Preserved Topic: It's finally here!

Well, the site's a few days late, but I finally finished it. I'm still debating which splash page I want to use (I've made two different ones.) Thanks to Darkgarden for the tutorial on a liquid effect--I used part of it in making the first splash page. I would appreciate it if you would go through and make sure the dhtml works in your browser. Each "folder" is drag-and-drop enhanced. There's a mouseover for each button, and there's a small jiggle script when you mouseover the upperleft of the interface. Please make sure all of these work and don't return any errors. The only other question I'm currently pondering, is where the color scheme of the interface is right for the background. I would appreciate some comments on that as well. Now that I've written 457898 pages, here are the links:

Splash Image (unused) http://www.liquid.focalhost.com/images/splash.jpg
Site http://www.liquid.focalhost.com/

Thanks, I hope you like it. I'll be adding the gallery images shortly.

started off working well, by the 3rd menu that came up (was Services) when I would mouseover/mouseout the layer, I got an error:

line 687

char 3

object doesn't support this property or method

code 3

Ok, went back again, it happens on the "services" and the "contact" layers.

Also, if I click on the buttons before everything loads, none of the images on the pop-up layers load.


aside from the errors, it's pretty cool. I like it <img border=0 align=absmiddle src="http://www.ozones.com/forum/biggrin.gif">

Ooops, forgot to preload the images, I'll be on that right away. That stupid DynAPI, I hope they release an updated version that fixes that error. I guess I better check it out and see if I can do something about it.

haha
That is fantastic! Really really nice.
No errors windows IE 5

One small thing is when dragging a layer around, its z-index remains (mostly) below
other open 'windows'..snow biggie,

Colours look nice to me, cant wait to see the gallery.

Top job.

Yea, I'm working on fixing that weadah. It's sorta tough. :P

Wow mbridge, awesome work. Looked fine for me in IE and windows 98 ... i havent checked NN yet Im a little tired so someone else do it okie? I didnt get any errors though ... awesome layout!!!

I've checked as many versions of ie and netscape as I have. I was really surprised when DL-44 turned up with all of those errors. <img border=0 align=absmiddle src="http://www.ozones.com/forum/frown.gif">

mbridge: nice site, nice indeed... the one thing i don't really like is how the top bar 'vibrates' or 'wiggles' when you do a mouse-over, especially considering the 4-option bar right beneath it doesn't have the same feature.

actually i'm kind of bummed, because i have been working on a new design a little bit... and my design and yours are somewhat similar. not amazingly similar, but there ARE elements... which you've done a better job with than myself. just will make me try harder i guess.

good work... hrm... 3.5/5 stars!

cheers.mikey.milker

It looks good, but I think it would have been nicer if the layers came out on the same spot(and you hided the last open one)

Looks neat. Ran into a bug when I reopened the site: none of the layer 'windows' would open when I clicked on a navbar item. The text that should have been on layers just tromped all over the main page's background.

You did manage to hit two of my pet peeves. I would have closed the site immediately if I'd just browsed there on my own.
1: Opening a second window when I click on the splash page's entry button. I hate that. One site shouldn't take up two browser windows (or three or four ...). Sort of a less evil version of the warez sites that open a kajillion windows without asking.
2: Opening a window without the toolbar and status bar. I like the status bar. I like knowing when the page is "Done". If I wanted to browse without toolbars and status bars, I'd turn them off myself.

Just my opinion, other's milage may vary <img border=0 align=absmiddle src="http://www.ozones.com/forum/wink.gif">

Good point mikey, I'll either ditch the wiggle all together and add another little "surprise" somewhere else, or I'll merge the two layers so they both move.

Einardo...I like having more than one "window" open, but I'm working on scripting it so that when you open or drag each window, it jumps to the top. I'll definitely give it some thought, maybe I will just make the windows close when you open a new one.

Das- I've thought about it alot, and I know the popup can be annoying, but it fits so well with the rest of the site, I'm afraid I'm going to leave it in a popup. <img border=0 align=absmiddle src="http://www.ozones.com/forum/frown.gif">

Thanks for the comments guys. They help alot!

mbridge: bollocks to them all! i think a pop-up window (from a splash page) and no tool bar/status bar rock the block. i'd leave those features omitted, because they really lend to the overall look of your site.

the site i said i'm working on is a 750x550 pop-up window with no tool bar or status bar either.

cheers.mikey.milker

Here's my reccomendation for not having a popup: have a frameset with your window in the middle, surrounded by four frames on the edges that are completely black. Like this:

<frameset rows="*,500,*" border=0>
<frame src="border.html" scrolling=0>
<frameset cols="*,700,*" border=0>
<frame src="border.html" scrolling=0>
<frame src="main.html" scrolling=0>
<frame src="border.html" scrolling=0>
</frameset><frame src="border.html" scrolling=0>
</frameset>

Oh, and whenever I click on any of the text inside a window, there's an error: Line 688, char 3, object doesnt support this property or method.

