"OOoooo!!" or "Ehhhh...." ??? (Full Version)

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Peppergal -> "OOoooo!!" or "Ehhhh...." ??? (3/11/2004 23:24:06)

Here is my newest venture, which should have been done four days ago....they want something bold and eye catching - something to reach out and grab you....

http://www.design-a-website.com/summit/

Here is their original page:

http://www.wallenpaupackrealestate.com

What do you think? The picture of the two of them is a must; even though my hubby doesn't like it and I don't think it's good cause we can't really see their faces....

Does it take too long on dialup?



Giomanach -> RE: "OOoooo!!" or "Ehhhh...." ??? (3/12/2004 3:48:51)

Firstly, your "revamp" is a hell of a lot better, but i do have somethings:

On the Home Page:

The text to the right of the page, would look better as a blockquote in the center over the image, if you want to know how let me know, I can provide the coding.

And on the Homes For Sale page. The image of the property is a tad too close to the table of info about it. A few more pixels to the left will sort that.

Dr HTML says:
quote:

The total number of bytes transferred while loading the page is 38.9 KB. This will take approximately 10.8 seconds to load over a 28.8 kbps network connection.


And theres a couple of table errors on the home page (Line 40 and 33)

Other than that, Nice one

Have Fun

Dan



Peppergal -> RE: "OOoooo!!" or "Ehhhh...." ??? (3/12/2004 4:41:17)

quote:

Firstly, your "revamp" is a hell of a lot better


LOL, one would hope so! :-) thanks!

quote:

The text to the right of the page, would look better as a blockquote in the center over the image, if you want to know how let me know, I can provide the coding.


You mean where it says "Your Real Estate Team...." blah blah blah? I had it in the center and didn't like it...it kind of balances off with the red text in the next gray cell underneath the logo....

quote:

And on the Homes For Sale page. The image of the property is a tad too close to the table of info about it. A few more pixels to the left will sort that.


Fixed that plus added some more "goodies"....I think it's darn cool and I think I undercharged him...

table errors: I'm not worrying as much about perfection at this point as I am just getting something they can look at now. If they say "Yeah, go for it," then I'll go and be sure to style all the tables and such and get rid of the nasties.

But the thing is...does this page, when it opens up say "Stay here and see what we've got!!!" I know it's better than the original one (even the owners hate that site) but I want to know if new surfers will just think "Wow, what a nice site."

Red, btw, is the office trademark color, so that's not really open for much debate. I prefer more muted tones myself.

Now, I need to go to bed. The kids will be up in two hours.[:o]



Peppergal -> RE: "OOoooo!!" or "Ehhhh...." ??? (3/12/2004 4:44:49)

and do you think 10 seconds is too long? I really think that the majority of the people who will be targeted for this site are going to be more well -to- do city folks, who will most likely have DSL.

but even on dialup...I dunno. I was afraid it would be too big. It's that background image of the lake...but the page needs something. I had just text there and it really looked BLAH



Giomanach -> RE: "OOoooo!!" or "Ehhhh...." ??? (3/12/2004 4:46:50)

quote:

You mean where it says "Your Real Estate Team...." blah blah blah? I had it in the center and didn't like it...it kind of balances off with the red text in the next gray cell underneath the logo....


Yup, but remember, it's personal prefs here

quote:

But the thing is...does this page, when it opens up say "Stay here and see what we've got!!!" I know it's better than the original one (even the owners hate that site) but I want to know if new surfers will just think "Wow, what a nice site."

Hit's me in the face, and I actually went to look at the properties, when normally I just look at the home page on critiques, so yeah, I'd say it's gonna lure a few people in, and I only went in purely on design.

quote:

Now, I need to go to bed. The kids will be up in two hours.


Isn't it like 4:40am there??? in another question, that time comes twice a day?

<edit>
The time given for page download is based on a 28.8K modem, not used these days, most people start on 56k so it would be around 5-6 seconds, not too bad, start to worry when you go above that

</edit>

<edit2>
Is that slideshow script the same as the one I helped you to get working in Mozilla? Just Curious?
</edit>



Minix -> RE: "OOoooo!!" or "Ehhhh...." ??? (3/12/2004 9:26:09)

I like the Summit Realty banner text. The second site is crisp.

I have only thought that may be a negative. The psychology of colors says that you should avoid using RED when it comes to logo'ing or advertising any product or service that has to do with money, investments, etc....and real estate might fall into that category. People associating it with "being in the red" and all that. Generally blues and greens and grey/blacks should be used.



Peppergal -> RE: "OOoooo!!" or "Ehhhh...." ??? (3/12/2004 9:54:57)

quote:

he psychology of colors says that you should avoid using RED when it comes to logo'ing or advertising any product or service that has to do with money, investments, etc....and real estate might fall into that category


LOL, maybe that's why there's more Coldwell Bankers (blue/white) and ReMax's (blue, white, little red) and Century 21's (yucky brown and yellow) than there are Summits.



