My Portfolio Site

Broadbandplacey · 14 Oct 2006 at 23:18

please take a look, quite a few hours of coding in this website!!!

http://www.michaelplace.co.uk/

the photography tab is the one you lot will want to see.

All of the content is managed in a mySQL database and being handled via PHP. C&C wanted, plus any problems please tell me. Its coded for safari and looks fine to my knowledge in firefox but dont know about IE.

p.s. i know the menu doesnt valign properly in firefox, not discovered why yet.

Flibster · 14 Oct 2006 at 23:25

The latest photo's bit doesn't work in Opera - gets this error...

Warning: mysql_fetch_row(): supplied argument is not a valid MySQL result resource in /home/inadaze/public_html/individual.php on line 32

Plus a load of the links point to completely different photo's... It's really weird.

Click on painting - get petroleum power
Click on @work - get more movement

Most of the links on the first page of waterscapes don't load anything either.

Looks cool though.

Simon/~Flibster

Broadbandplacey · 14 Oct 2006 at 23:26

oh yeah woops, knew there was one last thing i had to do... not sure about the error in opera though

/edit/ all sorted, ill look into the opera error now

Jotun · 15 Oct 2006 at 00:06

Looks good, although I think it could do with a "Next Photo" and "Previous Photo" link on the individual photo pages.

You need to change individual.php so that if a row isn't specified it doesn't return an error (perhaps goes to the photography.php page instead.

Also i'd think about changing it possibly so that it has the file name in the URL, eg http://www.michaelplace.co.uk/individual.php?image=29 would make it easier to link people directly to images. Doing this rather than using forms would also have the benefit that visitors can open images in a new window, (or in the case of opera and firefox, new tab).

No criticisms on your photography though, it is all great

Colin_da_Killer · 15 Oct 2006 at 01:34

I got a link up to you on my website, great job on the website Michael, looks and works great!

My only crit is the photos you have under "Portrait" aren't portraits.

Johnny|lucidcomposure · 15 Oct 2006 at 03:32

Nor is portraits spelt correctly. Yours is potraits

cyKey · 15 Oct 2006 at 11:01

Oh dear

I don't think the cliched Web2.0 style logo really works. Its way too cheesy. The navigation bar stretches all the way across the screen and on a high-res it doesn't look great. Your photography navigation jumps up and down too. I don't think the cross out effect across the menus works either. Also, clicking on an image to view it bigger leaves the site. Its always best to keep everything inside the site. Some people will wonder how to get back. Seems silly but its true. Lastly, tables! Ew ewewww!

The irony of a Web2.0 logo and a table based site

In this day and age you should be looking at XHTML and CSS for the coding of a site. Sorry to be so harsh, but if this was a photo I'd be just as harsh only to help you correct your mistakes and produce something better.

Deleted member 11679 · 15 Oct 2006 at 11:20

It's a good initial effort but I'd definately call it site version 1.0...you can now spend sometime (forever!) tweaking it until you have it perfect.

Nice to see someone doing a portfolio site that isn't just a use of pre-built site templates

ElDude · 15 Oct 2006 at 13:38

What Cykey said, and also I'd definately change the colour of those blue bars. It doesn't go with the site at all.

Better than my first attempt though, I can assure you!

Broadbandplacey · 15 Oct 2006 at 16:37

cyKey said:
Oh dear I don't think the cliched Web2.0 style logo really works. Its way too cheesy. The navigation bar stretches all the way across the screen and on a high-res it doesn't look great. Your photography navigation jumps up and down too. I don't think the cross out effect across the menus works either. Also, clicking on an image to view it bigger leaves the site. Its always best to keep everything inside the site. Some people will wonder how to get back. Seems silly but its true. Lastly, tables! Ew ewewww! The irony of a Web2.0 logo and a table based site In this day and age you should be looking at XHTML and CSS for the coding of a site. Sorry to be so harsh, but if this was a photo I'd be just as harsh only to help you correct your mistakes and produce something better.

thanks cykey,

tables arnt dead, for one element of my website i tried (... and tried and tried) using css (to get the menu and the content split correctly and the footer to still work normally underneath) in the end its far far easier to use a table.

and until CSS is properly added to all browsers i wont be using it fully, i've tried, failed and spent many hours trying to get something that looks the same across many browsers. Having said that i love CSS and use it as much as possible, i just dont think its best to criticize something wholeheartedly that still actually works, when the new kid in town has its failings too (mainly IE).

