Archive for the ‘Web Design discussions’ Category

No Comments

Easy Instructions for a Right Side Interface


2013
02.26

Tags: , ,
Posted in Web Design discussions | No Comments »

Cau Karlito, Fernando gave me this project, but not much info… I sent you 20.1. as attachment the text for EN version, but the text in this document is not the same with what is on the website now. Did you by any chance get some different text from F. as well after this date? I am attaching it again so you kow which word document I am talking about. If you didn´t get any other text after this one, could you please put the text from the document on the web. Thanks a lot. Let me know if you have any comments, questions or anything regarding this pingish web.

Okay, checked it out and see that the text has changed. In the future I would really appreciate if you sent me the final draft. For my own customers I would simply charge more if they kept changing their mind. Now I have to set up these pages all over again.

Some points:
– in one section they now say Who We Are but before it was About Us. Change the title of the page?
– I see: “Folding instructions
Click here to see drawings for detailed folding instructions”, but the drawing is right there below the title “Folding Instructions”, so perhaps this is a mistake?
– and because I’m such an INCREDIBLY nice guy, I put the table of contents in the Product Descriptions page. The ugly pink is the default colour for links. If you want something else arranged no probs.
——————————–

sorry for that F. says he thought it wouldn´t be so difficult. In the future we will only send u the final text. Please let me know when the text is ready and uploaded, so I can contact the client to look at it. Do you think you can finish it today? Next step should be te CZ text.

yup, completed by the moment I sent the last email. I guess I should have been more clear about it. cc

——————————–

the client has agreed to do this page this way. Can you please do it?  You mentioned that is difficult to implement, but it’s not. It’s  actually very easy. You just have to choose a smaller size for the photos when you upload them and select the positioning (left &  right), and somewhere on that same window (uploading photo window), you can click something that will make the photo appear larger when you click on it. WordPress makes it quick easy for you 🙂 Please let me know if you can’t figure it for whatever reason and I will take a look, but it should really take a few min to implement.

I didn’t say it was difficult I said that I should be told this BEFORE I make the pages. Now I basically have to do it all over again. For 2,000 Kc you are really milking things to death. With better organisation we can work together efficiently. But you give me text to put up on the net, then you give me much updated text and I have to do things all over again. If really necessary I’ll redo the photo page but I truly hope we can figure out some better cooperation. For 2,000 Kc I’m really uninterested in doing twice the work that I have agreed upon.

What concerns the pictures, I already wrote that I do not use their interface. It is painfully slow. The pictures should be resized and then placed next to one another etc. The amount of work I will have to do to change this is about as much as I already invested into that page. I really do not like this form of cooperation. k

——————————–

I’m sorry, but I don’t think we’re asking much here. For the client to revise the text once is not much. Some of our clients do it  several times and that’s when we put a stop to it. In this case, this will be the final text (in english), and any changes will be charged separately. As for the photos page, I also don’t think we’re asking for much. The instructions on how to do this page were  included in the doc that you received. Now we’re asking to do them in  what we think is a more efficient way and not any more time  consuming. What do you mean you’re not using the interface? You mean the WP cms? If these request seem to be too much for you, then now we know for our next project, but I don’t think we’re asking for anything that we  originally did not agree to. I don’t want to go back to my previous emails, but I’m pretty sure this was already mentioned. Please note that we were very patient with you when it took you a very long time (about a week) to do the initial installation, which should take no more than an hour to do, because you were learning how  to use the WP. It seems like the whole project is taking waaayyy  longer than is supposed to. Anyways… This will be the last change before the client approves it  and we can move forward with the Cz version. Will you be able to do it? If so, when? We’re now quite late with the site and would really like to finish it  this week… Please let me know how we can proceed. Thanks.

cau dude, I really don’t remember receiving instructions before that the pictures were supposed to be side by side. The initial installation only took a few days, and was mostly plagued because of their server, so I do not take any blame for that. After that I made all changes practically the same day, and informed so. But sometimes almost a week later I got an email, “So, is it done yet?” Communication doesn’t seem efficient with you guys and I do not accept any blame for the project taking waaaay too long. Anyway, I’m at a turning point and probably need this 2,000Kc to survive before I get my first paycheck for this new work, so I’ll try what I can, athough I’m totally swamped with work putting this big project together.