Peppergal -> RE: "OOoooo!!" or "Ehhhh...." ??? (3/13/2004 15:18:36)

Okay, Minix, this one's for you...

http://www.design-a-website.com/summit/alternateindex.htm



Minix -> RE: "OOoooo!!" or "Ehhhh...." ??? (3/13/2004 15:29:12)

Most excellent.

I consider that a very nice improvement. I get "professionals" much more from that one than from the other. I'll buy from them now.



Peppergal -> RE: "OOoooo!!" or "Ehhhh...." ??? (3/13/2004 15:39:39)

Thanks! The more I look at it, the more I like it better myself. I was hung up on the "red" problem...their sign for their office is red, their sales signs are red, their logo is red....

And nobody will ever know that the sailboats are actually on a lake in Arkansas, and I think the sunset is somewhere in Japan. LOL Gotta love stock photography! [:D]



Minix -> RE: "OOoooo!!" or "Ehhhh...." ??? (3/13/2004 19:09:23)

Check this out as a primer and then if you have some free time it will lead you to check out Dr. Morton Walker (were web designers, we all have ooodles of free time, right).

http://www.alleykatt.com/colors/colorproducts.htm

It's an interesting concept on colors and marketing.



Peppergal -> RE: "OOoooo!!" or "Ehhhh...." ??? (3/13/2004 21:57:16)

wow, there's a lot of bright colors on there!!



Giomanach -> RE: "OOoooo!!" or "Ehhhh...." ??? (3/15/2004 4:42:55)

Karen, thread title "OOOoooooo" suits your second attempt lol, didn't go in any further because I couldn't, but very nice, i need to get back on track with mine now[&:] (sites, not real estate[:D])



BamseIsUnix -> RE: "OOoooo!!" or "Ehhhh...." ??? (3/24/2004 7:50:31)

You created a fine site. The original one was... well, bad. I'm glad I'm not behind a dialup connection, because it was very heavy. You surely save their bandwidth.

It would look better centered. Use CSS to do it.
Here's how (in case you wonder [;)]):

The "main" table is 775px wide.
Give it position: absolute, and left: 50%.
Give it -388px margin (775/2).

But whoa! I click on a link an the page I get is centered? But the main page isn't.
Is this a bug or a feature?

Regards,
Bamse



d a v e -> RE: "OOoooo!!" or "Ehhhh...." ??? (3/24/2004 7:57:17)

i thought
{margin: 0 auto;} was the way to centre block level elements??



Peppergal -> RE: "OOoooo!!" or "Ehhhh...." ??? (3/24/2004 10:59:58)

THanks - I'm surprised that the table renders at 775 pixels...it's set to be 755 pixels wide (just had to push the recommended 750 a bit, LOL) It should be centered; thanks!!! I've eliminated the red one all together now and the blue one is the approved design. I like it a lot better than the red one anyway....so does the client, so everyone's happy.



BamseIsUnix -> RE: "OOoooo!!" or "Ehhhh...." ??? (3/26/2004 4:56:01)

Peppergal you only used <center> on the other pages so I guess you can use that on the front page too. That's not a crime! So forget my last comment comment.

d a v e, I don't know about margin: 0 auto but I guess that isn't very widely supported method? Correct me if I'm wrong.

Actually, I wouldn't use CSS to center the contents. It's kinda risky. Any ideas?

Regards,
Bamse



d a v e -> RE: "OOoooo!!" or "Ehhhh...." ??? (3/26/2004 5:16:06)

why is it risky?

Actually it's the method given by Eric Meyer (css guru...) and it's (supposedly) the correct way to center block level elements, there's no reason why it wouldn't be supported by any browser that supports css1

if you don't want to declare the top/bottom margins you can also just use 
margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;

as in my page here http://members.surfeu.fi/dave_pirjo/

so if you want to centre a whole page just a make the left and right margins auto for the containing element either the main table or div that holds the page contents.

btw <center> is deprecated

(obivously it doesn't work with inline elements, for that you can make a class like 

.centredtext
{text-align:center;
}

and apply that



Peppergal -> RE: "OOoooo!!" or "Ehhhh...." ??? (3/26/2004 7:49:22)

quote:

why is it risky?


Yeah...why? LOL

I shouldn't have used the <center> tag to center my tables but I was too lazy. It was so easy to just hit "center" on the menu. LOL I'll do better next time. :-)



Giomanach -> RE: "OOoooo!!" or "Ehhhh...." ??? (3/26/2004 7:55:35)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Peppergal

quote:

why is it risky?


Yeah...why? LOL


B'cos, the web server might blow up from confusion over the CSS command for the text alignment, nah not really, might cause an overload on someones brain tho[:D]



BamseIsUnix -> RE: "OOoooo!!" or "Ehhhh...." ??? (3/27/2004 3:26:36) 

The "main" table is 775px wide.
Give it position: absolute, and left: 50%.
Give it -388px margin (775/2).

