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_gail -> Please take another look (11/8/2002 14:35:13)


I' ve made several changes and any further feedback and constructive criticisms would be so appreciated. Still have a couple of code issues I need to work out.

www.gtbdesign.com

thanks a lot, gail



Peppergal -> RE: Please take another look (11/8/2002 17:29:53)

Looks nice...I would consider putting some lines in there around your logo...either a partial outline...or something...

Here is a hasty example of what I mean...I didn' t take my time with it so it' s a little sloppy, but I think you can get the idea:




[image]http://www.frontpagewebmaster.com/upfiles/6240/Ca81229.jpg[/image]



bobby -> RE: Please take another look (11/8/2002 18:22:50)

I think your site looks really good, Gail. Nice work.

Very clean, very professional, very easy on the eyes.

I read a book last year on use of white-space in marketing. Your site is an excellent example of that... utilizing " nothing" on a page to highlight the " something"

It really makes your content stand out, or " pop" as they like to say...

My only recommendation would be to put your hyperlinks in a different color, or give them an underline... only because they look exactly like your bulleted lists... and vice-versa.


I like your logo the way it is... just my humble opinion [:)]



Mike54 -> RE: Please take another look (11/8/2002 18:28:59)

_gail,

I like it, very nice. A smoooth and silky kind of site. I like white on the whole (much easier to work with too). Unlike bobby I think peppergal is right about the suble border for the logo though.



_gail -> RE: Please take another look (11/8/2002 18:56:44)

Thanks for the suggestions. I am going to play with the logo a bit, and I did take bobby' s suggestion to underline the links. However, I do not like them in the footer area and have been trying, but don' t know how, to get rid of them.

Can anyone tell me? Will an inline style do (if so, I' m not sure how to do it)? Separate css for the footer? The footer is an include page not linked to a css sheet; it seems to be controlled by the pages into which it is inserted. Those pages are all linked to the same css.

The white space is a holdover from my page layout days. I strongly believe in the use of it for the most part and that it can be effective particularly when there is not a lot of content on pages. Still, I get worried that my site looks too " ho-hum" because most net pages are so filled up, flashing and/or funky in a nice kinda way.

Still, it' s me. " Smooooooth and silky" don' tcha know?! <LOL> [:D][;)][:p][:)] [:j]

Anyway, would welcome and appreciate more comments, and a little help getting rid of the footer link underlines.

thanks all, gail



Fuego -> RE: Please take another look (11/8/2002 21:39:59)

_gail,
I like it. It' s quiet, comforting, and a knowledgeably comfort to one wanting a website but not understanding how simple a structure can be built in all this complexity. I think more serene than silky.
There is a strong structure in the design that' s a quiet strength.
There is something to be said for the cost of space. Web designers don' t have to worry about the cost of the empty white space for an ad layout. Web designers have to worry about getting the ADs in all this progress to get past the white space with real copy/text.
All I can say is get rid of the word ' please' . Everything is so strong until that point you ask of your visitor.





Kitka -> RE: Please take another look (11/8/2002 23:55:25)

quote:

I did take bobby' s suggestion to underline the links. However, I do not like them in the footer area and have been trying, but don' t know how, to get rid of them.

Can anyone tell me? Will an inline style do (if so, I' m not sure how to do it)? Separate css for the footer?


Hi Gail,

Yes, it is easy using CSS. Just add the following to your " design.css" style sheet:

A.footer:link {text-decoration: none; color: #666666;}
A.footer:visited {text-decoration: none; color: #666666;}
A.footer:hover {text-decoration: none; color: #9119DD; }
A.footer:active {text-decoration: none; color: #111111;}

Then refer to it in your links in the following fashion...

<a class=" footer" href=" services.htm" >design services</a> and apply the class to every link in your footer.

BTW - you need to remove the </style> which comes just before your comment:
/* end scrollbar code*/

It could mean any CSS after it will be ignored by some browsers. It is an HTML tag which is not needed anywhere in a seperate style sheet.

Kitka




_gail -> RE: Please take another look (11/9/2002 7:21:52)

Kitka,

I appreciate the step-by-step instructions. I finally got it to work and your illustration is one of those where it finally makes things " click" after struggling for a long while.

Fuego, your comments are very interesting, written rather profoundly. I thank you for them. I actually did remove the " please." Was raised to say " please" and " thank you" to a fault, but what you suggested is interesting and appropriate.

bobby, I actually used different bullets for the footer now. They are darker and the same as what shows when you place a cursor over the image rollovers at the top each page.

