review me, please

dotaloc

dotaloc

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this is not my first site, but is my first one in a few years. i did it all in notepad++.

current flaws:
problem with IE so that it is less scalable.
if resolution is less than 800 wide, some divs will overwrite others
the iep link (on the web design page) works, but the database hosting is currently not working

http://www.nickchapman.pcriot.com

any advice / feedback is very welcome. thanks in advance!
 
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infoinn

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well the background seems to be nice work but truly speaking first time i did not got the theme of the site. May be some kind of information about the purpose of site should be included in index page. I checked in opera and it worked fine.;)
 
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sunils

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I got problem loading the page. may be the server is down. will check later.
 
dotaloc

dotaloc

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infoinn said:
...but truly speaking first time i did not got the theme of the site. May be some kind of information about the purpose of site should be included in index page...
Click to expand...

thanks for the quick review. this is just a personal site I made which i may use for a business reference occasionally. i wanted it to function as a personal homepage with a little information about me, highlighting a little of my photography and IT education while informing, but not selling myself.

i intended to keep the site kinda vague, as only people who are either searching for my name and location or who were given the site address by me would arrive there. i will look around at some other personal sites (love this little review forum, lotta neat ideas) and try to come up with some more appropriate content so people won't wonder where they have arrived.

thanks for checking in opera. i coded primarily for Firefox and reference IE frequently. I already had problem with the image scaling in IE and had to write in a workaround. boo.

i'm also currently working on the validation. had 5X problems to start with and am down to 13. one (half, actually...they cascade) is because i'm opening a div from javascript, which isn't good, i gather. the other half have to do with the doctype declaration as far as I can tell, and i've had no luck fixing that part.

anyone who is good with validating code and has a moment, i'd welcome any advice in that area, too. i think i know how to fix the javascript part, but the doctype problem eludes me.

link to validation:
http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=h...ct+automatically)&doctype=Inline&ss=1&group=0

thanks

dotaloc
 
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sunils

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hi,

now the site is showing up

i found one problem

the text

this spot belongs to Nicholas Chapman, who recently graduated from UNCA with a BS in computer science. the aforementioned is married to Melissa Chapman, has some pets, and is interested in computers, web design, programming, and photography ]
Click to expand...

is slightl overlapping. maybe you should have increased the space between the lines.
 
FalseHope

FalseHope

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I like your site, I explored and liked the recreation of the student web site too. Great work.
 
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exitnow

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I like it! With dyslexia I find the fonts just a bit too tight, but not much at all.
 
dotaloc

dotaloc

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line spacing

exitnow said:
I like it! With dyslexia I find the fonts just a bit too tight, but not much at all.
Click to expand...

thanks. with yourself and sunsil pointing it out, i'm considering changing the line spacing. i did it on purpose, because i like font effects...but if it is going to turn people off to the site, i don't think the gain is worth it. i might try to space it out a little, but not much at first. i had picked line spacing which i had hoped to overlap with capital letters and such, but didn't greatly hinder the whole experience.

next update (the night of the first), i'll space it out a little.

appreciate all the feedback!

dotaloc
 
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Twinkie

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You should increase the line height and make the text a brighter shade. Also, it is hard to find errors when your whole site code is in one line, try putting line breaks in it. Try this doc type, strait from Dreamweaver:
HTML: 
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
 
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dotaloc

dotaloc

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Twinkie said:
You should increase the line height and make the text a brighter shade. Also, it is hard to find errors when your whole site code is in one line, try putting line breaks in it. Try this doc type, strait from Dreamweaver...
Click to expand...


thanks. i think the problem may be that i'm having php echo all of the code. i got my doctype straight from a page that my html validator linked to. i'm going to try to modify so that the things that don't need to be done in php are hard coded. maybe that will help?

when i test the increase the line spacing tonight, i'll try a lighter font, as well. currently, my links are white, so i want there to be a clear difference between my text and my mouseover links. i guess i could change my link colors. ;-)

appreciate the advice!
 
dotaloc

dotaloc

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slack

ok, i didn't get any changes done except that i changed the (main) page so that PHP didn't echo the stuff it didn't need to. i then tried to fix a problem with the javascript preventing the page from validating...and managed to mess up the centering, somehow. so i didn't get around to testing any other changes.

i do appreciate all feedback and will look into all issues. thanks again.

