Finished Or Only Just Started - You Decide (please?) ;-)

Get some feedback on your site or ad from other rental owners and techies. Also a library of online resources so you can make DIY improvements to your web presence.
User avatar
Garri
Posts: 1689
Joined: Mon Jul 11, 2005 7:26 pm

Post by Garri »

Hi Kevin,

Formatting text in that way is cumbersome, from your point of view, and slows down the load time of your page, as does table
based layout.

Check out this excellent site: http://www.westciv.com/

They run on-lines courses, very reasonable, and their Stylemaster product is top notch - available for Windows too,
again at a very reasonable price. Try the demo.

I thoroughly recommend that you check them out.

Did I hear you say 'floppy disk' ? None of my computers have had a disk drive since 1998!

Edit: that's not entirely true, I meant to say none of my 'real' computers have had one. I also have some 'toys' here which still have floppy drives to this day!
LittleRiverView
Posts: 32
Joined: Tue Jul 05, 2005 11:56 am
Location: Horning, Norfolk Broads, UK
Contact:

Post by LittleRiverView »

Garri

Hehe

I was going to say pen drive but thought sacrificing a pen drive was over the top and should have said CD I guess - the two PCs I use at the house don't have floppy drives either to be honest but I have an old Dell on the network that does.

Checked out that page and will continue to do so - just looking at the source in notepad shows how easy it is to find everything and edit it - my immediate reaction was that its just as pages used to look like when you used to just put paragraphs of text on a page and I guess that's exactly the aim - to seperate out the formatting from the content and make editing much easier.

The splash screen has gone by the way.. gone and instantly forgotten.
User avatar
Garri
Posts: 1689
Joined: Mon Jul 11, 2005 7:26 pm

Post by Garri »

I guess that's exactly the aim - to seperate out the formatting from the content and make editing much easier.
Kevin, not only that but search engine bots will like you too!

Some great formatting can be achieved with CSS.

For an example of how easy it is and how startling the results can be I suggest you check out CSS Zen Garden: http://www.csszengarden.com/

What you'll notice here is the same html structure and content exists in all of the examples - these files are unchanged. What designers have done is taken the html structure and content and just written the 1 CSS file for the presentation/design.

I guess, haven't checked it out, that these examples should all look the same in modern browsers with some CSS hacks for good old IE 5 :wink:
LittleRiverView
Posts: 32
Joined: Tue Jul 05, 2005 11:56 am
Location: Horning, Norfolk Broads, UK
Contact:

Post by LittleRiverView »

Garri -

:D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D

Nice site - very very impressive.

Just to clarify everyone - the comments I am looking for on my site are based on what it looks like in the browser and not what the raw source like in a text editor - :oops: :oops:

In all seriousness, the feedback I have had here is great and I am very grateful for it.

As a direct result of the feedback, I have changed the following:
  • Not only removed the splash screen (hurray) but more importantly the reason for having it as well - it used to take 20 secs to load the splash screen and a further 2 mins 55 secs (i know I know I should never have even put it online like that) to load the home page on dial up - it now takes about 30 secs to fully load the home page and all pics on dial up and on a machine with no cached content (with text and menu appearing well before the 30 secs is up). Hopefully this means the rest of the changes detailed below are worthwhile as there is more chance of people hanging around and viewing the pages they are on.

    Changed the home page text to something more meaningful

    Guestbook comments now complete

    Changed menu to read Prices/Availability and not just Availability

    Got my full screen pictures javascript code working on firefox - before you couldn't see the pics which I must admit was pretty core functionality for the script :lol: :lol: :lol: .

    Got rid of the need for popups on my upstairs and downstairs layout

    Generally, pretty much all the images have been optimised - not just those on the home page - loading time for all pages is far quicker now.

    Got the menu working so you don't have to have a submenu if you don't need one (the home page menu option for example)

    (Hopefully) sorted the menu so it appears on one line in Firefox on Linux
I've still got lots to do but its a lot better as a result of all the help I have had and I just wanted to say a big thanks.

Any more thoughts on the site and especially its content and whether it make people want to come to stay at Little River View are very welcome.

Rgds
User avatar
vrooje
Posts: 3202
Joined: Thu Dec 09, 2004 2:48 am
Location: Burgundy, France

Post by vrooje »

The menu looks great in Linux with the changes!

Optimizing for Firefox in Linux is always a bit harder, because (among other things) even so-called standard web fonts aren't the same in Linux. But this looks great!

On the CSS topic, Firefox/Linux sometimes has CSS problems. I think that's not due to a Firefox issue, but due to a lack of standards. Which is why I stand by tables as a way of making sure that things really are positioned exactly where you want them to be on a page. With tables, for example, it's impossible for two sections of text to overlap each other, which I see constantly on sites which use CSS.

However, the CSS/Tables debate is best left to a different topic!
Brooke
User avatar
Garri
Posts: 1689
Joined: Mon Jul 11, 2005 7:26 pm

Post by Garri »

To get fonts to look how you want it might be best to use the sIFR methodology.

Tables have been bastardised over the years to handle presentation and combined with transparent image files it adds weight to your sites, but not good weight, bloated weight.

But this was back in days of lack of web standards, the rapid adoption of which is enhancing user experience, there's no doubt about that.

Still someway to go before things really settle down.

I would be interested to see how many of the sites in CSS Zen Garden look on Linux. I might be retiring one of my Windoze machines here, so will load it with Linux.

