My Site for the National History Day Competition

[madmfg]

Hey everyone!
I'm participating in the National History Day competition. States is coming up so could some people please review my site? I know its not very fancy. . .
http://mfg.x10hosting.com
Thanks!

 

[wjh2303]

it's not showing centered to me, and it could probably do with some sort of wrapper to encase it all and define a center area of content, with all white and no borders the content is kinda left hanging there

 

[nightbandit]

Is there supposed to be a video somewhere there? If there is I'm not seeing it.

 

[frankfriend]

Sorry, madmfg, but nothing on the site works for me. The movie doesn't , nor any of the button, nor the next link.

It isn't really even a great start screen - add illustrations etc.

 

[farscapeone]

WTF! your text is an image. Is this just a sample work or complete site :dunno:

And yes, it's not centered.

Your links lead to local files (file:///F:/NHD/The%20Man/The%20Man.htm). Try using relative instead of direct links.

Overall, I can't call it a web site. It has images instead of text, links don't work and layout ... wait ... what layout :dunno:

 

[madmfg]

Thanks so much for the imput, guys,

Hopefully the links and vid are working now (they are for me at least)

wjh2303: how do i center it? I mean, i tried earlier, and the picture and text would center beautifully, but the textboxes would shift all over the place. Also, I felt that having the text the same width as the buttons would substitute for a surrounding box. Does it not?

nightbandit: yes, there's a flash vid on the homepage. do you have a flash player?

frankfriend: zoinks! i was hoping that the flash vid would be enough imaging for the page. but since you can't see the vid. . .

leviathon: what do you mean by my text is an image? i used a text box, if that's what you mean. I found that to be the only way to keep the boundaries of my text as wide as I needed. And how do you think I should improve my layout?

Again, guys, thanks for the help and not being overly harsh.

 

[wjh2303]

just wrap everything in one big div and align that to the center by margin: auto, this works perfectly in everythnig but IE, but you can google for workarounds for that.

You may also want to consider migrating to a css style sheet rather than using the style="" property.

You also have a load of comments all over the page, now quite sure what that is about...

and the flash movie still isnt wokring for me, im on FF3, flast v10, vista 64bit if that's any help

And, the links on the buttons refer to local files still.

and your text is still showing as a gif, i.e. instead of having formated text, it is text that has been saved as an image and that image has been put in in lieu, which if nothing else will be a ***** to edit.

Are you using a plain text editor, or a WYSIWYG editor?

 

[madmfg]

just wrap everything in one big div and align that to the center by margin: auto, this works perfectly in everythnig but IE, but you can google for workarounds for that.

You may also want to consider migrating to a css style sheet rather than using the style="" property.

You also have a load of comments all over the page, now quite sure what that is about...

and the flash movie still isnt wokring for me, im on FF3, flast v10, vista 64bit if that's any help

And, the links on the buttons refer to local files still.

and your text is still showing as a gif, i.e. instead of having formated text, it is text that has been saved as an image and that image has been put in in lieu, which if nothing else will be a ***** to edit.

Are you using a plain text editor, or a WYSIWYG editor?

ARRRRGH! The deadline was yesterday, so I can't change anything at this point but I'm praying I have a chance at nationals, so I'll still try to figure this stuff out. (Website is a new category and I made it to nationals last year with a similar layout- or not-layout according to some, lol)

One of the requirements for the website is that it is viewable in IE. My main problem is that when you use Frontpage and you type normally, all is well and good and birds sing and bees buzz and you can center align to your free will. BUT, since I wanted to use my text as a kind of invisible binding box around the content of the site, I needed it to be in a textbox (so I could fiddle with the width) And curses upon curses (as I found out at 4 am last year) I can't center a stupid text box- I can only center the text inside of it. So my quick fix at 4 am last year was to stick everything in a textbox and pray that the judges had a screen the size I was using (or at least didn't mind scrolling sideways or something) Unfortunately, I couldn't find a better way.