No, I don’t use WP’s interface because its retardedly slow. Especially because of the server. Pictures side by side is simple html code. Don’t forget that I threw in a bonus freebee with the table of contents at the top of the products page.

Do you really need the popout pic? To me my way seems better. The pictures are nice and big. To fit side by side will make them possibly less than half the size, and then you click on them to see a bigger popout. Seems a lot of work for nothing, but I’ll do it if you really beally smeally want it. k

——————————–

Yeah, sorry bud… the client wants it. And I thought it was clear from the beginning. I would suggest that you try to use the  interface, because it would be really easy. If you’re doing all of this in html, I’m assuming it will not affect the way the cms works, right? Meaning, the client will be able to edit all information thru the cms in a normal way, right? if you’re really having a hard time with it, let me know and perhaps we can do it from here tomorrow… I mean, it really should take 20 min.

So do you need the popout thing as well, or just the side by side?

For each page you can press “html view” and you see the html I put there. If you use the cms interface (which is very slow), it basically just adds the same html script, except I have greater control because the interface is limited in what it can do. The customer would just need to know what to do and I do not think its complicated. For example, they can stay in normal view and change text all they want. If they want to get fancy they go to html view and have to know basic html.

——————————–

I don’t understand… This graphic shouldn’t need any resizing, as it  should be the same graphic that came with the theme.. We just changed  colors of top stripe and photos. Anyways, I just tried putting the smaller photos into the file that you sent with the right size, but the white color on the background is different… I have no idea why. Sasha is not here, so i don’t know if i can find the psd and try to figure out what’s going on… I’ll see what I can do

well, I sent you the header.jpg that was on the site. I’m pretty sure I resized what Sasa sent me the previous time so that it would match the original. But what she sent me now is longer and more narrow. If I just throw that up there I’m sure that it will not align properly and there will be all sorts of problems. If we are going to allow for a customer (understandable) who is going to want things inched left, and then up, and then down etc., its better to work with the exact same sized picture every time. Otherwise there’s loads of additional and unnecessary work. k

——————————–

I think I may have already mentioned this, but in case not…

All important changes I made, such as shifting a logo to the right etc., I marked with << . I use Total Commander, an excellent free file management program, and with this you can search for stuff WITHIN documents. The << with comments I put in standard /* php comment mode */ so it wouldn’t affect the rest of the document, and since I’m not sure how to put comments in html files (I think its !/ or something), if the comments were within html I buried them within <?php ?> . Instead of erasing stuff that you didn’t want I threw them into the above comments. I always made a comment what I did, so this way, if you ever need to do something in the future and I’m too busy or whatever, you can find what to do.

I like to work in html editor, which is free and colours the text up nicely so that you can orient yourself in php files. Instead of using the slow cms interface I find it much faster to change the files offline, save, upload via ftp, alt tab and then a quick f5 in the browser to see the changes. I think the cms is good for your customer but too slow for a real programmer.

Just some tips!

————————-

downloaded some pics from the net and added an ico. Can you see icons in your browser tabs? Fairly satisfied with my results so far and thought I’d mention that it would be quite easy to change that pencil pic with your Madison’s logo. Then you could keep the pretty echanging pics if you wanted. Or those could be replaced by pictures of trees in the wild or something. All I did was crop a friend’s pics to the dimensions of the original – easy shit.

those cute little logs?? yeah I can see them. Delightful!!! I should mini-size the Madison’s logo so it can be used for an ico. I have instructions on how to do that taped to my monitor, its coming up on three years now. haahah! procrastinate. right on, this is so totally awesome. If you send me that fancy .pdf transformer thinga-ma-bob I can start chugging through the old Madison’s files on Monday.

easy as snot, if you have the right software, which I imagine you do. Simply Save As any pic (jpg etc.) as an .ico file. With my beloved software it asks me near the end if I want any of the colours to be transparent. I click on the white or black surrounding colour and it creates it just like a gif. Before getting to that point, crop the pic to make it square and then resize it to 24px by 24px. That’s it. Then in the header of your html text you add the .ico meta. Just View Source any page which has such a logo and you’ll see what the metatext should look like. Easy shit.

