Please critique page

Good morning everyone...

I have pretty much finished the layout for a page, to be used as a template
for a site. I have not put much thought into the colours, for the moment I
have just tried to avoid the standard black on white but not get into the
primaries.

My goal was to have each section appear in a 'raised box', with roughly the
same spacing between each box. The menu links are meant to look like
buttons, that are depressed when the mouse is hovering over them, and stay
depressed when they have been visited. I did keep the traditional
blue/purple/green look to the menu links, however I extended it to the
whole button, not just the link itself.

I have validated the code at W3C's site, fixed the three errors it reported,
and then passed both html and css validator tests. I am hoping that puts
it in the category of structurally sound. I am sure there are a few bugs
in various browsers, so far it works just fine in Konqueror 3.3.2.

I will be firing up a windows 95 box to take a peek at it from the window's
browsers I have access to. Currently that consists of IE, Opera, and Fire
Fox. Are there any others you might suggest I download and install for
testing purposes? I avoid the windows side of life, so I don't know if
there are any new browsers in even semi common use.

On the Mac side of things. I can get an apple out of the fridge and eat it
while I look at the page. That won't help me very much, so I would really
appreciate your MAC browser comments!

Thanks,

Carolyn
--
Carolyn Marenger

Carolyn Marenger wrote:

Good morning everyone...

I have pretty much finished the layout for a page, to be used as a
template
for a site. I have not put much thought into the colours, for the moment
I have just tried to avoid the standard black on white but not get into
the primaries.

My goal was to have each section appear in a 'raised box', with roughly
the
same spacing between each box. The menu links are meant to look like
buttons, that are depressed when the mouse is hovering over them, and stay
depressed when they have been visited. I did keep the traditional
blue/purple/green look to the menu links, however I extended it to the
whole button, not just the link itself.

I have validated the code at W3C's site, fixed the three errors it
reported,
and then passed both html and css validator tests. I am hoping that puts
it in the category of structurally sound. I am sure there are a few bugs
in various browsers, so far it works just fine in Konqueror 3.3.2.

I will be firing up a windows 95 box to take a peek at it from the
window's
browsers I have access to. Currently that consists of IE, Opera, and Fire
Fox. Are there any others you might suggest I download and install for
testing purposes? I avoid the windows side of life, so I don't know if
there are any new browsers in even semi common use.

On the Mac side of things. I can get an apple out of the fridge and eat
it
while I look at the page. That won't help me very much, so I would really
appreciate your MAC browser comments!

Thanks,

Carolyn

I did it again! I forgot the link!

http://www.marenger.com/provinggrounds/index.shtml

Thanks,

Carolyn
--
Carolyn Marenger

Carolyn Marenger wrote and changed the Subject Line:

Please don't change the subject line unless topic changes. Thanks.

Carolyn Marenger wrote:
I have pretty much finished the layout for a page, to be used as a
template for a site. I have not put much thought into the colours,
for the moment I have just tried to avoid the standard black on
white but not get into the primaries.
I did it again! I forgot the link!

http://www.marenger.com/provinggrounds/index.shtml

Technically, it appears ok to me.
The code is well constructed, etc.
The "buttons" could use some fancying up.
I know the CSS in-file is for illustration, but why not
just use the external file?

But as you say, you haven't done anything with colours. I think I would
want to see your final colour layout before commenting further.

--
-bts
-Warning: I brake for lawn deer

Beauregard T. Shagnasty wrote:

Carolyn Marenger wrote and changed the Subject Line:

Please don't change the subject line unless topic changes. Thanks.

Carolyn Marenger wrote:
I have pretty much finished the layout for a page, to be used as a
template for a site. I have not put much thought into the colours,
for the moment I have just tried to avoid the standard black on
white but not get into the primaries.
I did it again! I forgot the link!

http://www.marenger.com/provinggrounds/index.shtml

Technically, it appears ok to me.
The code is well constructed, etc.
The "buttons" could use some fancying up.
I know the CSS in-file is for illustration, but why not
just use the external file?

But as you say, you haven't done anything with colours. I think I would
want to see your final colour layout before commenting further.

Do you need all the buttons? Also, why buttons across the top and down
the side?

--
Wayne
http://www.glenmeadows.us
With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things
and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil
things, that takes religion.
—Steven Weinberg

Carolyn Marenger wrote:

I have pretty much finished the layout for a page, to be used as a template
for a site. I have not put much thought into the colours, for the moment I
have just tried to avoid the standard black on white but not get into the
primaries.

Seems fine for a template. Sound coding.

It may be worthwhile to isolate the styles for different aspects of the
layout (navigation, main body, headers, footers) into separate
stylesheets. It would make the template more flexible.
The only design weakness I really see is the darkened background for the
main content. That would be an aspect where I would increase the contrast,
not reduce it. It also draws the attention of the visitor to the content
rather than to the ancillary features.

