REVIEW REQUEST: sonofthor.com

I really like the background but after the page loads the brown background of the tables and lighter blue that is at the top of each smaller table kills the effect. I think you must change those colors.

In my opinion the texture of the logo at the top clashes with the texture of your background. I think the logo could use some work. It is sorta dull and fuzzy looking. Might try using brighter colors...someting that will compliment the lined background.

The green links on mouseover don't go well either. I think you should bring more of the yellow/orange color into your design.

Also, need to have a brief paragraph at the top explaining what the site is about. I didn't really take time to read anything but I assume it is a gaming site. I also wouldn't put the polls in the center with the main content. Place those to the side.

Probably add some text links at the bottom of the page as well as a "Back to the top".

first thing i see while the page is loading is the title .: S O N O F T H O R . C O M :. use a normal word, seeing this in a book mark looks like junk.

wont load in NS4.7 looking at your source code you have a lot of errors, things like (missing after the first

opera is great as you can right click and validate, i validated your code and eek, have never seen such a long page of errors, simple things like extra tags, missing tags you really need to validate your code, free validations can be got by using opera6 (using w3c.org), or at w3c.org itself or netmechanic.com

appears similar in Opera6 (as Opera6) and IE5

problem I have with the site is it looks like a page of a site, not the index, and the length of the page is long, way to long to keep a new person to the site interested. you also have a lot of blank space up around the banner

on the left, the headings features, submit to us, etc are different sizes, these should be orange to suit the others as well, under quake 2 and 3 you need a the list starts after the name, not under it

forgot to mention the second page/site
, in Ie the left section is full length with content way down in the middle, you need to add valign="top" to that cell, margins are set to 0, the blue striped backgrouns is across the top, down the right side and across the bottom above the links

in Opera6 as opera6, the blue strips are across the top, down the side, around the links and up the left. the margins are default, same as NS4.7 add marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" to make opera and NS 0 as well, the left table section is a very small dot at the center, only outlining the content

in NS4.7 the posted by link name is to small to read and the right border or the main table doesnt display, the left section, same as opera but cant read the text, links at bottom cant be read either

Ahh.... yet another gaming site. This is not too bad but I feel that it could use a lot more design styling. Overall the page is rather boring to look at, it lacks unique character and style. I don't really mind that logo but the rough texture you've used for it hasn't been carried through the rest of the design. If you took that styled border that you have around the edge of the logo and used that to surround your navigation and content areas it could be an improvemnt. Is that sort of a marbley effect in the background of the border area? The blue part I mean? That might work better as a page background.

Another thing that would help would be some unique page headings - find some sort of an interesting font, and maybe a gothic style dingbat to go alongside.

Which one are we supposed to be critiquing? The second one is much better but very dark though and the logo doesn't really work in my opinion. It's ok (needs some work) but doesn't go with the darkness of the site. Do you really need such a long list of news/updates? A better use of the first page is to describe what the site is about.

Oops - forgot to look at that second one. It's really not much better... at least in the first one there was some sort of unique styling to work with, here, everything is rather dull looking. I'm kind of confused because the first one had such a long list of navigation options, and this one has very few - or maybe this isn't a redesign of the first page?

Is the site made with some php portal software like phpnuke ?
Looks OK, but the page is way too long and the brown & blue don't go well together, I would change the brown to something lighter & use a dark font.

Mika

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that the first site was made with PHPnuke. Modified quite a bit. Lemme respond to everything you guys said. And say thanks in advance. And the first site's (PHPnuke) graphics were originally a midevil, brown and gold setup. But due to my co-webmaster (father) wanting the site to have a blue layout, and I had to convert most of the images, which I did an okay job, besides the banner because I would ahve had to make it all over again. And as I have little to no graphics ability, I left it as is.

quote: disaster-master
I really like the background but after the page loads the brown background of the tables and lighter blue that is at the top of each smaller table kills the effect. I think you must change those colors.
/quote

To my knowledge, there is no brown tables on either of the sites. And when you talk of "lighter blue" are you talking about the news title?

quote: disaster-master
In my opinion the texture of the logo at the top clashes with the texture of your background. I think the logo could use some work. It is sorta dull and fuzzy looking. Might try using brighter colors...someting that will compliment the lined background.
/quote

The first site's (PHPnuke) graphics were originally a midevil, brown and gold setup. But due to my co-webmaster (father) wanting the site to have a blue layout, and I had to convert most of the images, which I did an okay job, besides the banner because I would ahve had to make it all over again. And as I have little to no graphics ability, I left it as is. (As said above)

quote: disaster-master
The green links on mouseover don't go well either. I think you should bring more of the yellow/orange color into your design.
/quote

