[Mr Old Skool]

Here's a link to my first ever website, built for my college assessment!!

I did have some problems but it seems to work O.K, opinions??

http://www.dyewitness.info

[BritZin]

Hi Mr Old Skool, I must say, from visual impact only and my first glance (baring in mind I haven’t assessed it to any degree), if it is the first website you've made, you've done exceptionally well. Constructively, I think you've combined the colours well (E.G. Red and Black, Green & Black, Red & Green Ect.). As for the general components, The navigation bar is fine, but as for the text within the buttons, I personally find BIG BLACK TEXT rather tacky, especially in capitals. Maybe this is just a personal opinion, but if it off puts others, then it’s a common feeling, and your tutor might knock marks off, but I ask other to tell me if I’m wrong on that one! The site is pretty much laid out well, although on the “Flyers” page, it might be an idea to place those big Back/Next buttons at the very edge (Far left & far right) of the page rather than directly beneath the graphics. From what I can see your CSS is fine, although if I might recommend, after looking at your source code a little less JavaScript! admittedly it can be quite useful, but in small doses! I’ve found from personal experience that JavaScript has a considerable number of downsides, and can be quite irritating, and I’ve often found personally, scripting languages such as the said are abit haphazard, and are not entirely useful when it comes to different tasks. Especially when they’re trying to impersonate programming languages and do the tasks they usually do. After examining your “Contact Us” Page you’ve done well, usually when someone has little or no experience of the relevant programming (such as PHP) they skip the whole forms thing especially if it’s for a college/uni project and just stick a Mailto URL in. But the fact you’ve utilised a form and basic validation behind it is quite impressive for a beginner. I also feel I should mention though, for future reference if anything, virtually no one uses “Mailto” links any more in forms. Basically because programming languages (again, such as PHP or ASP) handle it so much better, and besides, anyone who sends an email using the form will have to have an email account & default email application on the said computer they’re using. And after lots of alerts & prompts, if they don’t have an email app/account installed, it can be a right pain in the arse and people usually give up. But I wouldn’t let this put you off! If it’s your first site and for a project, your tutor will know this and know that you have no experience of programming languages and will take this into account. It’s unlikely anyone would mark you down for that. Finally, I was also quite stunned by the graphic quality of the logo/banner site name at the top, that’s certainly going to get you marks! Overall I was quite impressed and I wish you well! Of course I’ve barely assessed your site, and I imagine your tutor will want to see your HTML & CSS behind it, but first impressions are definitely good!
Good Luck!
B.

[Mr Old Skool]

Firstly, thanks for taking the time to have a look and giving me such a lenghty reply!!

Secondly, thanks for the feedback, both positive and negative, I've took notice of both and agree with the negatives which I'll be working on!!

I was expecting too get laughed at too be honest so I'll take great confidence from this, thanks again!!

[BritZin]

Mr Old Skool, on Jan 3 2009, 18:13, said:

I was expecting too get laughed at too be honest so I'll take great confidence from this, thanks again!!

Hi Again, No problem, It was a pleasure. If you need any more help feel free to contact me. Don't worry about being laughed at by the way, what you've got to remember is the people who laugh, are the people who are usually no better them selves. What's more they've usually got a high post count and think they're more valuable so they're allowed to ridicule. I'm glad my post gave you confidence on such things, since being laughed at can really dent your persona, not to mention your reputation, and laughing at people isn't what this whole set up is about, and they're wrong to do so .
Kindest Regards and Good Luck!
B.

[k9ruby]

Thats incredible for your first site! Mine looked horrific! *insert flashback here*

Just a little tip- it took forever to load on my laptop, and I have a 8mb connection, using firefox 3.

Might just be me, but might be worth looking at.

[BritZin]

k9ruby, on Jan 3 2009, 18:51, said:

Thats incredible for your first site! Mine looked horrific! *insert flashback here*

Just a little tip- it took forever to load on my laptop, and I have a 8mb connection, using firefox 3.

Might just be me, but might be worth looking at.

Quite! I remember my first ever site! Messing about with all the flashing fonts and marquees and moving graphics and blinking! god that WAS an awful html element. Who used blinking?! I hope that doesn't put potential customers off! The out comes way better now! I promise!