Also, Although I can drag most of a window, when I try to grab the little thin bar at the *top*, it doesn't come when i try to move the mouse, and then when I release it starts to move.

IE 5.0 win 98.

Mike;

Bad news from a Mac. IE5 snapped the splash page open real quickly, but the second page opened blank white - three times, so I'm sure it wasn't a fluke.

NN4.5 Mac worked okay, but was unbearably slow: splash page took 15 sec to load on a cable modem. It was wierd. The square placeholder sort of erased itself top to bottom, sort of like an interlaced GIF, or a single pixel page background. After the blank block erased itself, the puddle appeared.

Once loaded on netscape, it's lovely, and the little infoid windows are really slick. But I have to say that, if I hadn't been looking forward to seeing your site I probably would have bailed out. Oh yea, it also sort of took over netscape's will to live. When I closed the secondary window, the splash page wouldn't close or drag around the screen or anything. Finally let go, but I thought I had frozen the app.

i slapped my information in a frameset in the middle of the page for my current site.. and i hate that idea. i'm never going to do it again... it's kinda like, well if you're going to have a whole big page open, then use it.

otherwise, tiny little windows are your friends =P

cheers.mikey.milker

Has anyone else been having problems with downloading the site? It's reasonably small...especially the splash page. It's on a friends server, but he has a pretty nice server. I guess that could be the problem though. As for the white screen...I don't know what to say. I'll work on it.

Hang in there, mbridge... sites heavy on DHTML are sure to make you spend lots of time debugging.

Too right they will.

They're like 80% a piece of software ,
10% website. The result is well worth the ironing time.




<smiley> </smiley> Weadah

My one pet-peeve are browser requirements. I hate seeing "you need xxx... to view this site"

Personally I make my site using DHTML, if you don't like it go elsewhere.

However if you are trying to sell yourself,, don't limit and scare potential clients away by having site req. It's real easy to detect whether the user has an appropriate browser for your site. I'd recommend using that, then when someone clicks on the link a little JS can see if the user has the right stuff and if so pass them to this page, if not send them to a more basic "table" layout page. You have the talent to make a simple yet elegant page like this in a day or two I bet, this would also give another more realistic example of your work.

Otherwise I think it looks great and I don't mind the popup (Check out my Holy S**T post in the DHTML section it has a trick you may want to incorporate).




Walking the Earth like Kane

Yea, I may take the site requirements away. They aren't very steep anyway. The dhtml works all the way back to 4.0 in both browsers, both platforms, and should work with opera and some of the other independent browsers. The next question is...Am I motivated enough to create an html-only version? Probably not at the moment...I really need to start filling up that gallery. Not to mention debug the existing dhtml. Eventually, I probably will implement that floating window code, but it'll have to be at least a week or so.

Umm I don't mean to be a pain here because you have obviously put a lot of work on this but there are some remarkable similarities between this and the http://www.vir2l.com/ non-fullscreen site



Walking the Earth like Kane

Damn, that's the last time I trust a friend...he's gonna get it tomorow. He gave me the idea, and made a rough sketch. I thought it was a cool idea so I made the site, obviously not knowing where he got the idea from. All that work for nothing! Can't believe my (former) friend did that. I'm gonna kill him!

You guys think I need to take it down? Ugh, I'm so pissed.

I was kind of wondering about the vir2l connection as well.

Though there are other examples of people with the same sort of "style"(threeoh, kiiroi, and gmunk being the ones off the top of my head), I automatically thought vir2l when I clicked.

Odd.

Nonetheless, I like the unused splash page as well mbridge <img border=0 align=absmiddle src="http://www.ozones.com/forum/biggrin.gif">

Peter



ICQ:# 10237808

Hmm..maybe not take it down..but I'd definitely play with the design a bit..or the vir2l comparisons are going to keep coming at you <img border=0 align=absmiddle src="http://www.ozones.com/forum/wink.gif">

Bottom line..if it's yours, and you like it, keep it, and grow skin for the comparisons. If your friend ripped it, and you don't like that, then change it...but the idea is still good.

Hope it's some help.

Peter




ICQ:# 10237808