Metatrox v1.05

The site looks ok other than a few of things which are annoying. The intial screen being a graphic which you have to click-thru to get to the real site is annoying and I would say un-needed. Once you get to the real site, the font is way too small, I've got good eysite but if I want to read something, I have to move closer to the screen to even have a chance of being able to read it. The graphic at the top is very big but it didn't take too long to load, so not too bad. The mouse over on the menu is interesting but I'm not completely sure it works, it another one that's sending my eyes mad !!!

Well the initial screen as you said is un needed at the moment. Im in development of a Flash version as we speak so it will be needed to choose your selection of flash or HTML.

I run at 1280 x 1024 on a 17 monitor and i can see font fine. What are your Text sizes set at in IE? mine is set to normal which is the standard.

Yeah i cut up the top image pretty well so it would load decently quick.

Well the mouse over is something a bit different than most other mouse overs yes. Possibly if i come up with something better i will certainly use it.

Thanks for your comments man ill take them into consideration.

I've just tried the site in Mozilla and the fonts are a lot better. As you guessed, I was using IE and the font size is probably 6 point and being that small it is hard to say what font type it is

Yeah in IE go [View] > [Text Size] > [Medium]

And it should look ok. Thanks

Nice artwork and very well put together. To me is it very cold looking, but I guess it's that type of metallic, functional looking site. I would try & find a way of introducing a wee bit of colour.

Yeah i wanted that Cold Icey feeling to it. Maybe ill do some other colors and see how it goes.

Thanks for comments.

Hello...
Its a nice design, nice content, but there are 2 things I dont like:
The intro image. A real pain. (Nice image though)
The light gray on dark gray on the main page. Hard to read!

Nice page, but lose the image and either darken the background or lighten the headline font!

Hey there! Thanks!

Liek i mentioned above the image will have a purpose once i finish the Flash version of the site.

Hmm maybe ill play around with that color and see if i can make it look better.

Thanks again for comments.

That graphic definitely looks very good. I too am finding that the font size is too small - this is in NS 6.1. You've got it dedfined as size=-2 and that's way too small. I usually think it's best to go with the default for most text, although I'm using stylsheets usually now (why don't you just define your font in a stylseheet instead of using all those font tags? You're using positioned div's so why not).

THe white text on light grey for the headers is also hard to red, as are the light grey links on darker grey.

The other thing I'm going to complain about is the navbar. The two arrows there - I wasn't sure what they were supposed to do - I've already got back and forward on my browser, so you should just get rid of those. Rename "educate" to "tutorials" - that's what people are used to seeing. Also do something different with the mouseovers, the blur effect is preventing me from reading the text which isn't very user friendly.

Neat dHTML thingy you have for the galleries. What you should do is set it so that the cursor changes to a hand when you mouseover the images - I didn't think that they were clickable. Of course, I was too lazy to read the instructions. You should also change it to focus the pop-up when you click on another link.

One more thing - watch your spelling and grammar. Learn when and when not to use a comma. The writing style on here often seems very stilted (especially in the "misc" section which should be renamed "about us" BTW).

Thank you for graphic comments.

Well the font being at -2 for arial sets it to size 8 font so its really not that small not for me. NS also has a text size option make sure its on medium because thats what standard browsers should be set at.

Im nto sur ehow to use Style Sheets to specifiy the text size and face. How would i go abotu doing that?

Ill play with the font colors to see if i can bring them out a bit.

I added the 2 arrows because it can make things more conveneint soemtimes.
Ill possibly take them ut cause im goign to be changeing the menu. i think i tried :Tutorials" on the menu but i dont think it would fit but we will see when i redo the menu. I used Educate cause it was something different from others.

Yes the Blur effect is going bye bye hehe

Hmm yeah in IE there is a hand i guess i need to add a change mouse cursor part for in NS. Thanks for letting me know. Must have been soemthing i missed when debigging for NS.

spelling and grammar? Ahhh! hehe i have to admit i make many mistakes when im typing. i need a good word program so i can check it huh? About the "About Us" i didnt really want to put that because it is a single person operation but it wasnt just about Us it was about the whole Metatrox operation and existance but ill see what i can do.

Thanks for the good review ill see what i can do to fix what i can. If you can tell me how to use style sheet please tell me. I have one on the site but i dunno how you set the face and size correctly.

Quote: Originally posted by Metatrox
Thank you for graphic comments.

Well the font being at -2 for arial sets it to size 8 font so its really not that small not for me. NS also has a text size option make sure its on medium because thats what standard browsers should be set at.

Mine is set at 100%. I'm not about to go to the trouble to change my setting just so I can read what's on your site. Whether or not it's too small *for you* shouldn't be a concern - more important to consider whether your visitors can read it.

As for the "About Us" thing, you could just put "about" or something like that??? I think I've seen this elsewhere. Most of this is just about being user friendly.

Here's a thread that talks about defining font sizes in a stylsheet:

http://www.webmaster-forums.com/showthread.php?threadid=14444&highlight=pixels

Basically what you do is this:

p {font size: 15px; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"}

Well the reason i said that 100% thing is because soem peopel change it so it would be their fault if it was too small or not.

As i mentioned above i run 1280x1024 on a 17" monitor and i have no problem reading it in NS or in IE and they both set to normal text size.

Ill see if i can add a style sheet to make it easier.

What would changeing "About Metatrox" to "About Us" or "About" make any difference in user friendly?

Oh, sorry, I meant changin "misc" to "about" - "About Metatrox" would be just fine.

You must have really good eyes - I'm running at 1152 on a 19" and reading that gives me a headache!

Thats weird about that font size problem .
I would gladly change it but it would effect a lot of things actually with size differences.

I guess i have good eyes hehe.

Oh you ment change Misc to About. i thought you mean change About Metatrox to About in the misc section.

I would chaneg the Misc to About but its not only About Metatrox it also has Links to other sites.

Well I have nothing really to add. I definitely give it a thumbs up. The design is professionally done. Good-looking portal.

For me it did take some time to load. I'm using cable and listening to a radio station in Sweden using Windows Media Player. Maybe that had something to do with it.

Gavin

Thanks man! I really apreciate all the comments everyone.

I think the color scheme rocks. I too like that cold feel. What got me thinking was the bottom. there really isn't one. It seems like the main body of the page just disapears into the bottom of the monitor. I had to lift up my monitor to see if the webpage had continued onto the bottom or something Seriously, i'd like to see a defined bottom to the page. That's about it.

Cheers
Adam

Hmm yeah i might just do that add a bottom but it might be hard because everything is in layers so might be hard to have a bottom cause the layers expand with content. be hard to define a distinc bottom of the page but ill play with it.

Pretty much the way your site should be, I think.

I really like the effects and graphix and stuff! Everything seems logical too.