Please be honest (but not brutal) (Full Version)

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floatingeye -> Please be honest (but not brutal) (3/9/2002 17:39:15)

I have two I would love to have others look at to make sure they work properly etc. www.floatingeye.com (it will load very slowly on dial-ups, I haven't compressed files yet)

And www.mooseconstruction.com

If the moose construction one doesn't work for you could you let me know what browser you were using to view it? Thanks!

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Gil -> RE: Please be honest (but not brutal) (3/9/2002 17:50:39)

As soon as I got two "pop ups" or "pop unders"? I exited.

Gil Harvey
The Host Factory
Resellers are our Specialty
Find a Web Professional




floatingeye -> RE: Please be honest (but not brutal) (3/9/2002 17:54:26)

Sorry about the pop-ups. I'll deal with them soon. Could you please look past them for now?

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floatingeye -> RE: Please be honest (but not brutal) (3/9/2002 18:15:00)

Pop-ups will be eliminated by the end of the day.

So if they will keep you from critiquing, check it out later today or tomorrow. Thanks.

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john40004 -> RE: Please be honest (but not brutal) (3/9/2002 18:36:51)

Hi Floatingeye,
First of all - welcome to the forums

I looked at your sites with XP, IE 6.0, 28.8 on 56K modem and resolution at 800 X 600.

I agree with Gil as to www.floatingeye.com - as soon as I hit the pop-up windows I deleted the site. Just a personal viewpoint, but I hate pop-ups.

As to http://www.mooseconstruction.com/
(1) Your frames don't seem to be working. I saw "Current Projects" as the last link and the top of another button. I could not use the right-hand up/down scroll-bar to get lower than that.

(2) Without the mouse-over, your link text blends into the background, extremely hard to read.

(3) Have you sketched-out your site on paper? You supplied the above URL, yet you also have a link to the home page which does not appear to be the home page, yet is titled as such http://www.mooseconstruction.com/home.htm The text here would seem to be appropriate as to the above URL.

(4) On your other links, I see a white background with black text and a link to your other site. I guess I was just expecting some type of continuity to your home page with the same lay-out and links.

Its currently a confusing site. I'm looking forward to future changes.

John

Age is a high price to pay for maturity.



floatingeye -> RE: Please be honest (but not brutal) (3/9/2002 18:44:44)

John - thanks for your input. I did sketch out the navigation, but I think it got lost in the translation a little. I have had the concern that once you go somewhere, there is no going back.

I was afraid of the link navigation problem that you had. If I reduce the physical size of the navigation, it may fix the problem.

Also, can you clarify, "confusing". Is it the lack of backwards navigation? Or is it due to the frames layout? Or is it something you can't put your finger on?

Thanks for the warm welcome. I love doing web design, but it suffers from the curse of the creative, a work is never "done", it is ALWAYS a work in progress. I really appreciate your input.

Thanks Again.

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Gil -> RE: Please be honest (but not brutal) (3/9/2002 19:11:52)

The floatingeye site looks good, but seems very slow to load. The graphics are nice, but are slowing the sirte down a bit.

At the mooseconstruction site I get a page with one paragraph of test and no navigation of any kind - are there other pages?

Gil Harvey
The Host Factory
Resellers are our Specialty
Find a Web Professional




john40004 -> RE: Please be honest (but not brutal) (3/9/2002 19:19:58)

Hi Floatingeye,
I really have to learn not to run the Forums in the background. I'm supposed to be working on the 2003 financial plan tonight

What I meant by "confusing" was the lack of continuity as to the frames format. With frames, I'd normally expect to click a link on the left and have the new page load on the right. When I clicked your links, I received a completely new page and not the frames format.

Have I explained myself correctly The accounting portion of my mind is still thinking about 2003 capital spending If not, I'll continue to run the Forums in the background and check back if I have the time.

John



Age is a high price to pay for maturity.



floatingeye -> RE: Please be honest (but not brutal) (3/9/2002 20:49:17)

Oh Gosh!
I wonder how that happened. I've been tinkering with it and I may have upset the navigation. It's SUPPOSED to work the way you said and it was in my tests, better check my naviagation in my frames. Thanks so much!

