There is one page that is huge (stay away from MPs Votes if you've got Netscape or are in a hurry) I'm still trying to work that problem out.

Better warn you, if you're strongly anti-hunting you may not want to bother.

thanks

The biggest weakness I saw on your site was the navigation. I'm afraid it's not very straightforward. You need to have a place on each page where the top level pages are always available, then a place where your secondary navigation can always be found.

The logo could stand to be anti-aliased.

I saw at least some of the graphics did not have alternate text. I would get rid of the borders around the thumbnail pics.

The text size on the home page is not consistent with the rest of the site.

It looks like you've done a lot of research.

Good luck with it.
Sandy

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Stu Reilly Design
Allegheny Web
Dreamweaver Sites

Were you using Netscape - All the text is Arial 12 (except the news links) but the drop down on the front page changes the text size (I think) and haven't worked out a way around that.

Graphics I'm bad at (had to look up anti-aliasing) - but I'm working on it.

Actually, the design side was far harder than the content - I worked in field sports PR for 6 years and wrote a book on it a few years ago so it was all there. HTML now - that's still almost a foreign language, but I sure wish I'd found this site earlier.

Sandy

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Stu Reilly Design
Allegheny Web
Dreamweaver Sites

The top part of your page, including the navigation, should be an include page. Open the index page and "save as" ...make a new folder called include (not necessary, just for organization) and then name the page something like top.htm -- then delete everything on the page except the top section.

...or you could copy the top section/paste to a new page and save.

Now go back to the index page, delete the top part and Insert > Include Page > browse to the one you want. Once you have it set up this way, you can change only the include page but have the changes show on all pages that are using it.

I would suggest re-doing the images and not compressing them down so far. They could be sharper. The top_sites.jpg should have an underscore instead of the dash and this probably would be sharper and a smaller file size if you save it as a gif.

You're doing good.

Linda

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VShoppingCart - Compatible with PayPal, CheckSpace, and Authorize.net.
New Frontpage Web Templates: Rose1 (Invitation) and White Rose

I'm playing with the pics - the left hand one I've improved but the right hand one I've made too big - haven't quite decided if its better to add text in the image programme or in FP - the latter seems to increase the file size considerably.

I don't particularly want to change the top-sites logo unless abs. essential as it's linked to about 12 other sites and they'd all have to change.

Many thanks for your help!

Linda

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VShoppingCart - Compatible with PayPal, CheckSpace, and Authorize.net.
New Frontpage Web Templates: Rose1 (Invitation) and White Rose

Linda, thank you so much. And Vince has sent me a new version which should address the other Netscape glitch. I shall have a play with it and let you know how I get on. Thanks again for your help.

Some General points first:

Your site manifestly succeeds in doing what it's set up to do - the website for a campaigning organisation.

Navigation - one can find one's way around pretty easily. I liked the touch of the "hound links" to go home/send an email.

However because it's a campaign site you need to make navigation what my american friends call a "no brainer" - perhaps you should consider adding a "home" and "send us an email" link to the navigation bars at the top and bottom of the pages below yuor start page.

Specific problem:

Your "MPs and how they voted page." doesn't work well in opera. Apologies for using this expression but it looks dreadful.

The moment I saw that page I knew what the problem was but I went in and had a look at your source code anyway.
:-)

You've generated that page using Excel - and it has put a heap of office specific mark up into it. The net effect of this office specific markup is twofold:

1. In several places your columns flow into another creating an unreadable "alphabet soup."

2. Because of the way the tags are generated you get stacks of uneeded code that drastically slow the page down.

3. Not sure that such a monolothic design works - you might do a lot better to have it *and* links to subsets such as;

a - by party.
b - by region.
c - town vs. country MPs?
d - MPs who to re-coin a phrase "need some work."

All of this could be very easily done using filtering in Excel.

If your not sure how to do this you can contact me and I'll "walk" you through it by phone.

The phone number on my website

www.computerdriving.com is the one to ring.

Specific remedy:

Microsoft supply a free (and excellent) tool for exporting data from excel and word into html.

You can get it at the address below:

http://office.microsoft.com/downloads/2000/Msohtmf2.aspx

Do make sure to print out that page, and to follow it's links 'though.

Hope all that helped.

Mark Saunders
aka marksaunders@techie.com

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Hope this helps :-)
Gorilla
aka Mark Saunders

www.computerdriving.com

Once I get the drop down menu to work on all pages that should improve navigation further (don't know if I want to make it completely 'no-brainer' for people to e-mail me - that would boost the abusive and threatening e-mails I get!!)