Anyway, It might just be you, try clearing your cookies and cache. The site didn't appear to have much "bumf" with it, it seamed pretty streamlined in loading. (Another positive there Old skool!) Your connection might be running slow or "lagging" (I hate that word but seemed appropriate to be used under the circumstances).

B.

[Helen]

Not bad at all for your first site

I won't regurgitate any of the comments, but I do agree with most of them.
There's a few errors when I put it through here, but nothing that can't be fixed.

Well done!

[Xr4t3D85]

Well, since this is your first website I would have to say that you have done well. However, I did notice several things that you might want to know about.

1) The background picture. Instead of using an actual full size background image, try using a 12 x 12 pixel pattern image. Therefore this image will repeat and have a smaller image to load, which would speed up the load time for your background image.

2) Your navigation bar, try using CSS. Instead of javascript, use the CSS for those rollovers links and you wont have to worry about so much javascript.

3) I noticed your sitemeter that you are using, why don't you try using Google Analytics. This is so awesome, and plus you wont have to have the tacky button on the button.

Other than that, this site looks pretty nice. I remember my first build, that was somewhat similar. Good Luck!

[keywolf]

Its a good start for the web design, altough there are somethings that instantly put me off.

1) The combination of the bevel and the fuzz looks a bit archaic and puts me off what im meant to be looking at.

2) There is a massive gap before the text on each page.. should at least be quatered.

3) The text in the navigation bar is way too big and distracts me from what im trying to read.

4) You might need to try some different shades of green for the subtitles so they are distinguished from the content.

5) Finally the logo just generally puts me off.. dont like it too much.

Regards,
Luke

[BritZin]

Xr4t3D85, on Jan 3 2009, 19:58, said:

1) The background picture. Instead of using an actual full size background image, try using a 12 x 12 pixel pattern image. Therefore this image will repeat and have a smaller image to load, which would speed up the load time for your background image.

2) Your navigation bar, try using CSS. Instead of javascript, use the CSS for those rollovers links and you wont have to worry about so much javascript.

Very valid points! I hadn't picked up on thoes, yeah old skool the two above are especially advisable.

[Mr Old Skool]

k9ruby, on Jan 3 2009, 18:51, said:

Thats incredible for your first site! Mine looked horrific! *insert flashback here*

Just a little tip- it took forever to load on my laptop, and I have a 8mb connection, using firefox 3.

Might just be me, but might be worth looking at.

Thanks!!

Your right about the loading, I'm on 10mb using Firefox 3 and I noticed it too!!

Any tips on speeding it up??

Is it just a matter of reducing the image's filesize's??

As for the rest of the comments thanks, all good feedback that I'll work on, appriciate the time you have took to give me advice!!

As for the nav bar I used the auto option in Dreamweaver (shame) to do it as it was the first thing I done when building the page before I learned to use CSS and div's!! (my first attempt used tables and layers but I quickly found there no use.)

Could someone point me in the direction of a tutoriol to do a Navbar using CSS??

[BritZin]

Mr Old Skool, on Jan 3 2009, 22:00, said:

Thanks!!

Your right about the loading, I'm on 10mb using Firefox 3 and I noticed it too!!

Any tips on speeding it up??

Is it just a matter of reducing the image's filesize's??

As for the rest of the comments thanks, all good feedback that I'll work on, appriciate the time you have took to give me advice!!

As for the nav bar I used the auto option in Dreamweaver (shame) to do it as it was the first thing I done when building the page before I learned to use CSS and div's!! (my first attempt used tables and layers but I quickly found there no use.)

Could someone point me in the direction of a tutoriol to do a Navbar using CSS??

Hi Old Skool, I think these tutorials are of a good quality, easy to understand too. I haven't personally reviewed them but they seem ok on the surface.
Tutorial Click Here
I will warn you though, the tutorial I've named there is abit long winded, but it produces a good result so, no doubt you'll stick to it!
I'm personally not getting any problems with the site loading, it's pretty quick, like I said before it didn't appear to have that much "Bumf" slowing it down. Like you said, if this is a universal problem, try replacing the images with 12x12 scales and loop them as suggested by Xr4t3D85. Replacing the Nav bar with the CSS version should also cut considerable seconds off the loading time. I think it could be because the amount of images you have on the site slowing it down (possibly). Try this; How to speed up your site
it gives a few tips on how to speed up loading times ect. I mean I didn't experience any problems, it was practically instantaneous but if it's happening to more than one of you, it's probably sods law that it'll happen to your tutor! Then marks will role off.