One thing I noticed on my new server is I just need to put a favicon.ico file into my root directory and ALL pages on my site that do not have specific .ico instructions fall to that as a default. Perhaps your server allows that, or you can ask the server company to implement it. Love discovering these little things occasionally. Definitely makes your entire site look more professional. k

No Comments

Page Style Text in Pictures and Pages


2013
02.18

Tags: , , , ,
Posted in Web Design discussions | No Comments »

I’m not sure what to do with the styles… Let’s leave it like that for now.

What is going on with the homepage? I guess you changed the website to http://sweetmilk.cz/ and forgot to tell me? 🙂

I was looking at /test/ and didn’t have any en/cz… It seems to work well under /W?/

A couple of things though:

– Can you make the cz / en bigger?

– There are only 4 pages in the Cz version. Why?

We will send you the new header today.

Yes, I moved it to W because we were having that discussion about test and you did not respond, so I went ahead and made an executive decision. As per the weblinks I sent you moving WP can be problematic and I did not want to deal with glitches later. I chose only one letter (symbolising WordPress) to limit any SEO effect.

Yah, forgot to mention it, sorry.

I don’t know why there are only four pages in Czech but noticed it this morning. Perhaps it happened when I pressed Reset on the xlanguages last night, when the server was going berzerk and I didn’t know what was happening. I’m hoping that once we add content they will return, otherwise I will have to resolve it somehow. I’m blaming this one on the server.

Okay, will make a bit bigger. k

——————————–

heydydogal,

just got an idea for your doggie site. I’m putting together a site for a friend of mine and think it could become regular work for me. At first I thought it was sorta a dorky idea but now I see the sound logic behind it, and that it can actually be pretty useful. I gather you’ve heard of WordPress? Well its free blog software and many people develop Themes for it for free. So essentially different looks and feel. The difficult thing is to set it up (that’s me), but once done then its really easy for the owner to add pages and upload pictures etc. It’s not done yet but you’ll see the idea: http://sweetmilk.cz/

Check out the Product Description page. The customer sent me a Word file with text, I simply copy/pasted it into the page (while in Administration mode), and it popped out nicely formatted automatically. I just need to make a few more tweaks to change the headings etc., and all other pages will look the same. It’s even got a multiple language plugin. So, yes, a bit more work for me to set up, but once done then you guys can add your own pages and pictures etc., and zero maintenance for me. The only thing is that your server needs to be able to support php, but pretty well every server should allow that nowadays. If not you guys can transfer your site to mine for free, but you’d have to pay for your own domain (about 10 bucks a year).

That’s it!

——————————–

okey doke Sasa. Right now I’m working on another project and tomorrow I drive to another town, so I can start on this tomorrow eveningish. Just lettinyakno. k

 heh heh, just saw a preview of the pics. Like I told Fernando, funny that Czechs can spend money on billboards and fancy websites, but the English text is shite and the girls didn’t even seem to bother to wash their hair! Will get to this asap.

This pix r nightmare… I feel sick when I have to retouch this ugly blond teethed mum.. BUT, my predisposed friend, you shouldn´t forget this client is Dominican

In the page Product Description there is a section Wearing Instructions with four steps – here you will put 4 photos named instruction1 – 4. There are four numbered instructions pictures plus one unnumbered one. – this unnumbered is folding instructions There is also a Folding Instructions title beneath that section but which does not have any text at the moment. – just put the picture. For the remaining pics do I just throw them into the Pick Your Style page? – yes The text is also strangely spaced a bit. Want me to make the spacing a bit smaller? – make it look nice 🙂 I gather I should resize the pics and make them smaller byte size for the web? – I did make all the pix 800 x 600, u can make them even smaller. zdarec, saša

maybe the sizes were 800×600 or whatever, but many of them were more than 300kb, which is really big and slow for many people. I can reduce it to about 50kb while keeping the picture quality pretty well the same. That way the page with pictures loads much faster. People are too impatient these days and simply may not want to wait if it takes too long.