Thanks again (it will be useful with Word files too!)

regards
Janet George

I'm delighted that helped - forgot to mention that when you're in normal view the following shortcut key:

CTRL + /

will toggle showing the tags on the page in question this can be awfully helpful and has saved my bacon repeatedly - generally when I've done something dimwitted late at night on autopilot :-)

Ouch! - (re: abusive emails and see further below. )

Re: Navigation I think I'd still be inclined to put a link back to your homepage 'though.

This may be more trouble than it's worth at present - *particularly* if you're going to be putting the menu (which is very nicely done btw) throughout the site.

Abusive Email: Obviously I don't know what email client you're using (don't want to know either if you're getting abusive emails that's one piece of information I'd hate to see posted on a public forum) so these points are general:

Microsoft Software:

Outlook and Outlook epxress both have an option to scan message content and pop it into folders.

Outlook express

Tools|Message Rules|Mail

Outlook same menu but it has a wizard to walk you through it.

Don't forget that in each you can see the full header info for the email as well.

Eudora:

Tools|Filters.

Further general email security:

I wouldn't be inclined to delete abusive messages - but I would pop 'em into a special folder and perhaps export them as raw text. Maybe a good name for such a folder might be evidence. Or ~!£$%^&! [ancient gorillaish swearwords which I decline to translate as I don't want the moderator giving out to me! :-)]

Incidentally I *never* open a html message irrespective of who it's from, and I never open an attachment either unless I know who it's from and am expecting it.

General security:

You *do* have a firewall don't you?

If not, in my professional opininion (ye gods that sounds pompous - can't be helped 'though sorry!) The best one is zone alarm.

Here's a download link:

http://www.zdnet.com/downloads/allhot/hotfree.html

There are heaps of email scanners as well.

Final Point: - I often give *freeby* and i emphasis the word freeby, seminars to charities etc. Just a thought ...

Kind regards,

Mark

PS: To moderator - would a posting on the points re: email etc be helpful in one of your more general fora?

mps

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Hope this helps :-)
Gorilla
aka Mark Saunders

www.computerdriving.com

I wish I'd found you when I was running a charity - they needed all the help they could get.

Your short-cut! so easy when you know how.

The abusive e-mails are specifically targeted and I always spot them - don't care much now I'm on btinternet anytime and they're not adding to the phone bill. Actually, I quite enjoy them - proves I'm annoying people I like to annoy!

I haven't got a firewall - although I do have a virus programme. When I get my new computer I'll get one - but this poor little thing is quite literally full up!

I just WISH I could get to grips with the Netscape/Front Page problem - I thought I had but everytime I TOUCH my sites it goes wrong again. I've started to put the drop-down on all pages - using the include page - and none of them will preview in Netscape.

It is a PAIN - is there a simple solution?? (Other than ignoring Netscape users!)

Yes it Is a pain - but a lot of it has to do with how different browsers treat tables. Netscape complains if tables are nested too deep (later versions are somewhat better.)

And you have to check the arithmetic for tables. Personally I prefer to use pixels as my unit of measurement - it gives me a bit more control - also (don't laugh) I find it easier to keep track of a number like 640 pixels for the main table and 630 pixels for the nested table and 600 for the nested table inside that than percentages. I think this is a "big endian" vs "little endian" sort of thing so if your're happier with percentages stick to using those.

Right clicking and selecting cell and table properties as appropriate brings up the magic dialogue boxes :-)

One thing to avoid *like the plague* is manually dragging rows/columns around it messes things up big time.

Also do make sure that you check out the tables forum here on outfront it's a goldmine!

Drop netscape? - maybe but it's a short term solution at best - as new versions of internet explorer are going to move more towards w3c standards compliance. But the nice thing about being you in your capacity as site controller is that it's up to you.

There is a way of forcing frontpage to take account of netscape when it's generating the code. I'm 0nly 95% certain that my memory of how to do it is correct - but as I'll be in the office over the weekend I'll dig around a bit and let you know what I come up with.

Kind regards,

Mark.

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Hope this helps :-)
Gorilla
aka Mark Saunders

www.computerdriving.com

The menu item you need for netscape is:

Tools|Page Options|

Then choose the compatibility tab.

Explore the others as well :-)

Enjoy!

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Hope this helps :-)
Gorilla
aka Mark Saunders

www.computerdriving.com