New site - please critique

Sue,

Looks good! I only have two minor suggestions.
a) Add maybe one more color to your color scheme
and
b) add a little graphic bullet before the links on the left to help clarify the list.

Once again, looks good. I like how the gold/yellow border will resize itself if I resize the browser. I'll have to add that to my little bag of tricks. Keep up the good work!

John

The site looks good but what I would suggest is you move the text (The exciting history of hot rods, street rods....) where you have the description of the sections on your site.
Then put the descriptions of your sections under each link that you are subscribing. So the layout would look somewhat like this:

-------------main image-------------

navigation |
link 1 | blast from past
description| text
link 2 |
description|

------------------

Travis
http://www.eboarding.net

Yeah- not bad. I just have a few comments:

• The yellow border around the page looks out of date. That is probably the main thing I would change.

• I like the logo- very nice!

• It was hard at first to find the menu, and I would move it into view so you don't have to scroll the find it. I agree that you should have some type of bullet next to each link.

------------------
The fireburn.com Network:

Thanks for all the suggestions. A couple questions:
Johnnyboy - what color would you add?
Travis - I'm not quite sure what you mean. Split the 2 paragraph on top and put inbetween the descriptions of each book?
Justin - the yellow border - does it look out of date as in amateurish, or just dated? I was trying to go for sort of a retro look since the books all deal with 1940's - 1960's. Does that make sense?

Maybe move the navigation links so they run up the whole side instead down below the intro paragraphs?

Thanks again!

No- the site doesn't remind me of being "retro." I'm still not sure about the border. Actually I think it looks good now, but I'm not positive. Anyway- if you want to look at some real retro sites check out: http://www.coolhomepages.com/cgi-bin/chp/pagegen/display.cgi?category=Retro&first=1&toshow=8

------------------
The fireburn.com Network:

Thanks - I'll check it out.

Yeah, thats kinda what I mean. Just move that top 2 paragraph to where you have the decriptions of the books, and put the descriptions of the books under each separate link to the books (in the left navigation area)

------------------

Travis
http://www.eboarding.net

Sue,

I'd probably use another shade of yellow. If my wife was awake I'd ask her. That's who I go to for help.

John

All these posts in this area of the forum and none from me. Interesting...
Ok here is what I think I am just going to let it all out now. Leave it alone don't do anything to it at all. It looks great. Not sure why I like it so much I just do. Good job!

------------------
~Parker~

Very colorful, you must be a graphics artist

My suggestions:

1)Put a space, as the border is not balance with the top when I scrolled to the bottom, exp:
</table>
<BR><BR>
</html>
this should bring up your border a bit.

2)Maybe use colored text links, you can have as many color links as you like on a page.

Just try this, it works for me.

Exp: <A HREF="http://www.unitronics.com/"><FONT COLOR="#FF0000">Unitronics</FONT></A>
This code will produce a red text link.

If you have for example a black background and want a yellow text link, then change to:
<A HREF="http://www.unitronics.com/"><FONT COLOR="#FFFF00">Unitronics</FONT></A>

By looking at the code you can choose any link color as you like to match the background color.

This works with Netscape and IE, I have a page on color selection, if you need assistance, visit my site and get the best color with the code generated for you.

Hope this helps.

Regards,
NSS http://www.unitronics.com

[This message has been edited by NSS (edited 11 February 2000).]

[This message has been edited by NSS (edited 11 February 2000).]

Thanks NSS. The bottom part of the page isn't finished yet. That is where all the footer info (address, e-mail etc) will go.

I'm sort of stumped - what color are the links showing up in your browser? In mine they are red. The ones on the left are coded for the whole section to be #cc0000, but the links in the main section on the right aren't coded for color (except black at the beginning of the table cell), yet they still show up as red in my browsers (both netscape and ie). I checked my browsers' color settings, changed them all around, and it didn't change the colors on the page except for the hover in IE. Any ideas on why?

By they way - that's a neat feature on your site for checking out the background colors!

I really like the yellow border. In a lot of other cases it would look really tacky, but here it really suits the retro style. It looks like a picture frame from a 50's diner. I also think that the flaming text look works well here too (again, it's not something that works everywhere). YOu've created a really good look and feel here.

I definitely agree that the navigation menu should be moved up to above the fold. Most people aren't going to read all that text at the top anyway. I also don't like the pinky colour of the visited links - maybe introduce some blue?

Hi Sue,

I viewed your code and you are using link="#cc0000" if you did not specify your link, the default will be "#0000FF" as read by most browsers which is blue.