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floatingeye -> RE: Please be honest (but not brutal) (3/9/2002 20:52:25)

Thanks Gil! I got that in one of my tests too and I'm working on it. I have to go back and check that code. I'll check all my files and make sure that everything on the server is clean. I appreciate your input.

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floatingeye -> RE: Please be honest (but not brutal) (3/9/2002 21:11:20)

Could you tell me what browser you were using?

quote:

The floatingeye site looks good, but seems very slow to load. The graphics are nice, but are slowing the sirte down a bit.

At the mooseconstruction site I get a page with one paragraph of test and no navigation of any kind - are there other pages?

Gil Harvey
The Host Factory
Resellers are our Specialty
Find a Web Professional




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Richard Sterling -> RE: Please be honest (but not brutal) (3/9/2002 22:54:17)

floatingeye are you familiar with includes? The Moose Construction site would benefit greatly from includes instead of frames. Smaller text would give it a bit more professional look too in my opinion.

 " as God as my witness, I thought turkeys could fly."



Gil -> RE: Please be honest (but not brutal) (3/10/2002 8:50:31)

quote:

Could you tell me what browser you were using?


At that time: Opera 6.0 for Linux w/ JS and frames off.

Gil Harvey
The Host Factory
Resellers are our Specialty
Find a Web Professional




floatingeye -> RE: Please be honest (but not brutal) (3/10/2002 11:49:43)

quote:

floatingeye are you familiar with includes? The Moose Construction site would benefit greatly from includes instead of frames. Smaller text would give it a bit more professional look too in my opinion.

 " as God as my witness, I thought turkeys could fly."

I originally had smaller text and I thought it looked better too. I think I might go back and change it (it helps it stay to one page and elimnates some scrolling - which in my opinion is more work than a lot of people want to do at a site).

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floatingeye -> RE: Please be honest (but not brutal) (3/10/2002 11:51:23)

quote:

quote:

Could you tell me what browser you were using?


At that time: Opera 6.0 for Linux w/ JS and frames off.

Gil Harvey
The Host Factory
Resellers are our Specialty
Find a Web Professional



There's my problem. It's a frames page. Thank you so much.

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floatingeye -> RE: Please be honest (but not brutal) (3/10/2002 11:52:30)

quote:

floatingeye are you familiar with includes? The Moose Construction site would benefit greatly from includes instead of frames. Smaller text would give it a bit more professional look too in my opinion.

 " as God as my witness, I thought turkeys could fly."

I'm not familiar with includes. Could you clue me in so I can look into it?

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Richard Sterling -> RE: Please be honest (but not brutal) (3/12/2002 11:44:20)

Sorry I took so long to reply. I was hoping someone who can explain things better might chime in.

Includes in FrontPage allow you to have content that you may want to show up on more than one page in one handy dandy location. Like the banner
That way if you ever change it, you only need to edit one location. The same can be done with contact info, navigation menus, etc.. It's sorta (very loosely)like working on frames pages, but easier and folks like gil and search engines can see your pages.

You would start by making a page with a table and start inserting "includes" pages in the cells. Your site would be very easy to do this with. I would have an include for the navigation and one for the banner. I don't know if it helps to visualize it, but here is a graphical representation of what I'm talking about.

The gray loosely represents the tables cells.

My site at http://www.kwpnfm.com/ is made up of several includes. Top banner http://www.kwpnfm.com/top.htm left navigation http://www.kwpnfm.com/nav.htm and ad space on the right http://www.kwpnfm.com/includes/ad.htm is all in includes. The content on some pages is even an include. That allows me to share the information with another radio station site, but they use frames to bring in the page. Includes only work with pages on the same server.

Hope all that makes sense.

 " as God as my witness, I thought turkeys could fly."



floatingeye -> RE: Please be honest (but not brutal) (3/12/2002 19:37:49)

quote:

Sorry I took so long to reply. I was hoping someone who can explain things better might chime in.

Includes in FrontPage allow you to have content that you may want to show up on more than one page in one handy dandy location. Like the banner
That way if you ever change it, you only need to edit one location. The same can be done with contact info, navigation menus, etc.. It's sorta (very loosely)like working on frames pages, but easier and folks like gil and search engines can see your pages.

