what do you think of my site?

Associate
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I've been building this site for a while now. It's for my mate's business, but it's not live yet and it's still on my webspace.

have a look and tell me what you think

here

I have to finish a boot-build section and add a gallery once he provides some photos.

I'm more interested in the initial impact. Is it easy to read? Is it easy on the eye? Does it look like a hobby or serious site?

(I'm not making any money out of this, it's just a favour for a mate)

tell me what you think.

PS I'm not interested in the "branding and marketing" aspect. This is a small company and he wants something that looks tidy and professional. If it takes off then he might invest in a pro-built site later.
 
Man of Honour
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CSS, W3C validation, what more could a man ask for :D

One thing - the menu rollovers don't work in IE7 :)

I'd also change the footer background colour to the body background colour, as that gives the site a clean finish with the footer text "below" the site. Less 'clunky' than a slightly-odd-looking shade of grey :)

Lastly, or perhaps firstly, the header image is a bit bland. I feel it needs something in centre/centre-right to attract the visitor's eye :)

But it's very nice. Weldone :)
 
Associate
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odd that the menu rollover doesn't work in IE7. It works in FF and IE6. It's a simple CSS rollover. Not really mega-important but v.strange. Is that an IE7
quirk?

I'll take your advice Beansprout and change the footer colour -thanks.

I agree that the header is bland. I wanted something else but I'm not very gifted in graphic design. Can anyone help a little on the header? something a bit more attractive but not too distracting.
 
Man of Honour
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Probably just an IE7 bug as it's still in early beta. I haven't looked at what's changed so far, but I wouldn't worry about it - by the time IE7 final is out there'll be lots of info on its new quirks :)
 
Soldato
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Very nice. Nice & neat :)
Maybe get those forums integrated ;)?

Open the template in your html editing program (if you used one), place the cursor where you want the forum, then copy all the code before your cursor and paste that into overall_header.tpl, then copy all after the cursor and put that into overall_footer.tpl. You'll need to tweak some stuff, and I have always easily integrated sites using the fisubgrey template.

Craig.
 
Last edited:

daz

daz

Soldato
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I really like that site, it's simple yet stylish, and still seems functional and easy to use. :)

Maybe you've got a smattering too many small images, perhaps break it up with a larger one.
dunno.gif
 
Soldato
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its not bad, but the inconsistency between the boxes dividing up the main, bottom and side sections are letting it down

such things include different widths, heights, outer boxes

the worst bits are

the Top Sellers box gap between it and the side box compared to the top box, id have the same gap all the way down

and the bottom of the side box should be the same as the Top Sellers bit or vice versa..
 
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gord said:
its not bad, but the inconsistency between the boxes dividing up the main, bottom and side sections are letting it down

such things include different widths, heights, outer boxes

the worst bits are

the Top Sellers box gap between it and the side box compared to the top box, id have the same gap all the way down

and the bottom of the side box should be the same as the Top Sellers bit or vice versa..


ok. I'll have a go at correcting those differences in alignment. It's a bit of a pig because of the slight differences in rendering between FF and IE.
 
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Craig321 said:
Very nice. Nice & neat :)
Maybe get those forums integrated ;)?

Open the template in your html editing program (if you used one), place the cursor where you want the forum, then copy all the code before your cursor and paste that into overall_header.tpl, then copy all after the cursor and put that into overall_footer.tpl. You'll need to tweak some stuff, and I have always easily integrated sites using the fisubgrey template.

Craig.

v. good idea. I like it.

Once I've finished a gallery section and he's decided where to host it I want to put forums actually into the site.

I've not used a template or dreamweaver. I wrote it all from scratch, except maybe the rollover menu which was snaffled from oswd.

My mate says he wants forums and is prepared to forkout for the best ... all or nothing. Is Vbulletin worth it over something like phBB?
 
Soldato
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Your Index.html file is missing, when you click on home it gives you a 404.

The information on how to order should be made more prominent, it took a little while to realise that you can't order online.

I'm getting a vertical scrollbar on the Ipod connection div on the main page (Safari 2.0.3)

The W3c things at the bottom are less than pointless in my opinion.


Other than those few points it's a nice site. There's a lot of information on display but it's all under control which is good.
 
Associate
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punky_munky said:
Your Index.html file is missing, when you click on home it gives you a 404.

The information on how to order should be made more prominent, it took a little while to realise that you can't order online.

I'm getting a vertical scrollbar on the Ipod connection div on the main page (Safari 2.0.3)

The W3c things at the bottom are less than pointless in my opinion.


Other than those few points it's a nice site. There's a lot of information on display but it's all under control which is good.

-appreciate those comments, thanks man.

had to give them bottom divs same height to get them to line up. I'll give them a bit more height when I get back later tonight. Have tested it on FF and IE, but obviously safari is a little different. I'll change it a little.

Yeah, the W3C things don't really mean much to be honest. I put them on because I noticed a lot of other sites had them. I'll take them off.

I'll get the index up and running again, I must have changed it to .htm or something. Need to recheck the nav bar references.

I'll see what I can do to make the ordering a bit more obvious, as it's by phone or going to visit the premises - not online as you rightly point out.

thanks for that, really useful.
 
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