Another question: your customer wanted the Product Descriptions page broken up into different sub-pages, but F said that it did not pay enough for this extra work. Perhaps I could at least offer to put links at the top of the page, like a table of contents, where each link zips to that part of the page? k

——————————–

okay, I chmoded the folder to 777 and it worked, but when I finished bumbling around with their slow Flash uploader I noticed that it added something to the html view, which I altered and ended up with

<img style=”padding-top:15px; padding-bottom:10px;” src=”http://sweetmilk.cz/W/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/instruction4.jpg” alt=”instruction4″ title=”instruction4″ /

In that case, rather than bumble around with the Flash uploader, I would suggest you simply just upload your pics by ftp into the relevant folder (or name your own) and then just copy paste the above script where you want, changing the file names too. Much much faster, plus you can gain better control through the style thing I added. Just a suggestion!

——————————–

okay, think I’m done with the latest chores:

– lowered the spacing between characters and bullets to make it look nicer

– defined the h3 heading I used in the Products Description page.

– in the future they just need to surround titles with the standard <h3 </h3 while in the html window and the same style should apply.

– in the css file I marked all my changes with << and put comments so you or your customer can easily refer to them in the future (for example if they want to change the h3 style, or add another heading style)

One potential point: for the Pick Your Style page I used the alt/title tags as Fabric 1 etc. I presume useful if a customer wants to order some fabric. No problem to place some text above it and which defines it, perhaps using h4 and styling it correctly.

If they want different Alt tags for the Czech version just tell me what to use (Textil 1?). I found that when I switched to Czech the pictures didn’t reload but just stayed (quick change). Changing the Alt tags might force it to reload, but I guess it doesn’t matter cause the surfer will probably get to that page from within some other Czech text page, in which case the pics would have to completely load anyway.

Awaiting the next task! p

No Comments

WordPress is Everything with Pretty Changes


2013
02.16

Tags: , ,
Posted in Web Design discussions | No Comments »

I’m totally boohoo right now because I was going to use this same style for my personal site, ketadesign.ca, and now you are making me think its not exciting enough to promote myself as a graphic designer. I guess stealing someone else’s code is not a good idea, but its just SO not the kind of thing I like doing! even with Dreamweaver there is so much coding bs I have to do.

well, I dunno if it’s because you told me that, but when I look at it looks like its stolen or a cheap copy or something. Or like you are trying to look professional but getting about half way there. I think the most important is to be pleasing to the ideas. Actually I find most websites out there pretty boring and poor choice of colours, and often I’m not even that happy with what I make. Personally I think when people read your articles, its nice to have all those warm colours everywhere. Now it kinda feels cold and empty. You used to paint and stuff right? I think you should focus on some sort of graphic portrayal, focusing on the comfort of your readers and not try to impress anyone. You can accomplish a lot with simple tables and nice graphics as backgrounds. If you want to get fancier you can use divs and create layers, with graphics overtop other graphics. But from what I’ve perused on the subject you often have to write exceptions for different browsers, and it starts to be a real pain. So I prefer to stick to simple tables. Often preferably fixed width cause then it looks the same all the time. And fixed font sized. I would focus on using your graphical talent to make nice pictures and stuff in the background. Colour up the page. Once that is done, then you can concentrate on fancy stuff like popout menus, flash and the sort. You could do that after you go live and pretty up your pages later.

I tried Dreamweaver a few times and its too hard for my liking. I use it for only a few things which my other program doesn’t offer. The fancy stuff I find on the internet and practically just copy it in through notepad. k

——————————–

OK let’s try this, because when I showed it to you before you said it looks clean and good. I just stripped out some of the jangly stuff . . . did I make mine too plain? http://techincentives.ca/ exceptions to different browsers is already written into the style sheet, which makes me super duper happy. Don’t forget, the content in the centre block is still not there, I am just talking about the actual layout right now.

first of all, if you resize your browser to smaller you can see that it’s a fixed width table. That way everything stays in place where it should.

Second they got a flash to animate the page.

Yes, I’d say it clean and generally gives a good impression, but still feels cold, which can suit something technical, but for your purposes I think it gives too cold of a feeling. Personally I would try to put beautiful pictures of trees and forests and ocean blue in the background, perhaps rotating pictures with different articles. Something close to home and people can feel comfortable with when they read your articles.

