Topic: New one...

I have been working for my school in the student affairs office fixing up sites so that they are ADA compliant and such and have been working with my supervisior on developing a new layout since the old ones are really awful.
http://www.sunysb.edu/stuaff/ --> Old design

We have been working on a new one, and we have a static template designed, wonder what everyone's take on it was.
http://www.sunysb.edu/stuaff/stuaff_new/ --> new template

-Forgetting that the background color is not specified could you tell me the opinion on this?

I am also looking at ways that we might be able to condence the code a bit more.

This site is going to be the main template for a databased powered site (we have a lot of work to do). So any opinions comments or questions would be appreciated.

Think of this as just a hull. Metatags to be placed later, and links and such.

Thanks,
-mage-

Well I would love to see them but right now my friggin' IE is weirding out on me. It doesn't recognize your images or style sheets! Man this thing pisses me off.

I will check it out as soon as I get home to a real computer

Later,
C:\


~Binary is best~

[This message has been edited by CPrompt (edited 03-28-2002).]

We are using at current

<style type="text/css" media="all">@import "styles/style1.css";</style>

instead of the <link> atribute. Wanted to block the style sheet from 4.0 browsers until we get our server side work around up and running.

Is the problem on our side or yours? if it is something on ours well... we would really need to fix it.

thanks,
-mage-

Nah, it's on my side. My IE freaks out every once in awhile and won't display images. Can't figure out what is wrong. My IE at home won't let me download *.exe files either.

It's just IE, Opera and NN work! Go figure!

Later,
C:\


~Binary is best~

WarMage .. the new template .. IMHO .. is too busy .. it's still crapping out on me .. I use to go to this school .. and I love the simplicity of this complex site .. check it out if you'd like and take a few pointers from it .. to do to your student affairs site
http://www.csulb.edu/divisions/students/

Explain crapping out if you would?

Such as what browser, what system, where and if you know why?

To busy. Could you elaborate.

What is too much? Where is too much?

Thanks for the comments!

-mage-

when I tried to view your new layout a second time .. it did that scroll glide thing .. where everything just becomes lines and nothing is readiable

when I say busy .. IMHO .. there is too much white and very little color to see what the difference is in what is links and what is just context .. I see you have the background viewed between the links on the left .. but the links are taking up to much space(IMHO) .. how wide is that 'menuBoxBody' .. I'm guessing between 200 and 250 pixels .. have you viewed this on a 800x600 screen or 15" anyway you can reduce that left link menu?

to the right menu .. the whole text is a rollover .. it's ok .. but I have a suggestion if you want to take it .. at the end of the news .. put this 'read more' or 'read on' ie:

Current News
11/26/2001: New web internship position available here at the Office of Vice President of Student Affairs. Get credit for your web designing skills! read on...

-------

and when I say it's too busy .. I kind of also mean .. it's too wide .. I'd try to set it to a max of 750 pixels wide .. being user friendly .. I sure many students don't have massive 19" monitors to view and surf this student affairs website .. I didn't work on this site .. but you can see that it's simple and easy to navigate .. I was a Mechanical Engineering Student so I surfed this site many times .. http://www.me.csulb.edu/

I guess what I'm trying to say is simplify things if possible .. ie .. http://www.csulb.edu .. look at the roll over of each section and see how it details itself to what a student would find in each section

I love the second design over the first one, but there is still something throwing me of in the color combo of that menu. I don't think the under grey on rollover is working, but other than that I think it's 99% better!



[This message has been edited by Dark (edited 03-29-2002).]

Thanks for the input!

I will work on all of that.

http://www.ic.sunysb.edu/Stu/dcurran/stuaff_new/

I did a new iteration, made some small changes. Shrunk down the menu size a little bit and changed the mouse over, I also changed the "read more..." idea you stated. The way we had it was 175 px menu's for a total of 350 px for the menus so on 640 by 480 we would have about 250 pixels for content display... a little small, however if more room is needed the news area gets pushed under the content giving us some more space for content.

I am really concerned about RammStein's problem with the site "crapping out" on him. I really don't understand what is going on with this crapping out. If you could give me some more on the "scroll glide" thing I might be able to fix it. I really don't know what this is so I can't fix it as is.

We are using @import so that all the information should be hidden from 4.0 and below browsers. I haven't tested the site on IE 5.0 or 5.5 nor have I tested in Opera 5 so I don't know what would be going on with that. It looks the same for me on all the other browsers I have been working with... Opera 6.0, IE 6.0 and NS 6.2... What browser are you using so that I could test it.

don't get me wrong I do like this new layout .. but I still fine it kind of blah .. to much white .. I do like the transparent screen you added to the link menu on the left .. adds alittle more to the site

I viewed this at 1024 wide .. but contacted the window to what a lurker would see at 800 width .. and got this:



did you intend to have that black space there?

I would still try to condense those links to fit on the window without having to scroll down

as for my problem it isn't happening anymore .. but let me try to describe the problem I was having .. have you ever been to a website where what loads just freezes on the window and when you scroll down the window you don't get the rest of the site but what you get is the site dupicating itself and eventually text is over text and everything blends in together .. that make alittle more sense? if I had that problem again I would C&P my screen so that you could see if for yourself

btw .. I'm use IE 5.5