i will change the spelling of portrait now, also am looking into changing the individual look into CSS so its nearly all CSS. also on the list to be changed is the full image, which i'll open in a new window. oh and i'll reciprocate the link.

thanks for all your comments

cyKey · 15 Oct 2006 at 16:44

Huh. There are plenty of designers using CSS based designs cross browser. Its not really that hard. Even with the small glitches in IE its still better to build a CSS based site than a tables based one. I don't get what you mean by untill CSS is added to browsers. Opera/FF/Safari all work quite quite nicely with CSS. I've built many a site that works fine in all 3 and then tweaked it for IE.

Broadbandplacey · 15 Oct 2006 at 16:46

Evil-Penguin said:
Also i'd think about changing it possibly so that it has the file name in the URL, eg http://www.michaelplace.co.uk/individual.php?image=29 would make it easier to link people directly to images. Doing this rather than using forms would also have the benefit that visitors can open images in a new window, (or in the case of opera and firefox, new tab).

haha, id love to but im totally self taught, and seeing as i havent done it before i dont know how too, any links that would help me out on this one?

Broadbandplacey · 15 Oct 2006 at 16:51

cyKey said:
Huh. There are plenty of designers using CSS based designs cross browser. Its not really that hard. Even with the small glitches in IE its still better to build a CSS based site than a tables based one. I don't get what you mean by untill CSS is added to browsers. Opera/FF/Safari all work quite quite nicely with CSS. I've built many a site that works fine in all 3 and then tweaked it for IE.

true, my websites look fine in three browsers, after a bit of tweaking, but then you have to add on hacks for IE, but to add on hacks you need to know why IE handles CSS differently in different situations and what to replace it with. For pro web designers who have been doing it some time and have training in it then well done, im just saying for me at this stage im using tables, if you didnt read my code you'd barely be able to tell the difference right?

and please someone tell me what's wrong with using a table other than it not being fashionable in web design terms!?!

im not a table hugging hippie or anything, and i like a well coded CSS site as the next man, but whats the issue with tables?

cyKey · 15 Oct 2006 at 17:26

Broadbandplacey said:
and please someone tell me what's wrong with using a table other than it not being fashionable in web design terms!?!

They're not "fashionable" for some very valid reasons. Points for CSS;

* Improved accessibility
* Increases apparent rendering speed
* Greater flexibility
* Easier to maintain
* Less markup (file size savings)
* Better SEO

http://adactio.com/articles/1109/

http://davespicks.com/essays/notables.html

Jotun · 15 Oct 2006 at 17:38

Broadbandplacey said:
haha, id love to but im totally self taught, and seeing as i havent done it before i dont know how too, any links that would help me out on this one?

It's fairly straight forward to do really, a quick google throws up this, which seems like one of the simpler explanations. This is a quick guide for static pages, you should be able to replace include "$id.html"; with a query to display each image

I'm completely self taught aswell

ElDude · 15 Oct 2006 at 21:05

You can actually do a site easily. If you're lazy like me (I couldn't be bothered spending days designing another site, especially since it's been 2 years since I did it last) you can use Wordpress which has loads of themes for it, and a gallery of your choice (I used Gallery).

I know my site is very basic (and I've mainly used it for ranting about Vodafone being awful) but it does what I need. Admittedly the gallery looks a bit noobish, but that's probably on par with my photography skill

{edit} I forgot to mention. The reason I mentioned Wordpress is because it uses CSS.

Diskbox · 15 Oct 2006 at 22:08

off topic

you at scarborough campus uni? or live nearby?

Broadbandplacey · 15 Oct 2006 at 22:27

i live about 18 miles down the coast in brid, not actually at uni this year - but should be back next year.

/edit/ how on earth did you know i was at scar uni? :confused:

Broadbandplacey · 19 Oct 2006 at 23:42

for those of you who were wondering this (ive spent a few days trawling the net)

to get you url to display your variables from form submission use method="GET" and not method="POST". its that simple.

so ive got that one cracked and im working towards removing as many tables as i can. also simplifying the contact page and changing the colours.

watch this space V2.0 will be coming soon

My Portfolio Site

Deleted member 11679

Deleted member 11679