All the replies in the tread have been very helpful. If there are other comments and suggestions, let ' em come. www.gtbdesign.com I was going to close by saying thank you but I won' t.

gracias, gail [;)]


ps regarding this: " you need to remove the </style> "

I really do wish FrontPage would stop throwing in all that extaneous code. [:D][:p] Nice to have someone else to blame for my little oversights. [:j]



_gail -> RE: Please take another look (11/10/2002 20:25:26)


quote:

ORIGINAL: Kitka

Yes, it is easy using CSS. Just add the following to your " design.css" style sheet:

A.footer:link {text-decoration: none; color: #666666;}
A.footer:visited {text-decoration: none; color: #666666;}
A.footer:hover {text-decoration: none; color: #9119DD; }
A.footer:active {text-decoration: none; color: #111111;}

Then refer to it in your links in the following fashion...

<a class=" footer" href=" services.htm" >design services</a> and apply the class to every link in your footer.



I' m still trying to grasp the concept here. Do I understand this correctly?
All text on an entire page is controlled by the css page to which it is linked, including hyperlinks in paragraph text and in include pages.

With regard to ALL hyperlinks on the page, they are controlled by these:

A:link { }
A:visited { }
A:hover { }
A:active { }

However, if I want to apply secondary links on the page such as below, I must add an inline style to the code around each hyperlink. eg. <a class=" footer" ....... </a>

A.footer:link {}
A.footer:visited {}
A.footer:hover { }
A.footer:active {}

I don' t seem to be able to apply any other link styles, other than the A' s, through FP dropdown style menu.

That' s mucho hand-coding, isn' t it, if you have many hyperlinks within paragraphs an a lot of pages?! Or am I missing something?!

gail







Kitka -> RE: Please take another look (11/10/2002 21:44:41)


quote:

ORIGINAL: _gail

I' m still trying to grasp the concept here. Do I understand this correctly?
All text on an entire page is controlled by the css page to which it is linked, including hyperlinks in paragraph text and in include pages.


Yes - except if it is overridden by either an Internal Style Sheet (inside the <head> tag) or an Inline style (inside an HTML element). This where the " cascade" comes in - they are strictly prioritised.

quote:


With regard to ALL hyperlinks on the page, they are controlled by these:

A:link { }
A:visited { }
A:hover { }
A:active { }

However, if I want to apply secondary links on the page such as below, I must add an inline style to the code around each hyperlink. eg. <a class=" footer" ....... </a>


That is not inline style because it is still getting its style from your external style sheet. Inline style would look something like this:

<span style=" font-size: 11px; font-weight: bold;
text-decoration: underline; color: #000000;" ><a href=" home.htm" >......... </a></span>

quote:

I don' t seem to be able to apply any other link styles, other than the A' s, through FP dropdown style menu.


I am not sure what you are saying. If you have coded your external css with all your different link styles you can apply them through the FP drop down style box. For instance you will look for grey or footer (near the bottom of the list as they are class attributes) and choose the one you want.

quote:


That' s mucho hand-coding, isn' t it, if you have many hyperlinks within paragraphs an a lot of pages?! Or am I missing something?!


Where do you need to hand-code? CSS is supposed to reduce drastically or eliminate hand coding! I think I am not understanding something you are trying to say.[&:]

I hope this helps a little... good luck and keep asking questions![:)]



_gail -> RE: Please take another look (11/11/2002 7:01:11)

Kitka,

Theoretically, I really do understand a lot of what you' ve said. In practicality it isn' t working out. It does work if I insert inline styles but as you indicated, this defeats the purpose of css in terms of formating a lot of pages with a lot of links.

The code for the links in my stylesheet are below. I' ve also uploaded a gif of the FP style drop down menu. You can see that all my styles are listed there for everything EXCEPT links so I obviously can' t access them.

Any thoughts as to why they aren' t appearing?

thanks, gail



A:link {text-decoration: none; color: #48d58e;}
A:visited {text-decoration: none; color: #48d58e;}
A:hover {text-decoration: none; color: #ff0000;}
A:active {text-decoration: none; color: #fffff;}



A.par:link {font-size: 10px; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline; color: #339966;}
A.par:visited {font-size: 10px; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline; color: #339966;}
A.par:hover {font-size: 10px; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; color: #ff0000;}
A.par:active {font-size: 10px; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline; color: #999999;}



A.bold:link {font-size: 11px; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline; color: #339966;}
A.bold:visited {font-size: 11px; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline; color: #339966;}
A.bold:hover {font-size: 11px; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; color: #ff0000;}
A.bold:active {font-size: 11px; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline; color: #999999;}


[image]http://www.frontpagewebmaster.com/upfiles/1556/Mk26180.gif[/image]



Kitka -> RE: Please take another look (11/11/2002 7:51:55)

Hi Gail,

The code you quote looks okay on its own, but I' d like to see the whole style sheet. Would you post a link please.