There should be no green. It's teal, but that could be misunderstood, as on some computers it seems even the gray news content background is greenish (I think they need to figure out whats wrong with their computer...).

quote: disaster-master
Also, need to have a brief paragraph at the top explaining what the site is about. I didn't really take time to read anything but I assume it is a gaming site. I also wouldn't put the polls in the center with the main content. Place those to the side.
/quote

I've always meant to get around to doing that. But sometimes its hard to impliment. And the only poll things you should be seeing in the center is just the results of previous polls and the announcements of new ones. Which should belong in the news section.

quote: disaster-master
Probably add some text links at the bottom of the page as well as a "Back to the top".
/quote

Interesting idea.

Next person.

quote: busy
first thing i see while the page is loading is the title .: S O N O F T H O R . C O M :. use a normal word, seeing this in a book mark looks like junk.
/quote

Well, its the name of the site. But I can see what your saying.

quote: busy
wont load in NS4.7 looking at your source code you have a lot of errors, things like (missing after the first
/quote

If this is on the first site (PHPnuke) there isn't much I can do about it with my very limited knowledge of PHP.

quote: busy
opera is great as you can right click and validate, i validated your code and eek, have never seen such a long page of errors, simple things like extra tags, missing tags you really need to validate your code, free validations can be got by using opera6 (using w3c.org), or at w3c.org itself or netmechanic.com

appears similar in Opera6 (as Opera6) and IE5
/quote

I'll have to look at that. How do I validate things with IE5?

quote: busy
problem I have with the site is it looks like a page of a site, not the index, and the length of the page is long, way to long to keep a new person to the site interested. you also have a lot of blank space up around the banner
/quote

Its the news page, and in the second site (non-PHPnuke) I had that fixed. In PHPnukem I know of no ways to make an archived news section. As for the blank space around the banner, I have also noticed that, and again, due to my lack of PHP knowledge can't do too much about it.

quote: busy
on the left, the headings features, submit to us, etc are different sizes, these should be orange to suit the others as well, under quake 2 and 3 you need a the list starts after the name, not under it
/quote

I didn't follow that at all, sorry.

quote: busy
forgot to mention the second page/site
, in Ie the left section is full length with content way down in the middle, you need to add valign="top" to that cell, margins are set to 0, the blue striped backgrouns is across the top, down the right side and across the bottom above the links
/quote

I think that is fixed on most of the pages (valign="top"). Could you tell me which page you were having the problem on?

quote: busy
in Opera6 as opera6, the blue strips are across the top, down the side, around the links and up the left. the margins are default, same as NS4.7 add marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" to make opera and NS 0 as well, the left table section is a very small dot at the center, only outlining the content
/quote

Is the code for margins different from IE to NS/Opera?

quote: busy
in NS4.7 the posted by link name is to small to read and the right border or the main table doesnt display, the left section, same as opera but cant read the text, links at bottom cant be read either
/quote

I can see them fine, so can everyone else I know. In IE you can change the font size, can you do that in Opera/NS, if so that might be your problem.

Yesh, next person.

quote: Megan
Ahh.... yet another gaming site. This is not too bad but I feel that it could use a lot more design styling. Overall the page is rather boring to look at, it lacks unique character and style. I don't really mind that logo but the rough texture you've used for it hasn't been carried through the rest of the design. If you took that styled border that you have around the edge of the logo and used that to surround your navigation and content areas it could be an improvemnt. Is that sort of a marbley effect in the background of the border area? The blue part I mean? That might work better as a page background.
/quote

The background of the border area is not a marble effect, in fact the stripe thats in it was completely accidental, but was left in due to my lacking of graphics knowledge.

quote: Megan
Another thing that would help would be some unique page headings - find some sort of an interesting font, and maybe a gothic style dingbat to go alongside.
/quote

Yet again, I am very bad at graphics, so any font I use. I need to make sure that it is a default font on almost any system. Which is hard to do when using an exotic font.

Next...

quote: The Webmistress
Which one are we supposed to be critiquing? The second one is much better but very dark though and the logo doesn't really work in my opinion. It's ok (needs some work) but doesn't go with the darkness of the site. Do you really need such a long list of news/updates? A better use of the first page is to describe what the site is about.
/quote

Both. As I've stated many times, my little (very little) graphical knowhow, makes it hard to make good images, I got that image from someone a long time ago when they made a layout for the site. And I've tried to convert it to white text with black background, but I can't.

