Preserved Topic: Site Critique/Review

hey, only the main categories are up. No subcategories/content pages. http://www.charmedsite.f2s.com/

thanks
ACO

I think I remember this page from last time you posted it, and compared to that I think it is a great improvement
I don't really see the purpose of the splash page. But then I am not a very big fan of spash pages in general. Seems useless.

I do not like it that you change the cursor to crosshair when I move over the links. Just leave my cursor alone!

The layout of the page itself is good, I think. The meny is easy to use. Maybe you should hightlight the one you have selected by something more than just removing the black frame, but it is still not bad the way it is. I like the grayscale design with just a few colours like for the face to the top right.
You might want to change the background colour away from black on the pages, because if the background image does not load it will be impossible to read the page as it is now.

I don't care much for the backgrond. To me that brings down the whole look of the page. If you want to keep it I personally think that the page would benefit from a 1px black border around the actual content, to separate it more from the background.

good work!

your blending got a LOT better than last time.... I'll give you credit for that...

Your background image isn't very seamless --fix it

Don't change my cursor to a crosshair... ever...

Other than that...... you got a good start.

i got some errors on the page. something wrong on line 89 characters 21 and 22. not being picky or anything, but just letting you know.

the site looks nice. (besides the background image not blending very well and the dang cursors changing.) keep working on it, you'll get it right.

blue
- if at first you don't succeed, destroy all evidence that you tried...

Ok the crosshair cursors are gone from everything but the splash image (I don't know why but I like it there lol), and I put a black border around the entire table and the cells background is now white instead of black. Thanks so much for your help. And as for the errors umm.. I'm working on them lol I can't seem to figure out whats doing what wrong. Thanks
ACO

if you are using IE, go into your options and check 'display notification about every error.' apply the changes and move your mouse over your links up top. an error message should pop-up. see what you can do from there.

blue
- if at first you don't succeed, destroy all evidence that you tried...

ok I think what was messing it up was my javascript to highlight the cells onmouseover that never worked. I got rid of it completely until i can figure out how to get the borderize and highlight to work. Do ya'll think I should just leave off the highlight and do the style like it is now? Anyways no more errors popped up on mine. Thanks

Are you talking about the menu? Personally I think I would like it better if the mouseover was only the change in border colour, and have no change on the text. As it is now it feels almost like i have accidentally highlighted the text, since it is inverted.
Only changing the border colour is a nice subtle effect that fits well with the rest of the page. And there is no real need to change the text also.
But as I said, that is only IMHO

okies the text highlight and color change is gone. And i made the one for the page yur on bold to make it stand out more like u said earlier.

3p clicks, and decides to enter, even though he hase none of the prerequisited "charmed love".
after a short amount of browsing, he feels he has enough of an impression of the site to make a critique.
"ok, charmed1," he begins, "i think ill just list the things i do and dont like, hope that's ok!"
smiling, cause he knows that even if it isnt ok, he's gonnna keep writing anyway.
"well, let's start with the good!"
collaborating all the virtues of the site, threep unloads:
"colors, faded photo bg, fonts, layout, information structure (mostly), the nice thick borders, and the general feel of the site."
he takes a deep breath, and starts his assault:
"now, the bad!"
"-and this is the best bit!" he adds, with an evit smirk.
"the splash page:
1) doesnt fit in with the rest of the site,
2) doesnt look good
3) it useless.
now, the easiest way to tell that it is useless is the fact that you havent even linked to it from anywhere in the site itself."
pretty sure he has made his point, threep moves on:
"the background of the entire site looks nice but the pattern clearly repeats, as already pointed out by.."
- he checks the previous posts - "acidbox. and the other background - the one with the photos - repeats, and that looks yuck. it should entirely fill in the content box."
trying to pick more faults, he returns to the site.
"ok, another thing - no mouseovers on the menu options is always a vice in my opinon. interactivity is never a bad thing. i thought that having a 'vote for me' page was a bit, well, self centered, but the wording redeemed it. i wasnt impressed, however, when i saw that this wording repeated in the links section. keep it to one page only, i would suggest. you should reward your viewers for browsing around by giving them fresh content with every click."
looking at the header/title area of the page, he feels this too needs some comment.
"the 'mists of time' section really isnt very well composed. the color faces are too colored, and they blur into each other, and the balance is off, and the face sizes are neither uniform nor varied. i like what you're trying to do, but the execution was a bit off this time."
deciding its time to go and do some work, threep signs off:
"ill quickly say that i was a 'lurker' when you posted previous pages, and this one is a vast improvement. keep up the fantastic work, i only wish my skills could improve at the rate yours are."

Ok to respond to what u said:

-splash is temporary (in that im going to do a new one when i get the whole layout up),
-background (i assume yur talking about the one of the three girls) will fill the whole area once i get the whole site converted to iframes (yes im using iframes for now cause i've spent the whole weekend trying to figure out a way to get lotsa content into little space for ns4.x and can't and if i do no scrolls it makes the site look bad IMHO if u know any way to do this in ns plz tell me... i tried layers, divs, and ilayers but none worked),
-the vote page is cause when i enter Site contests a requirement is that i have the contest button on the site and instead of just sticking buttons everywhere i made a section for it
-mouseovers on the subcategories (probably highlight or color change) once all pages are finished cause i'm going to focus on content before addition stuff (if that makes sense)
-reasons i did the main banner the way I did is this (and you'd have to watch the show to get it but i figure pple viewing the site watch the show in the most part) Shannon (colored one on the far right) just quit the show so i put her away from the other 2 girls, Leo and Cole (black and white people/faces) are secondary characters to the girls, Cole i just did eyes for because he is an unknown because the writers can make him go good or evil and he hasn't been there as long as Leo, Phoebe and Prue are for sure staying and good so i put them together and I put all the sisters in color because they are the main characters. Hehe now that u see a method to my madness over the banner umm.. i think i responded to everything.

Thanks for critiquing it. If I ever get f2s to let me upload I'm going to try to get most all of the sections (cept photo galleries) done tonite.

Try using show and hid div layers instead of using different pages. The text is the only thing that changes on the site. You could easily make 2 different div layers, and swap them on call. I believe this would speed things up for the navigation.

The links page navigation doesn't work right, not the same as the other pages. Maybe give us a mouseover for the navigation, on pages other than the main page.

Kill the splash page in its entirety. With the cursor change you implemented I had no idea where I should click to enter the page.

There is some sort of JS error on the page, the warning box says so

Good site, little more work needed.

Umm ok the javascript error should be gone (i had an open style tag blocking it), the splash image has been redone and made to go with the site, there is no more mouse change anywhere, and I did mouseovers on the links for the subcategories.

threep returns for a quick re-evaluation:
"well, charmed1," he begins,
"the splash page - nicer (although the white is a tad overbearing), yet still redundant.
the mouseovers are very tidy, i had no problem with the 'vote for me' section, it made perfect sense, but the 'links' setion had the same text, and its now changed, so i have no problems there!
the grey cloudy background still looks too patterned, but apart from that, i like your improvements!"
threep bids charmedone adieu, and gets back to work!

hmm... ok f2s keeps messing up (ftp down, and now they are having a server problem loading my page) so all i'm going to leave on there is ubb since its such a bother to move....like the new address for the site (i got it hosted by my friend and i'll give him a plug now, http://www.numbaa1.co.uk/ ) the new addy is http://www.acharmedsite.net/ and I'm workin on a background/sumthin to not be so white for the splash. The files may not load right cause the account was just opened and stuff so if u get errors/problems sorry i have to be at work in a few hours so im going to bed. Any problems loading should be fixed by 2morrow nite.

~Sup Ally? I like yur layout on f2s just hope u dont have the same problems with it that i have over the past few days.