——————————–

Okay, so I got WP up and running and now trying to get a grip of what I am supposed to do.

At one point you wrote:

– And yes, we will provide you with all of the photos, graphics, etc… But it’s up to you to tell us how you need it. For example, I don’t know if those 2 baby photos are 2 separate photos or one big background graphic with the logo and color strip. You need to tell us that once you’ve looked at the code.

– We will be changing the logo, photos and the top color strip. We will also change the navigation links and the layout of the homepage. Everything else will stay the same.

but I don’t remember you sending me any of this.

I checked out

http://evocreative.com/sweetmilk-wp/

and looked into your ftp folder and found

theme905

Should I download this from your server and install it on Sweetmilk, and hunt around for the relevant pics etc? I suppose I should get this done before playing around with the results.

Right now I’ll download the xlanguages, study it, and familiarise myself with the rest. k

——————————–

okay dude, did some research and found the following:

http://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/smallbusiness/webhosting/wordpress/wordpress-26.html

which blatantly says that this practice is strongly unadvisable. The procedures on WordPress’s own site are also a bit daunting and indicate that it is not advisable. Especially if you will want me to hack in to the themes and make custom changes, which I am capable of.

But I understand how you cannot “go live” during development, so I suggest the following for this and future cases.

Install the files into some folder and KEEP THEM THERE. Don’t choose a name like Test but rather some short SEO associated keyword, as I suggested.

Then, once completed, all you need to do is set the root index file as the main entry point, and everything else stays the same. Maybe your programmers have done it many times in the past, but maybe your programmers don’t understand php so well, or didn’t make more complicated custom changes, and are operating within WordPress’s interface alone. For this project I already stopped operating within WordPress’s online interface because I quickly realised that it was only making changes to the underlying php files, which I can do much faster offline. It’s simply a slow and gumby way how to go about it.

What I propose is that I simply get this first project working and we can both judge how to continue. From my perspective I have to admit I get quite irritated when having to work in some gumby fashion, or when people who know less than I insinuate that I don’t know what I’m doing. Look at the ending of all WordPress files – they all end in .php! I know what I’m talking about. And there is no reason to transfer all the files into the root directory when wanting to ride over the root index file. Here is WordPress’s own instructions:

Giving WordPress its Own Directory While Leaving the WordPress Index File in the Root Directory

more at: http://codex.wordpress.org/Giving_WordPress_Its_Own_Directory

This makes a lot more sense, but again, the proper way to do it is to choose a carefully thought out folder name for SEO purposes and not just choose Test.

Will get working on it now. p

——————————–

yokay. I myself didn’t like it but it’s the widget that comes with the plug in and I guess incorporated with the theme. I too figured the client would want it under the header in a strip or something. The rest is just css and prettying things up. Spent a fair amount today reading up comments on the plugin. Overall pretty good, but a lot of conflicts with other plugins, so try to avoid using other ones. That’s one problem with this WP approach, is that plugins etc. can often conflict. Then you need a real hacker to figure out a solution, and the time spent on it ends up being more than just designing the whole thing from scratch (not to mention that such hacker skills are more rare than html/css etc.).

I suggest we do things in upgrades, preferably rather than sending little tidbits of requests but all at once, like in a wave? I like to focus on one thing at a time and I’m more productive that way. p

Hey, good job… It seems like you’re on a roll now, good.

The only thing is that these flags should go somewhere on top. I would prefer to put ‘en | cz’ instead of flags, but the client prefers flags. I will convince him to not use flags… So can you please use text instead. Just like this please: en | cz

Please use the same font and color as the side menu but perhaps one size smaller. You can place it right under the header stripe, either on the left or right.

I’ll send the design… easier that way 🙂

——————————–

So for my new WordPress work learned that it works on php, so everything I’ve learned up to now has definitely helped me. I figure WP was made for bozos who don’t know programming and just wanna use templates, plugins and widgets to get their ass wiped for them. But then my boss friend wants this and that done, so I hack into the php and change the theme and everything in a custom way. But I guess the advantage is that, once genious me actually sets it up, the bozo customer can add pages or make changes itself without much skills.

