A new free mailing lists service

They have: 6 posts

Joined: Dec 2001

Please take a look at our new ezine hosting provider and mailing lists service: http://www.zinester.com .

If you have any questions or need help, email me personally. Comments and wishes are also welcome.

Zinester. A free ezine hosting provider
http://www.zinester.com

Megan's picture

She has: 11,421 posts

Joined: Jun 1999

My first impression is that it's rather text heavy. All that text is kind of overwhelming and I'm not sure what I'm supposed to read first. I would cut out anything that's not necessary and avoid repetition. It seems like most of this is explaining what it is that zinester is. Consolidate all that into one paragraph, maybe with some bulleted points. That animated banner thing is a particular problem - it's really hard to read that much text with the animation going on.

Something's wrong with your coding here too because the bottom half of the site is getting cut off in Opera 6. It's all kind of smooshed down at the bottom... strange. Could be a problem with all those nested tables. Another major problem is all the centered text - it's just making things harder to read.

Oh yeah, Welcome to TWF. We'd appreciate it if you could help us out and review other sites blah blah blah...

OOoh! What's that little script at the top there? I can't wait until Busy sees this one Wink

Busy's picture

He has: 6,151 posts

Joined: May 2001

Welcome to TWF
Design elements may be displayed incorrectly by Netscape. We recommend that you use Internet Explorer.

translated means "sorry but I'm to lazy to code properly"

It displays pretty much the same in Netscape as IE anyway, just dont have the border colors etc in Netscape, also the links are underlined in IE but not in Netscape. both browsers have a scroll bar at 800x600.

no offense but your site is a very basic layout, you have no reason not to make it work the same if not similar in IE and Netscape, but its your site and your loss if you choose not to, Netscape is a very popular browser and all your doing is cutting off your nose to despite your face, in other words loosing out on clients.

Megan mentioned a few things also, like the centered text, my only thing would be the green, maybe to much green, in IE its nearly to bright, the colors actually look better in netscape

I just looked at your worried flash pop up page, and you have the margins at marginwidth=0 marginheight=0 leftmargin=0 topmargin=0 which is netscapes and ie's ways, so some parts of your site are suited, some arent?

They have: 6 posts

Joined: Dec 2001

to Busy:

"translated means "sorry but I'm to lazy to code properly" "

No. Smiling That means coding properly is not cost-effective. Netscape is not a popular browser any more (a maximum of 15% for the whol Netscape family).

"both browsers have a scroll bar at 800x600."

Which scroll bar? The horizontal scroll bar? That is impossible: we have tested our layout on several computers with 800*600 screens - no horizontal scroll bar.

"Megan mentioned a few things also, like the centered text, my only thing would be the green, maybe to much green, in IE its nearly to bright, the colors actually look better in netscape"

Sorry about that centered text - just a temporary solution to fill the space in the right column. It is supposed to be be replaced by new ezines or editor's picks in the future.

About that green thing - it's only the Home section of the site, which is not supposed to be the one for users (subscribers). The sections for subscribers and publisher's are actually done in a different scheme.

"I just looked at your worried flash pop up page, and you have the margins at marginwidth=0 marginheight=0 leftmargin=0 topmargin=0 which is netscapes and ie's ways, so some parts of your site are suited, some arent?"

I didn't quite understand...

to Megan:

Thanks for all your comments. Worth thinking over...

"OOoh! What's that little script at the top there? I can't wait until Busy sees this one"

Now, all you have to do is say - you won't see it anymore. Smiling Do you think we'd rather delete it?

P.S. Thanks again for your help. These forums are really great!

Zinester. A free ezine hosting provider
http://www.zinester.com

The Webmistress's picture

She has: 5,586 posts

Joined: Feb 2001

I agree with both Megan & Busy, nice looking site but it is too green!

They have: 6 posts

Joined: Dec 2001

It is not green! Smiling Click to Publisher's Home of Subscriber's Home - they are different!

The Webmistress's picture

She has: 5,586 posts

Joined: Feb 2001

Ok it's too one colour then Wink

Megan's picture

She has: 11,421 posts

Joined: Jun 1999

I don't think there's anything wrong with monochromatic colour schemes as long as you choose the right combination of colours, which is the case with anything.