I've never used css, but I'll look into it. (thanks for the tip )

Do you feel that the comments on the side (the ones that link to the media, I'm assuming) takes away from the site or is distracting, somehow? I kind of meant for it to allow for media to be incorporated without messing around with the simplicity and non-layout of the page. Do you think I should sprinkle links to the media throughout the text where its best fitted instead?

argh! darn flash movie. i'm completely at loss. Flash player 10 should play it, and your version of vista should not matter. it works on both computers i've tried and friends I've emailed have not said anything about it being a problem. . . its a .swf file, if that helps you at all (probably not)

I know the links refer to local files (its says so when i mouse over) buuuuuuut, the links still work, right? They did for me. So is linking them to a local file a problem?

For my site, I used frontpage to create it and then transferred it to the server via a webdisk, so that may be why the text has become an image. Editing is a slight pain anyway because everytime I edit a page i have to re-copy it to the server which takes a while.

My gosh, I'm so glad I can do it online this year. Having a forum of people for feedback is so useful! Thanks so much!

 

[frankfriend]

Sorry guy, but the movie is still not working, and the links arer still pointing to various places on your disk or server.

Look in cpanel, file manager, and see if you can find your files in public_html.
Correct the href's in your html

 

[farscapeone]

I know the links refer to local files (its says so when i mouse over) buuuuuuut, the links still work, right? They did for me. So is linking them to a local file a problem?

Of course it works for you cos it's linked to files on YOUR COMPUTER. We don't have those files :nuts: Think about it, it links to file:///F:/NHD/index.htm and I don't have index.htm on my F drive in NHD directory. What if I don't even have an F drive :dunno:

It's a problem alright cos it won't work.

Please before making any more "sites" try to learn at least the basics of HTML.

 

[frankfriend]

For example you have

<a href="file:///F:\NHD\The%20Man\The%20Man.htm">

suggest you change this to

<a href="The%20Man.htm">

I am assuming that The%20Man.htm is the name of your file! If not, fix that.

and fix the others as well.
Please test your site yourself on the web, not just on your own local machine in your own private development environment. Read what Leviathon just said! It will help you.

 

[madmfg]

Of course it works for you cos it's linked to files on YOUR COMPUTER. We don't have those files

lol. I know THAT much. What I meant was that it works when i try it on other computers, and even now that I've unplugged my F drive.

Please before making any more "sites" try to learn at least the basics of HTML

that was cold
Edit:

Look in cpanel, file manager, and see if you can find your files in public_html.

They're there
Edit:

Please test your site yourself on the web, not just on your own local machine in your own private development environment.

I have and it works.
ARGH! I'm going insane!!

 

[farscapeone]

Sorry for being so cold I it's not your fault, not entirely.

I know what's the problem, it's called FRONT PAGE

Your links are OK. They ARE relative but question is to what. Look at this piece of code from your main page:

<v:shape id="_x0000_s1027" type="#_x0000_t202" alt=""
 href="file:///F:\NHD\The%20Man\The%20Man.htm" title="C:\Documents and Settings\Owner\My Documents\My Webs\NHD\The Man.htm"
 style='position:absolute;left:255pt;top:280.5pt;width:143.25pt;height:28.5pt;
 z-index:4' fillcolor="#75d189 pure" stroked="f" strokecolor="none">
 <v:textbox>

See the href parameter. It points to a local file. Now I don't know wtf those Front Page tags and scripts maen (I newer worked in Front Page and I'm proud of it :biggrin: ) but it's obviously not working, as usual.

My only advice is ... forget about stupid Front Page!

 

[madmfg]

@leviathon: thanks :biggrin:

yeah, that is really wierd. I think what is happening is <wierd theory> that when I created the site, the links were connected to a local file, that's why when you mouse over the link or look at what it SAYS its pointing to, its a local file. But I made sure to keep everything in the same folder so that the files are not really looking through the whole computer, rather, they are looking at the subfolders.

For example, my Man page is in file:///F:\NHD\The%20Man\The%20Man.htm and my Global page is in file:///F:\NHD\Global\Greenspan%20and%20the%20World.htm. So when you follow the link, the computer goes "alright, no 'the man' folder where I am, lets go up a folder." Then when it shifts up into the NHD folder it says "oh, hey, there it is! Okay, let's go!" and follows the path of least resistance. So when I've moved the contents of the NHD folder to the web server (the CPanel thing) it just follows the same path of least resistance. </weird theory> Anyway, that's just my wierd theory as to why the links work.

