Topic: dark.milio.be

Could you please give your honest opinions about Dark Milio. The thing I don't need many comments on are the navigation buttons at the bottom, i'll redesign them.

But I'm starting to really worry about the way I set up my page. Having a new other blue tablepicture on every page gives it an unique look. But it's 1 slow to load, and 2 how good can you read my text etc...

But then again, i'm not like all those other sites, having a navigation menu, 1 header and then every page is just on the same background...

Just tell me what you think....



[This message has been edited by Milio (edited 11-04-2003).]

The page can be found here.

DM: UBB code doesn't use quotes in tags, so the url tag should look like this (replacing partheses with brackets, of course):

(URL=http://milio.be/~dark)Dark Milio(/URL)

Now let me go take a look...

OK... I know you said not to comment on the buttons, because you're going to fix them, but I have a comment on the status line text for the "poems" page. It says, "Read my poems," but on the poems page itself you say "None of these poems are written by me." It would seem to me that "Read my poems" is a bit misleading. I suppose that's something of a nitpick, though.

As for the background images, I don't have a problem with them as long as they don't interfere with legibility. One thing you've got to watch is contrast: on the "journal" page the black text is a little too close to the blue background, and on the links page the white is too close to the background color (which is significantly brighter than any of the other pages--it looks out of place).

Codewise, I'm not sure why you're using tables for your layout. That could be done very easily with CSS--it would be a lot cleaner.

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Suho: www.liminality.org

you have no idea how many font colors i have tried on the journal page... white, black, yellow, bright white, darker...
I'm starting to think that I should remake that background because no font fits on it. It's more readible if I make the size bigger but that hurts my layout.

Links section is idd a bit off, but I think about using it more... it's somthing else then always blue, brighter blue, darker blue... The links colors are idd not the best in the world there...

I'm not a master in CSS at the moment, still have some majer problems with it (placing... if you place this before that it works if not it doesn't work etc...)

You might try making the text background more opaque (so that it obscures the background pic a little more) and then maybe make it lighter (if you're going to use black text). Also, I would be consistent--use a single background color and a single font color (as well as a single link color). It will make the site easier to follow (and add some unity and coherence to the design). At the moment, I think making the text background slightly darker and using white throughout would work well. Just my opinion, though.

As for the link colors, you definitely need to do something about the hover color--the text practically disappears, and at the very least it become illegible. That's very frustrating for a user. If I could make a suggestion, why don't you try a color (ie, something other than black, white, or grey) for your links? If you use white as your text color, you could go for a pastel, something that complements blue (but not blue itself). Nothing really glaring, of course, just enough to give the site a little extra flair.

On the CSS front, it can be quite confusing at first if you're not used to it. I don't want to be a CSS nazi and tell you that you have to do it all in CSS, but I would recommend a progression in that direction. This progression, of course, should be at a pace you are comfortable with.

Oh, one other thing: you mentioned that a larger text size hurts your design... you should keep in mind that, while IE users may not be able to change the text size, other browser users can. At the least you should ensure that the design doesn't break completely at larger text sizes (within a reasonable range).

[Edit: Oh, and if you're interested, go to the FAQ search form and type in "CSS"--that should give you plenty of material to work with.]

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Suho: www.liminality.org

thx for reviewing my site so deeply... I will change some things according to it. I've checked the css instead of tables thingie, it's more of a geek thing then a real advantage is my first conclussion

that's a very incorrect conclusion.
the advantages are endless in the long run....

I can only agree wholeheartedly with DL. Do a bit more research on it, check out some of the sites, and hopefully you'll see why it's not just a "geek thing."

In brief, though, CSS makes your pages smaller (and thus faster) and easier to maintain, and they will also most likely hold up better in the future as technology advances. Tables were never meant for layout--they were used simply because there was no other choice. Now there is a choice, and I hope you make the right one. Vote your conscience.

*Vote CSS in 2003*

This message has been sponsored by the CSS for Milio's Website campaign




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Suho: www.liminality.org