--
jmm (hyphen) list (at) sohnen-moe (dot) com
(Remove .AXSPAMGN for email)

Carolyn Marenger wrote:

Good morning everyone...

I have pretty much finished the layout for a page, to be used as a
template for a site. I have not put much thought into the colours,
for the moment I have just tried to avoid the standard black on white
but not get into the primaries.

Hi,

I realise that the colours aren't final (hey, you know how to spell colour
properly, hi from New Zealand!), but whatever colours you end up with, the
main content section needs to be lighter (assuming you keep the same levels
of contrast). I also think that sans-serif fonts look a lot better than
serif ones on screens, I prefer serif for printed material though. Nice job
code-wise.

Carolyn Marenger wrote:

Carolyn Marenger wrote:

Good morning everyone...

I have pretty much finished the layout for a page, to be used as a
template
for a site. I have not put much thought into the colours, for the moment
I have just tried to avoid the standard black on white but not get into
the primaries.

My goal was to have each section appear in a 'raised box', with roughly
the
same spacing between each box. The menu links are meant to look like
buttons, that are depressed when the mouse is hovering over them, and stay
depressed when they have been visited. I did keep the traditional
blue/purple/green look to the menu links, however I extended it to the
whole button, not just the link itself.

I have validated the code at W3C's site, fixed the three errors it
reported,
and then passed both html and css validator tests. I am hoping that puts
it in the category of structurally sound. I am sure there are a few bugs
in various browsers, so far it works just fine in Konqueror 3.3.2.

I will be firing up a windows 95 box to take a peek at it from the
window's
browsers I have access to. Currently that consists of IE, Opera, and Fire
Fox. Are there any others you might suggest I download and install for
testing purposes? I avoid the windows side of life, so I don't know if
there are any new browsers in even semi common use.

On the Mac side of things. I can get an apple out of the fridge and eat
it
while I look at the page. That won't help me very much, so I would really
appreciate your MAC browser comments!

Thanks,

Carolyn

I did it again! I forgot the link!

http://www.marenger.com/provinggrounds/index.shtml

Thanks,

Carolyn

Here, I'm running Windows98SE, IE6 and Firefox at screen resolution of
800x600.....

Looks OK in Firefox. But in IE I don't see the Menu or Notes sections
down the left-hand-side. Am surprised no one else has mentioned this!


Yours truly,
Ed

Ed wrote:

Looks OK in Firefox. But in IE I don't see the Menu or Notes sections
down the left-hand-side. Am surprised no one else has mentioned this!

You're right! How odd.

Guess that goes to show that we all use modern browsers, eh? ;-)

Or maybe .. anyone who used _just_ IE didn't realize there was supposed
to be a menu on the left, since there is one at both the top and the
bottom.

--
-bts
-Warning: I brake for lawn deer

wayne wrote:

Beauregard T. Shagnasty wrote:
Carolyn Marenger wrote and changed the Subject Line:

Please don't change the subject line unless topic changes. Thanks.

Carolyn Marenger wrote:
I have pretty much finished the layout for a page, to be used as a
template for a site. I have not put much thought into the colours,
for the moment I have just tried to avoid the standard black on
white but not get into the primaries.
I did it again! I forgot the link!

http://www.marenger.com/provinggrounds/index.shtml

Technically, it appears ok to me.
The code is well constructed, etc.
The "buttons" could use some fancying up.
I know the CSS in-file is for illustration, but why not
just use the external file?

But as you say, you haven't done anything with colours. I think I would
want to see your final colour layout before commenting further.


Do you need all the buttons? Also, why buttons across the top and down
the side?

I wanted lots of buttons across each horizontal menu, so I could see the
effect of line wrapping on the menu without having to decrease the size of
my viewport. Odds are there are a few people out there with wide enough
viewports that they won't be testing my menu wrapping.

The vertical menu will ultimately contain different content. Section
headings across the top, subsections down the side.

Thanks for the input.

Carolyn
--
Carolyn Marenger

Nik Coughlin wrote:

Carolyn Marenger wrote:
Good morning everyone...

I have pretty much finished the layout for a page, to be used as a
template for a site. I have not put much thought into the colours,
for the moment I have just tried to avoid the standard black on white
but not get into the primaries.


Hi,

I realise that the colours aren't final (hey, you know how to spell colour
properly, hi from New Zealand!), but whatever colours you end up with, the
main content section needs to be lighter (assuming you keep the same
levels
of contrast). I also think that sans-serif fonts look a lot better than
serif ones on screens, I prefer serif for printed material though. Nice
job code-wise.

(Say "Hi!" to my Dad for me will you? He's visiting the South Island for
the next couple of weeks and then the North Island. Or is it the other way
around. After that, he's back to Canada via 3 days in Sydney.)

Thanks for taking a look at it. I do plan for a lighter main content
section, for the moment, I just wanted to use a different colour. I have
an artist lined up for the colour selections. If I did it according to my
taste it would be a very plain black on light grey.

Carolyn
--
Carolyn Marenger