I would also be interested in how http://www.stylegala.com looks on Linux, it looks beautiful in OSX.
LittleRiverView
Posts: 32
Joined: Tue Jul 05, 2005 11:56 am
Location: Horning, Norfolk Broads, UK
Contact:

Post by LittleRiverView »

Hi Brooke

Thanks for the time to look at it again - I will copy over the new script file later today - would do it now but I still have the front grass to cut before I get the kids from school (25 mins!!)then the list of chores I received from Mrs LittleRiverView this morning will be complete and I'll be able to play for a little while :D :D

Thanks again
User avatar
vrooje
Posts: 3202
Joined: Thu Dec 09, 2004 2:48 am
Location: Burgundy, France

Post by vrooje »

Ah yes, I remember well the time spent on a new site :) the temptation to neglect family, friends, chores, eating...

No worries, it's unlikely that another Linux user will come across your site between now and later today! We're a fairly rare breed.

As an aside, I've started a CSS/Tables thread in the Personal Websites section: viewtopic.php?t=913
Brooke
LittleRiverView
Posts: 32
Joined: Tue Jul 05, 2005 11:56 am
Location: Horning, Norfolk Broads, UK
Contact:

Post by LittleRiverView »

Brooke

Copied over now (in fact last night) so all the pages are using the new width settings so all menus should display OK.

Thanks again
LittleRiverView
Posts: 32
Joined: Tue Jul 05, 2005 11:56 am
Location: Horning, Norfolk Broads, UK
Contact:

Post by LittleRiverView »

I'm feeling very pleased with myself and trying not to mention it more than once every three minutes to the wife - received this tonight - my first from the web site...
From: bookings@lrv.domain.etc
Sent: 16 July 2005 21:27
To: bookings@lrv.domain.etc
Subject: A booking from www.littleriverview.co.uk


PHP Form_To_Mail: You have a new form submission from bookings@lrv.domain.etc

name: Mr XX
Address: XX
postcode: XX
telephone: XX
email: XX
start: 27/8/05
Duration: 7 Days
double: Ticked
Single1: Ticked
Single2: Ticked
message: We wish to book this holiday
Submit: Submit
The XXs were placed by me just in case you are worried - there were real names and contact details in there :wink:

Many thanks to all contributors to this thread who no doubt had a big hand in me getting this booking - perhaps he was a Linux & Firefox user Brooke? :D :D :D

Rgds

Kevin
User avatar
vrooje
Posts: 3202
Joined: Thu Dec 09, 2004 2:48 am
Location: Burgundy, France

Post by vrooje »

Congratulations! :)
Brooke
LittleRiverView
Posts: 32
Joined: Tue Jul 05, 2005 11:56 am
Location: Horning, Norfolk Broads, UK
Contact:

Post by LittleRiverView »

Brooke - thanks although I am still waiting for the payment and signed booking agreement - won't be too happy if my first web site generated booking is duff.... :cry: :cry:

Anyway, had a new guy start work with me on Monday who's a bit of a development whizz and it took him about 30 mins to change my menu system so the drop downs vanish if you move the mouse away (like pretty much every other menu system on the web) and also (one for you Garri) amended the style sheet so the whole block is active as a link instead of just the text on the menu - that was really starting to wind me up never mind anyone else.

Happy with the menu now until I completely junk the javascript and go CSS only but that's a fair way off yet.. Brooke - if you get time, could you take a quick look at the improved menu for me to see if the new features work in firefox on linux?

Finally managed to get out the front door during the 35 seconds of sun we had on Tuesday and shot a new pic of the place - looks a lot better with a bit of sun on it and worked out what time of day I need it to be sunny to get the whole frontage in sun and not just one side... :D :D

Many rgds
User avatar
Alan Knighting
Posts: 4120
Joined: Mon Oct 18, 2004 7:26 am
Location: Monflanquin, Lot-et-Garonne, France

Post by Alan Knighting »

Kevin,

There is an occasional problem with the top menu bar in IE 5. It sometimes (only sometimes) hangs to the left of the page but a "refresh" brings it back into position.

Your prices and availability tables have internal borders in IE 5 but no internal borders in Netscape 8 or Firefox 1.0.4.

Apart from the above, all appears to fine in all three browsers on a PC running Windows XP.

Alan
User avatar
Garri
Posts: 1689
Joined: Mon Jul 11, 2005 7:26 pm

Post by Garri »

Kevin, you need a sniffer file that detects which browser your visitors are using. If it's IE5 you should shunt them off to a page which politely tells them that they are living in the old world and we have come a long way since 1999. Time to upgrade to a mdoern browser such as IE6, FF etc. Provide links to said browsers and maybe a link to http://www.browsehappy.com

Your site looks fine in FF on OSX but Home page and Availability pages look a bit off in Safari, nothing major, just header and menu misaligned with content box.

Here'a a good reference article that I posted in another thread:

http://www.stylegala.com/articles/no_more_css_hacks.htm
User avatar
Alan Knighting
Posts: 4120
Joined: Mon Oct 18, 2004 7:26 am
Location: Monflanquin, Lot-et-Garonne, France

Post by Alan Knighting »

Kevin,

When I referred to IE I should of course have said v6 not v5 - sorry.

Garri,

The major browsers don't take long to download and they are free so why doesn't everyone have the latest thing? It would make everyone's life just that bit easier.

Alan
Post Reply