Next...

quote: Megan
Oops - forgot to look at that second one. It's really not much better... at least in the first one there was some sort of unique styling to work with, here, everything is rather dull looking. I'm kind of confused because the first one had such a long list of navigation options, and this one has very few - or maybe this isn't a redesign of the first page?
/quote

The second one you need to goto different parts of the site via the nav bar at the bottom of all the pages. And as I've found out it tends to find itself a ways down there, and many people might not realize that they need to navigate the site with that. And as such, I'm going to be basically changing the entire layout of that site.

Next...

quote: yabber
Is the site made with some php portal software like phpnuke ?
Looks OK, but the page is way too long and the brown & blue don't go well together, I would change the brown to something lighter & use a dark font.
/quote

PHPnuke for the first one, pure CSS/shtml for the second one.

and I thought I posted long threads lol
replies:
How do I validate things with IE5? same as anyother (except opera) go to w3c.org or webmechanic.com for free validations

quote: busy
on the left, the headings features, submit to us, etc are different sizes, these should be orange to suit the others as well, under quake 2 and 3 you need a the list starts after the name, not under it
/quote
I didn't follow that at all, sorry.

the heading at the left, "features", "submit to us" etc are different font sizes, they should all be the same, also since you have orange heading colors in the content section (middle), these headings at the left (and right) should be orange as well. the headings "quake 2" and "quake 3" need a tag put after them in your source code, as the sub headings are on the same line as the titles. that clearer?

quote: busy
forgot to mention the second page/site
, in Ie the left section is full length with content way down in the middle, you need to add valign="top" to that cell, margins are set to 0, the blue striped backgrouns is across the top, down the right side and across the bottom above the links
/quote

I think that is fixed on most of the pages (valign="top"). Could you tell me which page you were having the problem on?
The page was the second link: http://www.sonofthor.com/new/index.shtml

Is the code for margins different from IE to NS/Opera?
yes, ie uses topmargin="0" leftmargin="0" while opera and NS use marginheight="0" marginwidth="0", adding all four is a must when wanting zero margins

quote: busy
in NS4.7 the posted by link name is to small to read and the right border or the main table doesnt display, the left section, same as opera but cant read the text, links at bottom cant be read either
/quote

I can see them fine, so can everyone else I know. In IE you can change the font size, can you do that in Opera/NS, if so that might be your problem.

problem is NS doesnt like small fonts done by css, sure I can change my browsers fonts but why should any one have to? different fonts have different displays at small font, verdana for example shouldnt really be smaller than 10px for readablity. Opera guide lines are close to that of NS, so if you choose not to adjust them your cutting of at least 2/3 of potential viewers - your choice.

I'll let the others answer there ones

As for the lack of php knowledge you really need to learn some more, phpnuke is basically a template, you really need to set it up right (your code), with all the code errors I'm actually suprised it displays on NS6 and opera, a badly nested font tag, or alignment tag is ok, but when it comes to missing table tags or badly nested table tags then your going to have problems.

http://www.sonofthor.com/new/index.shtml

The red text on the blue background: this has been a pet peeve of mine for about2 and a half years. I haven't posted in months in this community (I do apologize!) but this has brought me out of hybernation.
Years ago I had problems seeing red and blue combinations, so I asked my uncle
(who is an optometrist), if there is anything wrong with my eyes. He assured me that it is perfectly normal, this is called chromatic aberration. After doing some research on the matter, I have found out that it is a specific
type of chromatic aberration call chromosteriopsis.
If the moderators of this forum allow another URL for anyone who is interested:
http://www.humanfactors.com/color/chromosteriopsis.asp

Logo: it could use some work. Just plain text, same as the domain name?
That's pretty unimaginative, IMO.

Sorry for posting after the rush, it took approximately a day to get my accout activated again. (No criticism towards the Webmaster Forums intended!)

greetings

Quote: To my knowledge, there is no brown tables on either of the sites. And when you talk of "lighter blue" are you talking about the news title?

#4A4A4A is the "brown color" that I was referring to. As for the "lighter blue, I am referring to the blue background where the "Cant sleep... No beta... Cant sleep... No beta..." is.

Quote: There should be no green. It's teal, but that could be misunderstood, as on some computers it seems even the gray news content background is greenish (I think they need to figure out whats wrong with their computer...).

Ok...teal. Sorry not to be more specific. At least you knew what I was referring to. Teal is a shade of green though.:rainbow: