Topic: Another update (Page 1 of 1)

I've just redone the look for my site again, and I'd like some feedback, please.

It's nothing fancy, just a personal site for my own amusement, and to store some of the graphics work I've done. I've already noticed some of the content itself needs updating, but beyond that, how does everything look? I do have NS 7.1 and Opera 7.11 and I did a quick check, but I don't use either browser (or others for that matter) regularly. I'm using css for as much of the site as possible, but I still have tables for the text, etc since redoing all the old information another way would be a very time consuming process that I'm not ready to take on yet.

Any suggestions or advice would be appreciated. Thanks!

Doh! Almost forgot the link -> http://lahutton.50megs.com or the link is in my sig.

_____________________
le coeur du feu
Qui sème le vent récolte la tempête!

Looks very good.

Don't have much to say about the layout and design. Nice colors, and easy to read text, all good Only thing I can see is that the spacing between the 'text title' and the red date stamp should be bigger, on some headings they are very close together. A couple of pixels more would do.

I would also suggest adding some more spacing to the copyright notice at the bottom of the page. It is very hard to read it right now. On the about page you say that your name is at the bottom of the page, but the only page where you have it is on the 'home' page. You should have the copyright notice on all the pages.

There is also a minor thing with the menu. The link leading to the current page should be styled different from the other links, so the user will have an easier time to see where he is on the page.

Another thing I thought of that might make the page look better (but might be difficult to implement without a CSS layout) is to have the left border plus flower thing stationary while the rest of the page scroll over it. Only difference from what you have now is that the flower would always stay in the top left corner. The good thing about that - except looking fancy - is that user will have an easier time identifying the content he is reading with your page, since he his always reminded of it by the flower. Without it the page lacks it's 'special' feel.

Code wise there are a couple of issues. First of all you should chose a Doctype and make the page your page validate according to it. Right now you've got a XHTML Doctype, but it doesn't validate. You should either switch to a HTML4.01 Doctype - which will decrease the number of errors, or even make the page validate - or you should make the page comply to the XHTML Doctype you've chosen. I would go for the second option

Moving away from a table based layout to a CSS layout isn't much work once you get used to working with CSS, and in your case I think a CSS based layout will be far easier to work with than the current table based one. If you're planning on working with web things you should learn CSS, and what better place to take the plunge than on your own personal homepage?

_________________________
"There are 10 kinds of people; those who know binary, those who don't and those who start counting at zero"
- the Golden Ratio - Vim Tutorial -

Thanks for the review, Veneficuz. I'm learning CSS on my own, and picking things up as I go. Believe me, I've improved a lot from when I first started playing with CSS, but I'm having some trouble making that final leap to a full layout.

I'm sure I could have the flower be stationary, I do know how to do that, just didn't even think of that. Thanks!

Any suggestions for setting off the active page so viewers know what one they are on? Besides having a page title marker of some sort. The main navigation menu doesn't cover everything since "Art" has 4 subchoices on the page, and I don't have a separate menu for those except there. Similar for "Writings."

I use Dreamweaver to create my sites, and probably added the doctype incorrectly. In fact, I'm pretty sure that is what happened there. I work with a WYSIWYG editor best because I think of my site in graphical terms only, and looking only at the code messes me up. I've tried and while the results were less than stellar, I know I need to work on them more. I am to the point where I don't rely on DWs coding alone, I do go check things out and change and add what I'm looking for instead of just letting the program do it for me.

I'll keep working on things. As you said, what better place to play around with than my own personal site.

_____________________
le coeur du feu
Qui sème le vent récolte la tempête!