_gail -> RE: Please take another look (11/11/2002 8:22:07)

Here it is.

http://www.gtbdesign.com/CAFE/csscode.htm



Kitka -> RE: Please take another look (11/11/2002 9:34:22)


Hi gail,

I get the same effect in the drop down style box of FP with your style sheet, but none of mine. I am guessing that perhaps you have more styles than the size of the box can cope with.

Other than that, I don' t see any important errors - except two of your colour values are slight incorrect: H6 has two #s in front, and your A:active colour is missing one f. However, fixing these doesn' t help them appear in the style box in FP.

I desperately need to go to bed and get some sleep (almost 1.30am here) - maybe something I' ll think of something by morning - or some else will have a suggestion.



_gail -> RE: Please take another look (11/11/2002 9:34:53)

maybe it would help too, if I explain what I' m trying to do.

Some pages will need third-tier links, such as here:

http://www.gtbdesign.com/CAFE/motivations.htm

Such pages are linked to the external css, but links need to be underlined and a darker green.

I' ve used an inline style on the example page for " Good Things About Not Smoking" (it works but after seeing the example above, I' m not sure I wrote it altogether correctly).

This is so frustrating because I' m incredibly busy and need to get this done by mid afternoon. Wish this this type of stuff would happen during my dull weeks but it seems not to happen that way. [;)]

btw, I have to do the same challenge with the sidebar include links.[:o]

thanks again, gail



abbeyvet -> RE: Please take another look (11/11/2002 9:49:26)

I have never known classes of a to appear in the FP dropdown menu.

As far as I am aware you just have to write in the class statement in the HTML by hand.



_gail -> RE: Please take another look (11/11/2002 10:34:47)

Thanks ladies for your imput on the css.

Thinking outloud...

I wonder if it would be better to add the class statements to the includes where there is a rather fixed and small number of links compared to those which will be added in body text. I could adjust the include links for paragraph text.

Does this make sense? Any of you use this route?

thanks, gail



bobby -> RE: Please take another look (11/11/2002 11:23:09)

Gail -

The .footer class works really well... I usually just go into html view and add the class=" footer" to each of the links.

Since it' s on an inlclude page you only have a few to do...

But if you want, you can try to add the class to your FP menu...

Format > Style + New

That should let you add your own class name to the menu. Just double check that it' s inserting the proper html when you use the DD menu. Personally I' ve come to rely more and more on the html view in FP...

The exteraneous code you mentioned above... by hand typing some of the html you can avoid a lot of that... [:)]

I' m defeating the purpose of a WYSIWYG editor in a lot of ways, but I' ve found that it' s easier for me than going in after the fact and deleting a bunch of <span> and <div> tags... among others [;)]



Kitka -> RE: Please take another look (11/11/2002 22:53:31)

Hi gail,

<confession>I am a hand-coder from years back. So even though I use FP extensively now, hand-coding is a darned hard habit to break - especially for removing the junk html that FP adds someplaces. But I rarely use the FP dropdown style box.

When I looked at my style sheet, which has a white variant of the a:link selector, I saw white in my drop down box and (it being very late at night!) completely forgot that I also had p.white class ... duh [:p][:j]
</confession>

Thank goodness for abbeyvet and Bobby stepping in to help! [:)]

Ain' t this place great [:D]



_gail -> RE: Please take another look (11/12/2002 7:49:42)


quote:

ORIGINAL: Kitka

Hi gail,

Thank goodness for abbeyvet and Bobby stepping in to help! [:)]

Ain' t this place great [:D]



Yes! It is. And thank you too for stepping in to help me, here and in other threads. As previously mentioned, a lot of what you' ve written helped cement things in my mind. I do think some of this stuff has started clicking. [:)]

When you think about it, though, some of the most valuable lessons come from " duh" moments. I speak with authority. I' ve had LOTS of them.! [;)]

gail



Kitka -> RE: Please take another look (11/12/2002 8:00:31)

quote:

ORIGINAL: _gail
When you think about it, though, some of the most valuable lessons come from " duh" moments. I speak with authority. I' ve had LOTS of them.! [;)]


Thanks gail - I' m feeling heaps better now you said that! [:)][:D]



bobby -> RE: Please take another look (11/15/2002 12:58:25)

I prefer to think of " duh" moments as " lightbulb" moments where something clicks and suddenly all is right with the world...

This is mainly because if I thought of them as " duh" moments I' d get really depressed... they are far too frequent!




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