My suggestion wasn't that good. If the browser, for some reason or another, doesn't support positioning, then what would -388px margin do to the site?? [;)]

Yea I guess 
margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;
is safe. What I always fear are the very old Netscape versions.

Regards,
Bamse



d a v e -> RE: "OOoooo!!" or "Ehhhh...." ??? (3/27/2004 4:18:07)

why fear old netscape versions? if your code validates and you page degrades gracefully then why worry about NN4? unless your audience has a *significant* number of people using it.
nn4 users are quite happy with a largely unstyled (but usable) site anyway, otherwise they would upgrade or put pressure in the people who provide their choice of browser. and if they can't upgrade then they are quite used to the way a large proportion of css styled pages look in their browsers.



gorilla -> RE: "OOoooo!!" or "Ehhhh...." ??? (3/27/2004 4:31:56)

Sorry dave but while you may be right in general you're dead wrong in particular. It depends on the audience. A lot of scientific/military or both organisations use NN4.7x. Many of 'em have for example genetic data display plugins. Anyobody who has anything to do with the biosciences needs to have NN4.7x way up at the top of their priority list.

However thats really an aside. Bamse it doesn't have to be completely unstyled. If you just use very basic styles for NN4.7x and then use @import for the rest that'll work very well.



d a v e -> RE: "OOoooo!!" or "Ehhhh...." ??? (3/27/2004 12:46:00)

that's why i said "unless your audience has a *significant* number of people using it."... you seem to know more about the biosciences - interesting to know that, thouh i have done one site for a biocomposites center (wales) and even they didn't have any requests for NN4 considerations. but of course that's only one site and obviosuly an exception.

are you referring to bioscience places in europe/britain/america? I would be surprised if that many places in britain (or were *still* using NN4) but as i say i don't know ;) I know a lot of universities still seem to be weeding out NN4 but then by prioritising it's use we're just helping keeping it going. the sooner users start seeing very minimally styled (but working fully functional) sites in NN4 the sooner they - or rather their IT departments will get of their butts and start making some changes. I'm not talking about excluding NN4 users, merely gicing them a bit of a kick up the backside.

quote:

Many of 'em have for example genetic data display plugins.
I assume then that these are NN4 specific?? or wouldn't they work with current browsers

not the case so much in england at least not for a couple or three unis that i know (in fact i did a site for a biocomposites site) but of course i can only comment on on that and it's hardly representative, but of course that sort of site is used by other scientists in other departments and i haven't thad any feedback to say that the site was optimised for NN4

well handy to know at least for that kind of site there needs to be more consideration for NN4, though personally i would rather lead people away from it!

as for the military i know nothing at all about that area, but it's a bit worrying to think that the people defending out country with up to the minute weapons are using a browser that was released about 7 years ago ;)

of course you can still style your pages for NN4 but it was just a naughty thought just to 'help' people upgrade to suggest serving them unstyled pages :)

would be interesting to know bit more about the biosciences aspect as i am redesigning the biocomposites site that i mentioned after summer... (of course last time i did it it still worked ok in netscape ;)



gorilla -> RE: "OOoooo!!" or "Ehhhh...." ??? (3/27/2004 19:49:54)

I don't see any reason to waste time getting into a long discussion about whether or not old browsers should be supported or not. As a general principle I think they should. NN4.7x is very easy to develop secure plugins for. It is also very easy to write largescale datamap display plugsn for. I had in mind genetic engineering sites worldwide. As for support units in universities and elsewhere in the public sector I have invariably found that they are overworked, understaffed, and usually very dedicated, most of their staff could do with a chance to get on their butts in the first place.



d a v e -> RE: "OOoooo!!" or "Ehhhh...." ??? (3/28/2004 3:54:36)

me neither



BamseIsUnix -> RE: "OOoooo!!" or "Ehhhh...." ??? (3/29/2004 1:54:14)

Many minimalist Linux distributions even today come with Netscape 4.x as a default browser. And old Macintoshes like ours in the cellar has Netscape 4.8 in it. It's only use is to download digital camera drivers, though.

Many people don't like AOL, so they prefer to use versions made by the original Netscape crew [:)]. I'm not quite sure which was the last version of the real Netscape. 4 something?

Regards,
Bamse



d a v e -> RE: "OOoooo!!" or "Ehhhh...." ??? (3/29/2004 1:59:41)

last version of the real Netscape was 7.1??
I heard that it's possible to actually find new versions of netscape (or even something called mozilla) from the internet and download them for free, but that's probably just some myth, or then that people who upgraded from NN4 disappeared in mysterious cirumstances... :)



BamseIsUnix -> RE: "OOoooo!!" or "Ehhhh...." ??? (3/29/2004 2:54:41)

It means the time before AOL bought it and Netscape started to go down. 1998, or?

Nevermind. [:)]

Regards,
Bamse



jaybee -> RE: "OOoooo!!" or "Ehhhh...." ??? (3/29/2004 8:35:42)

Well that's alright then.

Microsoft buy AOL and they can make Netscape work just like IE. Problem solved [sm=lol.gif]



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