As for forgetting frontpage, I've actually never used another method, so i'm afraid I would be lost. (I mean, I began using notepad and pure HTML code, but someone concerned for my sanity introduced me to frontpage)

@the world (no, that's not a forum member, that's you)

I emailed the link to the page to a friend, and they said the links were working, but the flash vid was not. But the vid is working on the school computers. But, fear not, I have another wierd theory.
What browser are you guys using? I looked using Google Chrome and nearly had a heart attack because my page was all messed up and the flash vid wasn't working. But then I looked at it in IE and it was its own "beautiful" self. Is it possible that some of you are using firefox or google chrome or something? This might also be why everyone hates my layout (or it could just be awful and I'm trying to ignore that, lol)

 

[farscapeone]

You are right. It works in IE. I guess it's another Micro**** thing.

Don't use Front Page!!! Have you heard about great piece of software called Dreamweaver?

 

[frankfriend]

Hi,
Yes, it does work in IE but not Firefox. Yet the file names in Firefox DO point to your own computer's files.
Could you copy the href code lines from your cpanel file manager.

I have used Frontpage, and usually went in to redit the html code to remove these errors.
Edit:
I just looked at your source code in IE. This example is`there.


<a
href="file:///C:\Documents%20and%20Settings\Owner\My%20Documents\My%20Webs\NHD\The%20Man.htm">

Can anyone`explain how on earth it works????? Leviathon, what am I missing, duh!!!
Edit:
I've had another detailed look at the code. At the top there is a whole bunch of FrontPage items, and I guess that somewhere in there is the mechanism that decodes from the weird 'own local machine' to code that can be understood ONLY by Internet Explorer - are these the IE extensions???

This seems to mean that Frontpage as used generates code which can only be read meaningfully by Internet Explorer., That's a disaster if true.

Use some other system or you will limit yourself forever.

 

[madmfg]

Okay. I'm much more relaxed, guys, thank you all so much! (Special mad props to frankfriend and leviathon and mad props to wjh2303 as well) I'll keep you updated on how the competition progresses.

Once I'm allowed to make changes again (I've virtually "turned in" my website to them, so I can't change it) We can chat more about my non existent layout and other things to fiddle with.

Thanks guys! and wish me luck : )

 

[frankfriend]

Good luck madmfg,

Actually the layout is NOT bad.Given the scale etc of the site, there's nothing wrong with having the navigation buttons in this position.

It is clear and straighforward.

Good fortune in the competition!

It's quite a topical choice of subject right now - was Alan Greenspan right, or .....???
Edit:
Hi again madmfg,
I've just gone through your site in IE.
I am impressed especially with the content and the scope of the site. You have presented it very well, and it is really very interesting.

There are quite a few broadcasters who have not presented such a clear picture.

Did you put the main video together yourself from the different pictures? If so you seem to have a very good eye and talent for doing this. If niot, then you chose a good one to use!

Some of the navigation items could perhaps be done differently. The next> and back< buttons are a little obscure, and the relationship between them and the main headings needs a little polishing. Sorry I did not realise the need for IE earlier!

Might be wqorth doing a bit more on your copy for your own satisfaction and for your next web project - you certainly should carry on.

The use of audio & video was interesting, but not announced priominently - you might wish to make them more obvious.

Do keep on with the web - you have put a very good site together [despite Frontpage!]

 

[madmfg]

thanks, frankfriend : )
Yes, I created the main video myself (the other videos were cut and pasted bits of vids because they have a 45 second media limit)

Yeah, i should probably keep editing now for my own satisfaction.

So do you think the >next <back buttons should be removed or moved/edited?

As for the audio/video, how would I make them more prominent? Make links for them in the txt, so that people are sure to recognize it?

Maybe I'll try next year to throw Frontpage out the window.

 

[frankfriend]

I think the next, back buttonbs should be made more prominent. Try replacing them with some sort of button, shiny buttons?
Tell people that there are audio clips & video clips, then they will play them.

I did like your main video. It showed a good eye for the content and linking them together. The use of signboards on the site very good.

I guess you have many more things to study right now, but it would be worthwhile learning about css. Try looking at Zen Garden, and for usability look at Jakob Nielsen's site.

You might be able to get a student priced copy of Dreamweaver - but it is a big package to learn, and has a few odd features of its own.

Carry on with websites as well as economics!