Now my eyes have turned to place something on a page and I was finally forced to learn divs with css positioning, and its EASIER THAN SNOT!!!

——————————–

okay, copied in the text and must say I was pleasantly surprised to see how WP automatically converted everything nicely straight from Word.

It wouldn’t let me separate headings with two hard enters, but that’s okay cause using headings is better anyway.

So I suggest looking at the Product Description page. I changed the first Challenges title to an h2 heading, which can then be controlled easily in the style sheet. The customer can then use this h2 heading for his Czech or other pages and everything will be uniform. Other number headings are of course possible for different styles.

So far pretty easy stuff!

Everything else can then easily be fine tuned according to CSS. Such as the point/bullet form:
– making the lines closer together
– using any image to repace the little arrow on the left side
– indenting etc.

So I’d welcome feedback before piddling around with this. I can use my own judgement but not sure what “executive authority” I have regarding design and formatting choices. So rather than launch into anything would prefer your feedback first.

over&out

No Comments

A Little Text Design Turns the Screen Colour to Yellow in Safari


2013
02.15

Tags: , , , ,
Posted in Web Design discussions | No Comments »

you know what, div tags are actually not that complicated! I also had to learn it (one of the style sheets I boosted was using it), at first you’re all like, “what?” but when you see it in action it totally makes sense. the cool thing is you can run one div off another, except maybe change the colours or whatever, so once you have the design set the way you want adding stuff and making wholesale cosmetic changes are actually quite easier.

One edit to the style sheet and all your pages magically switch to new style! no tinkering per page involved. Lovely.

i bet you will learn it much faster that I did even, I also strongly suggest switching.

yah, I kinda thought it would be easy enough and glad once I learn it. It’s just that initial psychological and lazy barrier I gotta get over, but it will eventually happen. Already seen plenty of css comments concerning it, and read a bit of the Help in my webpage designer, about hovering it and making layers and so on. So will look forward to the day when I overcome this barrier, heh heh

——————————–

okay, would appreciate if you could give me your opinion:

http://translationpayments.com/view-records_F.php

My standard super soft login is

Couldn’t stare at the horrible design any more so I spent some time beautifying it and now I’m back to workin on bugs etc.

Do you see the Company Name dropdown menu properly? I designed it in frames so it wouldn’t have to download the long list every time and so it would work faster.

I still have to write the script to calculate the Fairness and Pleasantness etc. column, but those will be incorporated out of a text box like I was talking about and like the comments section at the bottom.

Lookin forward to your keen design eye feedback!

——————————–

first thing I am going to say right now is I don’t like the font of the words that are sideways “Payment Duration” “Fairness” blah blah. Just make it Arial Narrow or something. It looks cartoony.

Thanks for the tips. Yah, played around with that for a while and wasn’t entirely satisfied, but just gave up. Will try to get back to that later. Pretty sure I used Arial but Narrow might be the solution.

the drop down menu works good for me, super huge long list of names.

the little windows that pop up with I hold the cursor over Fairness, Pleasantness, etc (with the green background) are screaming yellow (why screaming yellow, WHY!!) if you must have that OK, I’d suggest not screaming yellow, but the text is a bit outside the box, especially for Pleasantness “How pleasant they are to deal with in general”

general falls on the next line and is not inside the yellow box. This is both for Safari and Firefox. Small thing but could be confusing for people, this word just hanging out against the green background. Same for “best” when I hold the cursor over AVG rating.

same for me and one of the bugs on my list to fix. Plan to incorporate what I accomplished at

http://001yourtranslationservice.com/search-engine-optimization.html

when you hold your mouse above the little yellow balls. Smoother yellow. Bit of work with the rounded corners.

Oh, boxes come up for the other headings (which are showing as a different colour of blue, not sure if you meant to do that) “Category” “Website” “Email”, these boxes are much better sized for the explanation words.

Otherwise its OK, the content in the window moves when I make the window bigger or smaller, doesn’t cut off like some websites do and drive me crazy, this is both in Safari and Firefox (Mac) so that’s good.

what is the big white box to the left of the list of categories “Fairness” “Pleasantness” “AVG rating” etc. for? It has no heading.