Busy's picture

He has: 6,151 posts

Joined: May 2001

Stardancer PM me your email addy and I'll send you a screen capture to show you the horziontal scroll bars at 800x600. Its not much, about 5-8 pixels, but is there
I noticed you have your body margin tags in your css file, this will be causing the scroll bar (horz) in Netscape4.7

I could write a book (I actually nearly did but it made this post way to long) about why coding for IE only is not only not cost effective, but backwards with todays and tomorrows standards

I use IE as well as Netscape, I'm also about to start using Opera, but the reason I drill "universal standards" or equal browsers is to make it easier on people, if you make your site in Netscape, the chances are you wont have to change anything to suit the other browsers, where as if you make it in IE you'll have to change things to make it universal to suit all the other non-microsoft browsers.

You'll find newbies to computers use whatever is on their PC, experienced surfers use what suits them, be it Netscape, Opera or whatever. Once the PC makers can put what ever they want on their PC's (I think that lawsuit went thru), I'm willing to bet Microsoft wont have 100% of the market anymore.

But this is getting way of track, its meant to be a critqic section not a browser section - sorry folks for my side trackness.

I like the colors on the publishers page, more user friendly

They have: 6 posts

Joined: Dec 2001

"Stardancer PM me your email addy and I'll send you a screen capture to show you the horziontal scroll bars at 800x600. Its not much, about 5-8 pixels, but is there
I noticed you have your body margin tags in your css file, this will be causing the scroll bar (horz) in Netscape4.7"

If that happens in Netscape, I can take your word on that. What shoult the margin tags look like to make it OK in Netscape?

"I could write a book (I actually nearly did but it made this post way to long) about why coding for IE only is not only not cost effective, but backwards with todays and tomorrows standards"

I agree 100% with what you say.

Zinester. A free ezine hosting provider
http://www.zinester.com

Busy's picture

He has: 6,151 posts

Joined: May 2001

marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" leftmargin="0" topmargin="0" (same as what you use for your flash pop up)is for both IE and Netscape.

They have: 6 posts

Joined: Dec 2001

But that's what is in the css file - do you want to say that Netscape doesn't understand it?

margin-top: 0px;
margin-bottom: 0px;
margin-left: 0px;
margin-right: 0px;

Zinester. A free ezine hosting provider
http://www.zinester.com

Busy's picture

He has: 6,151 posts

Joined: May 2001

Yep

Your coding style is very clean (by the book) but not all of CSS is supported, would be great and easy if it all was, but to make things backwards compatiable we sometimes have to do away with the thrills (layered fancy things, like floating layers, moving images etc).
Using the margin tags in the body tag has never been W3C approved but it works on all, the css method I think is 5.5 and up on average, but things like bordercolor arent universal anyways so really its a case of having something that works equally among new and old browsers or using the latest trends.
CSS is great but for now while its not 100% supported dont rely on it for anything important, like aligning your layout etc. plus there is nothing wrong with using both old html and css for now, a few years (maybe more) from now will be a different story.

They have: 23 posts

Joined: Dec 2001

i agree that the animated graphic at the top makes it hard to read the text. every time it changes it grabs your attention away.

also, there are a few too many choices to be made on the first page. "Take a quick look at A Quick Reference On Zinester's Services or go to Publisher's Home to get the feel of it and start your own ezine now!" there are 3 links in there, which one should i go to? there is also a link right above that paragraph.

personally, i don't sign up for any "free" service unless i know how they support themselves (eg, do they add a tagline or ad into your ezine?). i couldn't find this answer after looking around for a few minutes, and so i probably wouldn't sign up.

i've always been a fan of color coded website sections, but remember the downside: instead of having 1 set of graphics to download, the user now has the potential of having to download 3.

They have: 6 posts

Joined: Dec 2001

"personally, i don't sign up for any "free" service unless i know how they support themselves (eg, do they add a tagline or ad into your ezine?). i couldn't find this answer after looking around for a few minutes, and so i probably wouldn't sign up"

Yes, we add ads into ezines. This information is availible in the Publisher's Section in the Help menu: Advertising. But thanks for your comment - maybe we'll publish some information about it on the Home pages.

"also, there are a few too many choices to be made on the first page. "Take a quick look at A Quick Reference On Zinester's Services or go to Publisher's Home to get the feel of it and start your own ezine now!" there are 3 links in there, which one should i go to? there is also a link right above that paragraph."

Yes, I think you are right. We'll have to change that. Thanks again.

Zinester. A free ezine hosting provider
http://www.zinester.com

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