably (I know I can resize it, but I shouldn't have to).
Navigation is easier on the old one; and if I reduce my browser size in
the new site, the navigation and the thumbnails overlap on the "Swiss
Miss" page.

The Doormouse <doormouse (AT) att (DOT) net> wrote in message news:

If you make the text a little smaller, you will spare visitors alot of
effort.

Hehe. Just for that little bit of smarmy-sarcasm I'm going to go
against your wishes. Not primary-printer size mind you, but a little
bigger.

Thanks.

"Nico Schuyt" <nschuyt (AT) hotmail (DOT) com> wrote

Text is hard to read. The p font-size (63%) is not enough compensated by
the
line-height: 1.5em

I've upped it to 73% but thats as big as I'm willing to go I think.

Use DIV's instead of a table for the thumbnails. It makes your page more
'flexible'.

The thumbnail table was generated by the freeware app that I used. The
benefit is in ease of getting the resulting pages generated. I may try
to convert the table info to css divs (or create my own gallery from
scratch) but it'll have to do for the short term.

Give *all* the pictures a border or none.

This is going to be done. It wasn't such an issue with the frontpage
gallery and I just lifted the images from the old gallery to this one,
but I see that I will have to re-edit the source images to make it
look consistent.

One other thing, I was thinking of implementing a guestbook but I have
yet to see one that is decent quality IMO. I'd like something simple
but not amateurish if anyone can suggest anything please do so.

Learn a little about PHP and MySQL and built one yourself (or modify an
existing one)

I may just do this if I can make the time.

Good luck!

Thanks for your comments.

Paul <paultwoonesix (AT) blueyonder (DOT) couk> wrote

I prefer the old one. On the new one the print is too small to read
comfortably (I know I can resize it, but I shouldn't have to).

I've increased the text size and darkened the orange a bit. I'm a bit
hesitant to go too large because a)I like it a little smaller
personally, and b) the 3 or 4 people I know who will be visiting this
site (don't laugh!) are all running 800x600. The original site seemed
so cartoonish at that resolution.

Navigation is easier on the old one; and if I reduce my browser size in
the new site, the navigation and the thumbnails overlap on the "Swiss
Miss" page.

I didn't mind the homemade rollover buttons but on dial-up there was
sometimes an annoying lag between when the page loaded and the buttons
lit-up. As far as the thumbnail overlap problem, I will likely have to
convert the tables generated by the program I used into CSS layout. Or
find a better gallery creation utility.

Thanks for your critique.

rfq wrote:

Paul <paultwoonesix (AT) blueyonder (DOT) couk> wrote



I prefer the old one. On the new one the print is too small to read
comfortably (I know I can resize it, but I shouldn't have to).


I've increased the text size and darkened the orange a bit. I'm a bit
hesitant to go too large because a)I like it a little smaller
personally, and b) the 3 or 4 people I know who will be visiting this
site (don't laugh!) are all running 800x600. The original site seemed
so cartoonish at that resolution.

I'm running 800x600 too. You've set the font size to 73% of my preferred
size. Having said that I can now read it comfortably, but why grey
rather than black?

Paul <paultwoonesix (AT) blueyonder (DOT) couk> wrote

Having said that I can now read it comfortably, but why grey
rather than black?

I was trying to stick with the orange-grey-blue combo with the pages.
Of course if I get bored with it in a few weeks that may change. Easy
fiddling with CSS.