Please critique - www.intomobi.com

All comments are welcome. This design went live on Monday and i've been
playing around with it since then, although I would like a few more opinions
on it.

Thanks

Chris Michael (INTOmobi) wrote:

All comments are welcome. This design went live on Monday and i've
been playing around with it since then, although I would like a few
more opinions on it.

Please include the URL in the body of the post, for easy clicking.

o Hopefully, the colors appeal to .. someone. <g> That light pea-green
is very hard to read.

o There is an awful lot of CSS there. Certainly you could consolidate
some of that.

o Check the CSS validator; you have many warnings you should address.
<http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/validator?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.intomobi.com%2F>

o You don't assign a generic font-family. I don't have Verdana, so my
browser picked Times New Roman. Ugh.
<http://www.xs4all.nl/~sbpoley/webmatters/verdana.html>

o The page is stuck to the left side of my browser window.

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

Gazing into my crystal ball I observed "Chris Michael \(INTOmobi\)"
<cm_news_im (AT) blueyonder (DOT) co.uk> writing in
news:VfERf.136441$Q22.9597 (AT) fe1 (DOT) news.blueyonder.co.uk:

All comments are welcome. This design went live on Monday and i've been
playing around with it since then, although I would like a few more
opinions on it.

Thanks

The green text is too light to be easily seen against the background.

In Opera there is a problem with the Genres/Artists/Keyword search. They
overlap eachother, and the graphics are below. Also as far as that is
concerned, with images off, there is no indication in the select boxes
which is which, so you could have <option value="">Genre</option> and
<option value="">Artist and Bands</option> and <input type="text"
value="Keyword Search">.

The fixed width is a bit old hat, and I'm sure could easily be changed to
fluid.

--
Adrienne Boswell
http://www.cavalcade-of-coding.info
Please respond to the group so others can share

kchayka wrote:

Beauregard T. Shagnasty wrote:
o You don't assign a generic font-family. I don't have Verdana, so my
browser picked Times New Roman. Ugh.

Actually, I *like* it when no generic family is set. I don't have
Verdana either, so end up with my preferred browser default font.

Maybe you should change your default to something less objectionable
than TNR.

My default is actually something else; I wrote TNR here to make and
emphasize the point. :-)

However, he still should have used either sans-serif or serif as the
fallback font ...

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

In news:QBIRf.2496$tW2.1966 (AT) bgtnsc04-news (DOT) ops.worldnet.att.net,
Beauregard T. Shagnasty had this to say:

My reply is at the bottom of your sent message:

kchayka wrote:

Beauregard T. Shagnasty wrote:
o You don't assign a generic font-family. I don't have Verdana, so
my browser picked Times New Roman. Ugh.

Actually, I *like* it when no generic family is set. I don't have
Verdana either, so end up with my preferred browser default font.

Maybe you should change your default to something less objectionable
than TNR.

My default is actually something else; I wrote TNR here to make and
emphasize the point. :-)

However, he still should have used either sans-serif or serif as the
fallback font ...

Dumb question time and thread hijacking time...

SHOULD a webmaster TAKE control and define a font (assuming it's a
constant/acceptable font that's built in or one - in rare cases - that needs
to be installed but is available to download) for a site? I've been trying
to NOT define them as of late (would you believe some dumb arse hired me not
once but twice to do their templates??? duh? Yes, I even tell 'em that
they're insane...) and working on taking as little control from the user as
possible.

I asked for a review recently - it was a month or so ago - and I was good
about it. I requested that you all hammer on me and find every last little
bit you could nit-pick about and the changes are already local in some
regards. (Most common is adding a nice handy dandy text link map for the
site, other than that I didn't get too many complaints that were too
involved and I still don't have the fixed size for the menu figured out now
that I figured out what people were talking about but that's too much
digression.) In doing so I learned something new... I learned, frankly, that
I have been lax.

I had, in some sites, taken some unusual (or are they usual today) steps
that DID result in me altering their settings or the site being unusable.
Nothing like altering the settings of their browser or even resizing windows
and surely not even popups or the likes but demanding that they use MY fonts
and MY sizes in exactly the same width I said to use them and they'll damned
well LIKE tables too... So, needless to say, I'm re-learning a few new
things and trying a minimalist approach.

I might even ping you all (in a new thread) with the site I'm working on.
It's got a DHTML/JavaScript menu AND it has the site map built right into
the template! So both work and it looks pretty sexy too. I'm putting some
work into the CSS education in my spare time but that's digressing too far
from the topic at hand.

So, you say define a fault... Properly defined, a family or an exact font?
Fonts are, I think, suggested and browser settings override them by default
if set? Mostly 'cause there's going to reach a point where I'm going to
actually post a review request and have EVERYONE come back and say, "it's
about damned time" or something similar. MWAHAHAH! See? I have goals in
life.

Galen

--
http://www.whathostingshould.be - We are what hosting SHOULD be.

