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I am not a web designer - 2/24/2006 5:26:28 AM

ebgreen

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I come seeking advice. I think I am going to start trying to pick up some small coding projects on the side. To that end I have finally decided to put a site up on a domain that I have had for a while now. I am not a web designer. Let me say that one more time, I am not a web designer. My artistic skills are zero. So, I have come up with two potential designs so far. The only difference in them right now is their background image. I would like to invite constructive criticism of my design. Any suggestions would be great. There is obviously an immense amount of work still to be done on the site, but better to get ideas now than to waste time going down the wrong path. Thanks for your help.

Here are the two designs:
TEST1: http://www.dev.customdatasoft.com/test1.html
TEST2: http://www.dev.customdatasoft.com/test2.html

< Message edited by ebgreen -- 2/24/2006 5:29:42 AM >

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Post #: 1

RE: I am not a web designer - 2/24/2006 6:35:02 AM

Snipah

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Always a good thing to start webdeveloping...I design pages for 8 years now...I use HTML, PHP, DHTML, CSS, JavaScript, MySQL to get it up and running...all from Notepad / UltraEdit...My view of webdesign is, the code must be as nice as the frontpage itself...meaning that the structure of programming must be as clean and nice as the design.

Ok:
http://www.dev.customdatasoft.com/vbscriptsnips.html
This page looks very good, right font-size of the text...only the black textboxes are not a success....

http://www.dev.customdatasoft.com/test1.html
The red blocks can decrease font-size a little, this screams at you (looking with 1024) and when it comes to designing, you should be as universal as can get...meaning, try to create pages, that are also viewable for minimal 1024*768.... The other font-size can decrease some aswell.. and line the listed items up...

I think you should rewrite the CSS file...b/c you use alot of DIV tags...they are very usefull for all kinds of design, but sometimes it is easier to create a <table> to start off with, then to go in the deep straight away. Just to get a feeling of alignment.

http://www.dev.customdatasoft.com/test2.html
For the textual side, see the previous comment (reg. test1.html)

The lighter background is more friendly, and draws the attention to the content, rather than distracting the visitor by the dark and busy background....

Snipah

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Post #: 2

RE: I am not a web designer - 2/24/2006 6:48:17 AM

ebgreen

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Snipah, thanks a lot for taking the time to look at it and give me input. I think the black text boxes should be straightened out now. I spotted that after I uploaded. I tried to avoid tables on purpose. Not because of some religious table/no-table zealotry. I just already knew how to do tables and wanted to force myself to do it with pure CSS to make learning the CSS faster. I will definitely be cleaning the code up quite a bit. There are a lot of descriptors in the CSS that I don't even use (remnants of the development process). There is also quite a bit of duplication of effort in the CSS that I will want to eliminate. So, I think my take away from your comments will be:

The lighter background is preferable.
Decrease the font size some on the titles.
Clean up the coding.

Does that sound right?

_____________________________

"... when you are good and crazy, oooh, oooh, oooh, the sky is the limit!" - The Tick
Goog places to start:http://www.visualbasicscript.com/m_24727/tm.htm
http://www.visualbasicscript.com/m_47117/tm.htm

(in reply to Snipah)

Post #: 3

RE: I am not a web designer - 2/24/2006 6:55:19 AM

Snipah

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Sounds good, just make sure the decreasing font-size is in general....

lemme know when we can peek again...

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Post #: 4

RE: I am not a web designer - 2/24/2006 7:24:36 AM

ebgreen

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Ok, you can check it out again. I still need to tweak some of the spacing. Oh, and clean up the code of course.

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"... when you are good and crazy, oooh, oooh, oooh, the sky is the limit!" - The Tick
Goog places to start:http://www.visualbasicscript.com/m_24727/tm.htm
http://www.visualbasicscript.com/m_47117/tm.htm

(in reply to Snipah)

Post #: 5

RE: I am not a web designer - 2/24/2006 7:34:40 AM

Snipah

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ok, better..think about the 30-70 part: maximal one-third of your page can consist of menu items....

narrow the main headings (red background) some and line up the first item of the list...now you see one heading + 1 item right next to it... that gives you space to work more in the 'body' of the page....the main content... b/c that is where the visitors will come for, to view the main content...

check out some navigation examples:

www.anielakbar.com
www.bighole.nl
www.budgetterenmetkinderen.com

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http://www.visualbasicscript.com

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Post #: 6

RE: I am not a web designer - 2/24/2006 7:45:24 AM

ebgreen

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Ok, I think I will work on a more navigation oriented design. I guess because I usually look at code all day, I think nothing of having to scroll down the page to find what I want. I'll try to switch it around to smaller cleaner pages.