dotaloc
 
dotaloc

dotaloc

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update

if anyone is still checking this thread, thanks.

i updated all the pages so that they use minimal PHP. now all pages validate as xhtml transitional and the css also validated. i linked to those on the 'web design' section. i also fixed the centering problem by taking myself back to the basics, making a page, centering it...and playing with divs until i understood them and how they were handled in IE and Firefox. Now my page works with no javascript in both browsers (i'm keeping my fingers crossed for mozilla and opera).

i changed the line spacing a little, but not much. i also changed the font, i had used 'new courier' for the monospace, and i changed to lucida console. i think it looks better, plus i had much more luck synchronizing the line spacing in IE and firefox with that font.


i didn't change the font color, but only because i couldn't bring myself to look up hex or RGB. i'm using 'gray' for the font color and 'white' for links. i'm sure there is a light gray i can use or something...i really will try that soon.

thanks again for everyone's participation, advice, and feedback.

peace,

dotaloc
 
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frankfriend

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Hi,

Can you fix the interline spacing. Itr is just hard to read as they seem to overlap each other. Maybe also try lightening it up. Not a bad site tho'

Best regards
 
ashwinsinha

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Good enough as a first in many years!
but with these types of ideas, you can make something simply too-good using something much more than notepad! ( maybe something like frontpage or dreamweaver)
I give it a 6.5/10
 
Sohail

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Well i'm using Mac so i'll have to let you know how it looks on here. First of all, the first page takes ages to load, i thought there was something wrong with your site and found out that it loaded after a long while so that will need to be fixed...

The text on your photography page is quite hard to read as it's all squashed together and i think overall your site should have a lot more colour...

I don't think your site has a lot of content but out of the whole thing i would give it a 6/10 :).
 
dotaloc

dotaloc

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fixes

alright. i kept finding myself getting defensive and wanting to cling to my original ideas, even though I know that my design abilities are nothing to speak of. i'm over myself, though, and very appreciative of everyone who has gone out of their way to look at my page and make suggestions!

i finally made the following changes:
.line spacing of main body text set to default (1em)
.font color lightened to a very light gray instead of standard gray it was at
.changed hover link color to orange (to match photo border, primarily)
.changed 'table header' text to a greenish color

i also put the former page:

http://nickchapman.pcriot.com/oldindex.php

which references the old stylesheet, for comparison.

and a link to the new page so you don't have to go back to it:

http://nickchapman.pcriot.com

the content is minimal purposefully, though i know that makes the site a little vague. i'm ok with that.

the line spacing was intended to distress the (standard, boring, tired) text a little, and give everyone a feel of how artsy and creative I am. i gather people weren't impressed. ;-p

i'm not good with colors. while i intended for the page to be dark (it makes the photos stand out more, to me), if anyone has any suggestions for color themes or anything of that ilk, i'd appreciate it and love to give it a test run. the changes that i was so hesitant to make are already growing on me.

i have no idea why the page loaded so slowly. it loads quickly for me usually, and when it doesn't...i don't complain since x10 is doing the hosting and it runs PHP and is free. thanks for the heads up, though. each main page load does require a photo (100kb - 350kb).

i have used frontpage a couple of times and dreamweaver as well, and it doesn't seem any faster or easier. i also hated having to browse through the (seemingly) extra code they put on pages to debug. last time i used these programs was a few years back, so maybe the annoyances have been addressed. i've always felt an attachment for writing code on a basic level, though, instead of having a program do it for me. probably silly of me, but i enjoy the control, or illusion thereof, it gives me. funny, i just added a 'written in notepad++' button to my page by the CSS and XHTML validation buttons.

added rep to everyone who has posted. not sure exactly what this does, but it's my way of trying to say thanks!

dotaloc
 
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Twinkie

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In PHP, you could use the "\n" for line breaks. Also, if you want to control the output of your site, you could use this method:
PHP: 
<?php
if ($_GET["section"]===1) {
?>
<div id="section1">
//Some Code
</div>
<?php
}
?>
The switch to HTML is optional and is much easier to code. Thanks for the rep :)
 
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dotaloc

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thanks, olmcs87 and twinkie. the advice is appreciated.

i went ahead and removed all my unnecessary php (as far as using the newline part goes), but may consider using the if(condition){put my div here, sucka, in html, of course}. i hadn't thought of that for some reason and was trying to use javascript.

peace.

nick c
 
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