Galen wrote:

Beauregard T. Shagnasty had this to say:

My reply is at the bottom of your sent message:

[Probably not necessary to say that... :-0 ]

My default is actually something else; I wrote TNR here to make and
emphasize the point. :-)

However, he still should have used either sans-serif or serif as the
fallback font ...

Dumb question time and thread hijacking time...

SHOULD a webmaster TAKE control and define a font (assuming it's a
constant/acceptable font that's built in or one - in rare cases -
that needs to be installed but is available to download) for a site?

On most of my sites, I use the following, which seems to work well.

body {
font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;
font-size: 100%;
}

I would never use a font that a visitor had to download and install.

I might even ping you all (in a new thread) with the site I'm working
on. It's got a DHTML/JavaScript menu

Make sure it works properly when JavaScript is disabled or unavailable.
Consider that "fly-out" menus can be difficult for people with motor
control problems. And imo, they can be annoying.

So, you say define a fault... Properly defined, a family or an exact
font? Fonts are, I think, suggested and browser settings override
them by default if set?

Browsers can be made to override your font choice, though I'd suspect
that rarely happens.

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

Beauregard T. Shagnasty wrote:

Chris Michael (INTOmobi) wrote:

All comments are welcome. This design went live on Monday and i've
been playing around with it since then, although I would like a few
more opinions on it.

Please include the URL in the body of the post, for easy clicking.

Sorry, makes sense to do that really.

o Hopefully, the colors appeal to .. someone. <g> That light
pea-green is very hard to read.

I think the designer has set the green to be the same green used in the
images, but because there is more of it in the images it seems darker than
the thin text. It's turned out to be a common comment about the site that
the green text is too light, so we'll address it.

o There is an awful lot of CSS there. Certainly you could consolidate
some of that.

o Check the CSS validator; you have many warnings you should address.
http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/v...ntomobi.com%2F

o You don't assign a generic font-family. I don't have Verdana, so my
browser picked Times New Roman. Ugh.
http://www.xs4all.nl/~sbpoley/webmatters/verdana.html

I'll take both of these points up with the designer. Thanks.

o The page is stuck to the left side of my browser window.

kchayka wrote:

Beauregard T. Shagnasty wrote:
Chris Michael (INTOmobi) wrote:

This design went live on Monday

Why is it so many folks wait until a site is live (or nearly so)
before asking for a critique? At this point, it is often way too late
to do anything more than minor revisions.

Sorry, by live i meant the designer had transferred the site from his test
server to our server and it was only available for viewing using login
details previously. Even though the site is generally accessable to
everybody on the net, it isn't going to be marketed for a while yet so
plenty of time to get changes made. In the meantime, the site is still
totally functional so visitors that do come across it and use it won't find
any major issues with it.

Adrienne Boswell wrote:

Gazing into my crystal ball I observed "Chris Michael \(INTOmobi\)"
cm_news_im (AT) blueyonder (DOT) co.uk> writing in
news:VfERf.136441$Q22.9597 (AT) fe1 (DOT) news.blueyonder.co.uk:

All comments are welcome. This design went live on Monday and i've
been playing around with it since then, although I would like a few
more opinions on it.

Thanks




The green text is too light to be easily seen against the background.

In Opera there is a problem with the Genres/Artists/Keyword search.
They overlap eachother, and the graphics are below. Also as far as
that is concerned, with images off, there is no indication in the
select boxes which is which, so you could have <option
value="">Genre</option> and <option value="">Artist and
Bands</option> and <input type="text" value="Keyword Search">.

What Opera browser version are you using? I've tested the site in 8.51
quickly and the only problem i found was the footer isn't at the bottom of
the contact us page, instead it appears under the header at the top of the
page.

In news:OoWRf.565344$qk4.510535 (AT) bgtnsc05-news (DOT) ops.worldnet.att.net,
Beauregard T. Shagnasty had this to say:

Oh it's interspersed this time I suppose:

Galen wrote:

Beauregard T. Shagnasty had this to say:

My reply is at the bottom of your sent message:

[Probably not necessary to say that... :-0 ]

Hah! Sorry... It's set automatically. I'm one of the Microsoft MVPs and I
work in their public newsgroups. It's a long story but rest assured that in
certain spheres (mostly those who haven't a clue what UseNet is) if you
don't tell them WHERE to look they'll top-post back asking why you sent them
a blank message... Oh yes, yes it's true...

Browsers can be made to override your font choice, though I'd suspect
that rarely happens.

Thank you much for getting back to me and letting me know the reasons behind
that. There are, truly, many things I'm still learning and I'd like to think
that each time I learn a bit more I get a bit better. We do get, with the
hosting company, design requests and just plain "can you help me" (yes,
upload the images, link to them, and stop using a WYSIWYG editor to make the
site) questions. Don't really mind them but it's something I'm really just
barely fluent in and I think the best editor is something like Notepad... Ah
well...

I think I'll mess around with something tonight or tomorrow. I'm going to
check into defining font family for the H1, H2, H3, etc. via CSS... That
should be interesting and shouldn't be too hard but I've never done it so
it's good practice.

--
http://www.whathostingshould.be - We are what hosting SHOULD be.