_____________________________

"... when you are good and crazy, oooh, oooh, oooh, the sky is the limit!" - The Tick
Goog places to start:http://www.visualbasicscript.com/m_24727/tm.htm
http://www.visualbasicscript.com/m_47117/tm.htm

(in reply to Snipah)

Post #: 7

RE: I am not a web designer - 2/24/2006 7:48:08 AM

Snipah

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good luck...

you can mail me anytime if you need help...or anything

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http://www.visualbasicscript.com

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Post #: 8

RE: I am not a web designer - 2/24/2006 7:49:28 AM

ebgreen

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Thanks, I probably will. :)

_____________________________

"... when you are good and crazy, oooh, oooh, oooh, the sky is the limit!" - The Tick
Goog places to start:http://www.visualbasicscript.com/m_24727/tm.htm
http://www.visualbasicscript.com/m_47117/tm.htm

(in reply to Snipah)

Post #: 9

RE: I am not a web designer - 2/24/2006 8:00:31 AM

ebgreen

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As an aside, here is a site I played around with some time ago for my family. I'm the one in the very back on the right.

http://thedowells.customdatasoft.com/

_____________________________

"... when you are good and crazy, oooh, oooh, oooh, the sky is the limit!" - The Tick
Goog places to start:http://www.visualbasicscript.com/m_24727/tm.htm
http://www.visualbasicscript.com/m_47117/tm.htm

(in reply to ebgreen)

Post #: 10

RE: I am not a web designer - 6/14/2006 7:27:23 AM

mcds99

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quote:

My view of webdesign is, the code must be as nice as the frontpage itself...meaning that the structure of programming must be as clean and nice as the design.

That is the most profound statement on web design I've ever seen!
Now could you convince MS to use this phylosopy with FrontPlague ... er... FrontPage.

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Sam

Keep it Simple Make it Fun KiSMiF

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Post #: 11

RE: I am not a web designer - 6/20/2006 1:57:33 AM

Snipah

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LOL

Therefore I use only tools like Notepad and UltraEdit => plaintext editors...

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Post #: 12

RE: I am not a web designer - 6/20/2006 2:05:39 AM

ebgreen

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I hate editing code in Notepad. Not for any extrvagant reason. Simply because it won't maintain and indentation level. If Notepad would do that, my life would be so much easier. It's always the little things.

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Post #: 13

RE: I am not a web designer - 6/20/2006 6:50:31 AM

mbouchard

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PrimalScript is pretty good for editing HTML code.

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Post #: 14

RE: I am not a web designer - 6/20/2006 6:58:12 AM

ebgreen

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What I will usually do is lay out the elements in a WYSIWYG editor like Dreamweaver. Then I will close dreamweaver and not open it again unless I need to do some major modification to the layout of the page. I'll run HTMLTidy on the file to make it nice and pretty then I'll use GVim for the actual editing of code. Although if I am at work I will occasionally ues PrimalScript.

_____________________________

"... when you are good and crazy, oooh, oooh, oooh, the sky is the limit!" - The Tick
Goog places to start:http://www.visualbasicscript.com/m_24727/tm.htm
http://www.visualbasicscript.com/m_47117/tm.htm

(in reply to mbouchard)

Post #: 15

RE: I am not a web designer - 6/20/2006 9:28:56 PM

Snipah

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I think there is indeed a difference in designing per person.

One may prefer to use the WYSIWYG way and the other may like the use of hardcoded buildingblocks.

Nice example is when you create an HTML page in WINWORD.EXE and open it with some plaintext editor....there you see that almost every pixel is positioned absolute...personally as a code-programmer I can't stand programs which define the complete layout, depending on objects throughout the page.

I see working with WYSIWYG as a bowl of spaghetti. If you give it a good stir, then it will be harder to take the strings of spaghetti without a knot in it (unclean strings), rather than creating you own spaghetti, and keeping them nice and clean, from the start until the very end of publishing it.