Good Luck,
B.

[k9ruby]

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QUOTE (k9ruby @ Jan 3 2009, 18:51) *
Thats incredible for your first site! Mine looked horrific! *insert flashback here*

Just a little tip- it took forever to load on my laptop, and I have a 8mb connection, using firefox 3.

Might just be me, but might be worth looking at.


Thanks!! biggrin.gif

Your right about the loading, I'm on 10mb using Firefox 3 and I noticed it too!!

Any tips on speeding it up??

Is it just a matter of reducing the image's filesize's??

As for the rest of the comments thanks, all good feedback that I'll work on, appriciate the time you have took to give me advice!! wink.gif

As for the nav bar I used the auto option in Dreamweaver (shame) to do it as it was the first thing I done when building the page before I learned to use CSS and div's!! (my first attempt used tables and layers but I quickly found there no use.)

Could someone point me in the direction of a tutoriol to do a Navbar using CSS??

Full sized image might just have something to do with it.....

[Mr Old Skool]

Do you mean the background??

I just changed it to a little image (20x20 I think) and put it on repeat, that seems to have sped it up!!

Suppose I'll work my way through the rest of the images and reduce them a bit, what a pain!!

[MolotovRuss]

For a first.. very well done!

For your navigation, you should really use a CSS-hover menu, instead of a pre-generated dreamweaver's javascriptt hover images.

You'll find an easy tutorial on this here;

http://www.webdesignerforum.co.uk/index.ph...t=0&start=0

[Mr Old Skool]

MolotovRuss, on Jan 4 2009, 17:40, said:

For a first.. very well done!

For your navigation, you should really use a CSS-hover menu, instead of a pre-generated dreamweaver's javascriptt hover images.

You'll find an easy tutorial on this here;

http://www.webdesignerforum.co.uk/index.ph...t=0&start=0

Thats an excellent help, thanks!!

[Mr Old Skool]

Well I've built a new nav bar using CSS!!

What do you think??

http://www.dyewitness.info

[Ren]

Hey Mr Old Skool,

This first attempt looks great, and I can't seem to pick out anything wrong with it. The site is very straightforward and gets the point across very easily.

Job well done, and I'm sure we will be expecting a lot more things from you in a positive and improving light in the future.

Keep up the awesome work.

Ren

[BritZin]

Much better! The nav bar looks great! A Job well done!
B.

[Xr4t3D85]

hey nice work on the nav bar. I did find something else, the footer. Instead of using an image to have a your copyright info, use actual text. and also instead of using one big actual image, please take advantage of the repeat option in CSS. So far, so good repeating the background image; now you should do the same thing to the footer.

Sorry to be picky, its just that I like sites to load faster and this is one way to achieve just that. This way you can have more content on there.

-john

[Mr Old Skool]

Xr4t3D85, on Jan 5 2009, 17:27, said:

hey nice work on the nav bar. I did find something else, the footer. Instead of using an image to have a your copyright info, use actual text. and also instead of using one big actual image, please take advantage of the repeat option in CSS. So far, so good repeating the background image; now you should do the same thing to the footer.

Sorry to be picky, its just that I like sites to load faster and this is one way to achieve just that. This way you can have more content on there.

-john

Thanks again with the feedback folks!!

Don't worry about being picky Xr4t3D85, this is the reason I put it up here to get tips from more experianced folk like yourself and the others who have helped me, I've learned more from reading through this forum than I have with 6 months of college!!

All I get taught there is Dreamweaver and using tables and layers too layout a site, it's a bit behind the times to be honest but it'll give me the nessacary bit's of paper in the long run!!

[tutomax]

Ei.
You are DJ?

[Mr Old Skool]

No mate, not me, just my favourite DJ!!