You would start by making a page with a table and start inserting "includes" pages in the cells. Your site would be very easy to do this with. I would have an include for the navigation and one for the banner. I don't know if it helps to visualize it, but here is a graphical representation of what I'm talking about.

The gray loosely represents the tables cells.

My site at http://www.kwpnfm.com/ is made up of several includes. Top banner http://www.kwpnfm.com/top.htm left navigation http://www.kwpnfm.com/nav.htm and ad space on the right http://www.kwpnfm.com/includes/ad.htm is all in includes. The content on some pages is even an include. That allows me to share the information with another radio station site, but they use frames to bring in the page. Includes only work with pages on the same server.
Thanks for the overview Richard! I'll definately look into it. If I could eliminate the frames it would make it a lot better for everyone! I'll toy around with it some and I'll let you know what kind of success (or utter failure) I have. I really appreciate all of your comments, it has given me a lot to think about and more things to learn!


Hope all that makes sense.

 " as God as my witness, I thought turkeys could fly."


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Richard Sterling -> RE: Please be honest (but not brutal) (3/12/2002 19:50:42)

Never fear failure. As long as you can visualize the benefits over frames you are half way there. If you have any questions or run into troubles there is always someone here willing to help.

 " as God as my witness, I thought turkeys could fly."



floatingeye -> RE: Please be honest (but not brutal) (3/13/2002 23:55:49)

quote:

floatingeye are you familiar with includes? The Moose Construction site would benefit greatly from includes instead of frames. Smaller text would give it a bit more professional look too in my opinion.



Richard, you are a brilliant wonderful person. I'm working on my page using includes and it's coming out beautifully. I have to re-do my form since cut-n-paste doesn't work with the form components and properties. ONce I have that done, I'm going to delete my previous site and upload this one. I'm so glad you were patient enough (and thorough enough) to get me started. I'll post back when I get it loaded.

Thanks again!

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floatingeye -> RE: Please be honest (but not brutal) (3/14/2002 0:46:04)

I changed my page to an includes page. Please check it out and let me know if there are any navigation problems.

Thanks

www.mooseconstruction.com

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Michael45 -> RE: Please be honest (but not brutal) (3/14/2002 5:54:17)

Hi
I think you should seriously consider building these type of sites using Flash. You obviously enjoy the bells and whistles with a heavy emphasis on grahics and thats fine.
Your loadtimes are HUGE and Flash will reduce these load times to seconds yet give you great graphics without the massive compression.
My son loves your eyeball.
Regards
Michael45



Richard Sterling -> RE: Please be honest (but not brutal) (3/14/2002 7:39:44)

quote:

Richard, you are a brilliant wonderful person.


You must have started your St. Patricks Day celebration a little early
I've never been acused of either of those traits by anyone who knows me.
quote:

I changed my page to an includes page. Please check it out and let me know if there are any navigation problems.


Seems to be working fine. The only strange thing I noticed is the bottom navigation links open all the pages in a new browser.


 " as God as my witness, I thought turkeys could fly."



floatingeye -> RE: Please be honest (but not brutal) (3/14/2002 11:16:59)

quote:

Hi
I think you should seriously consider building these type of sites using Flash. You obviously enjoy the bells and whistles with a heavy emphasis on grahics and thats fine.
Your loadtimes are HUGE and Flash will reduce these load times to seconds yet give you great graphics without the massive compression.
My son loves your eyeball.
Regards
Michael45


That's my next path in my learning curve! I definately need to look into it. I had put my "education" on hold to have another kid and now that she's a year old and can play by herself I might find a little more time to learn. Gotta go to the bookstore and get some lit on it.

BTW, your son has great taste! LOL

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floatingeye -> RE: Please be honest (but not brutal) (3/14/2002 11:21:21)


quote:


Seems to be working fine. The only strange thing I noticed is the bottom navigation links open all the pages in a new browser.



Ok, I'll be on that today. I got that in my preview in FP and I previewed it with IE. I thought I had fixed it, but obviously not.

Thanks for putting up with the load time too (I haven't compressed graphics on that page yet).

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