Oh, you mean to the right? That is moderator comments. Hope to give it a heading at some point. Was focusing on making it look acceptable and functional. Still got a bit of work with that, then a lot of fine tuning, and promotion. Will try to get other industries to use it other than just translating. The more traffic the better! k

——————————–

heydo, can ya do me a favour and tell me how

http://www.picment.com/articles/css/funwithforms/step5.html

looks in your safari browser? Is it at least functional? Think I’m gonna use this as my new pretty standard.

in Safari it looks like the little folder/flap thingy, at the top behind the words “Contact Form” is not attached. There is a white block between the folder/tab thing and the rest of the grey rectangle. In Firefox (Mac) it looks like all one graphic.

In Safari the white block behind is making the white words “Contact Form” partly invisible, so I would either looks the tabby thing at the top and just make it all one rectangle or change the colour of “Contact Form” to black.

same for me and I would have removed the flap if eventually using. What I liked the most was the rounded corners, but I guess since it is using images there’s no reason why it wouldn’t work in any browsers. Will be neat to implement one day.

——————————–

I dunno dude, think I might like the old site better. I can help you with redesigning if you like, but personally the new site seems like a skeleton. And not really fancy for any work you may have put into it. With easy colouring I don’t understand why webpages have to look like a piece of paper. I understand paper: you bleach pulp with poison to make it clean, then you take ink and smear it on. Obviously much less expensive than dying paper black and using white ink. But on a computer screen, with glare and radiation burning your retina, there is no need to mimick paper, except of course because people let themselves get brainwashed all the time. Anyway, I like the older page because it feels warmer. More of that warm burgundy colour filling the screen, with rich fat letters to read. I already have my Chrome set at font 20 as default. Don’t understand why a majority of websites think its cool to have teeny weeny text. Maybe I should strap my binoculars to my forehead. Totally uncomfortable reading and unnecessary. Anyway, I really do not see any improvement. It looks a LITTLE bit more professional, but you could have kept your old page and just tweaked it a bit to accomplish the same professional notch up. Not a total revamp. How much time did you spend on this? It looks like simple wire-framed tables with text thrown in. And by the way, concerning your old site, why is the google ad strip practically in the middle of the screen? I consider my screen the smallest, and I always design for that. Either you can use a fixed width, or some percent. But with percent there may be a lot of testing on bigger screens, which I don’t have. I personally like big fat text and small margins on the side. If its a bigger screen the margins will be the same but the middle reading part will look the same. I then fill up the margins with some nice pictures or something. So I would vote to bring back some of that old warmth. Go ahead and ask your clientelle for a vote. There the ones who should be deciding. I can help you with CSS if you like. That can do some real fancy stuff. What you did looks like a revamp but remaining in old style table format. Hope I helped ya!

Now, . . . this is not what I wanted you to say!! haha. if its colour yer wantin’, I can sure add that. I think I am more about the neater design, the menu along the top and bottom. No? the block in the centre with the content, I can fancy that all up in a myriad of ways, just wondering about the layout before I go making the rest of the site pages! Once they are done, the format, I will worry about prettying them up. I don’t like the menu running down the left side anymore, and I sure don’t like the green. So, keep menus along top and bottom and I will dig out a nicer shade of complimentary colour to the red, rather than the white, will that be better? I spent, I guess a day and a half, but in between that I was doing other stuff so I guess it was most of one day. Yeah, several hours. hmmm. re: the width, I am using percent now, which apparently you are supposed to do. I didn’t know much about style sheets, and tables actually, when I did the old site almost two years ago. I messed up something which is entrenched in each page and would be a real mess to unwind. This new site is properly done, plus there is a WHOLE BUNCH of stuff I’m not using that I can pull out later to make it extra fancy.

and speakin of the links at the top and bottom… boooorrrriiinnnng. You can look up CSS navigation or menues, or learn how to create drop downs, or picture backgrounds or something. Something animated and exciting. How about a slow moving flash somewhere? Bring the page to life and coloured it up a bit, that’s what I would suggest. k

aw man you’re making me wooooooooork!

I’m not going to work on it today, you’ve given me a lot to think about. I will let my little brain consider it all then look at both sites tomorrow to see what I am going to do.