Please note that all links will show a blood red color for this page as your text link is LINK="#CC0000" the browsers will read all links according to this code. To have colored links on a single page you must use CSS, but then CSS can be very unstable for some browsers such as netscape and you find certain links not showing the desired color.
CSS code tags also shows many errors when you checked your web page using certain HTML optimizer when you fine tune your page.(go to my site and click on Links page and use it to check your web page for errors)

I use my own method to get a different color text link for a single page without using CSS.

Here it is,just try this, it works for me:

Exp: <A HREF="http://www.unitronics.com/"><FONT COLOR="#0000FF">Unitronics</FONT></A>

This code will produce a blue text link for this particular link ( change the hex code for other colors) and a default link="#cc0000" for all your other links on a single page.

It works in Netscape and IE. Try this code on the main section of your page and don't forget every text link must have the above nested color code in order to get the desired color.

Hope this helps.

Best Regards,
NSS http://www.unitronics.com

[This message has been edited by NSS (edited 11 February 2000).]

Thanks Megan. You are right about the vlinks, I hadn't even thought about them. Moving the navigation will be my next project.

NSS - I forgot all about the body links I had set up! I've been experimenting with the CSS thing on another page, and have had a heck of a time getting it to display right in Netscape. So, will work on your suggestion.

I really appreciate all the comments and suggestions. Now to get to work on it all!

CSS is most certainly supported for something as simple as link colours in both Netscape and IE!

Using the Font tag is definitely going to work, but it is a backwards, not forwards solution.

When setting the CSS, you only have to state the color in the <a> declaration. You also need to make a new class if you want to have two different colours for <a> tags.

Links to CSS resources online has some links to things like the webreview Master Grid, the w3c CSS validator, et cetera that you may find of value.

Cheers!

Suzanne

------------------
Zero Cattle
Suzanne
Tables DeMystified

Hi Suzanne,

Could you comment on this:

From another forum that I am a member.
---------------------------------------------
I am creating a site and recently discovered that Netscape does not support borders with CSS. The site is at http://www.uq.net.au/~zznculbe/test.html
It is already set up with borders using styles.
I was wondering if anyone has some ideas about another way I could get the same effect without using css. Of course both netscape and IE will need to support it.
---------------------------------------------
If you would like to make any other suggestions about the layout I would love to hear them also. (The pictures on the test site will not load and the links lead nowhere at the moment)

Thanks in advance!

- Brad Culbert

Suzanne Your expert advise needed on CSS, thanks.

Best regards,
NSS http://www.unitronics.com

[This message has been edited by NSS (edited 12 February 2000).]

[This message has been edited by NSS (edited 12 February 2000).]

[This message has been edited by NSS (edited 12 February 2000).]

[This message has been edited by NSS (edited 12 February 2000).]

NSS -- I would be happy to reply to the person directly, but I can't reply to a third person in an unrelated thread! If that person requested your help, perhaps you could direct him to this forum?

Suzanne

[This message has been edited by Suzanne (edited 12 February 2000).]

Suzanne - I know that CSS must work, and plan to try again. The other page that I was working on - I had 2 different link colors, white and black, using classes. In Netscape, they all came out white which didn't show up on the part with the white background, while in explorer everything was fine. After posting on a board and receiving several helpful suggestions to no avail, I just put it back to how I originally had it and somehow it showed up as intended. I still can't figure out why. Maybe there was some small thing different when I restored it, but I sure can't figure out what.

Then I started trying to use CSS for this page, and had the same result - the links not showing up the same in Netscape. I must be doing something wrong, but after going to the Netscape help page on CSS and copying the format exactly it still didn't work.

Maybe the next time I try I'll have to talk to you and see what I'm doing wrong.

Thanks,
Sue

Hi SUE

Since your are very interested in CSS, I have some tips for you on CSS code tags problems on certain browsers:

1)<HR> Horizontal rules can be styled in IE, but not in Netscape.

2)<A> Netscape treats styles on the anchor tag inconsistently, sometimes Netscape will act correctly the first time the page displays, but then "forget" the style if you come back to reload that page.

3)<TABLE> tags works fine in IE, but behave strangely in Netscape. In Netscape when <TABLE> is styled, <TH, <TR> and <TD inherit just some of those styles(exp: BG works but not the FONT family). But if you try to style<TH>, <TR>, and <TD> indidually, and not style <TABLE>, then Netscape actually crashes(on both platforms). In other words, when mixing styles and tables.

The above was copied from the book:
Guide To Style Sheet by Steven Mulder.

I would recommend that you search your bookstore for books on CSS. They have many titles from experience authors familiar with CSS.

Hope this helps,

Best regards,
NSS http://www.unitronics.com

[This message has been edited by NSS (edited 12 February 2000).]

Thanks NSS - That explains about the <a> tag problems I've had. The books are a good idea. That's how I learned html (and am still learning!)

It Loads realy slow on my computer though my isp is aol and every site loads realy slow

P.S Nice Design