galen3050,
Great job! There are a few usability things that I would change if this were my site…
1. I would definitely move the photography navigation to the top of the photo, I (and many others) have to scroll to access it. Then, when I click a link to view the previous or next image, the navigation gets pushed back down again.. kinda frustration for those of use with small screen resolutions 🙂
2. I have to click on the photo to close the lightbox popup – AND when I click the blacked-out background part, nothing happens. It seems like your site has been coded to function the opposite way that I have seen this effect function in the past – which can be off-putting to those of us who are used to the ‘default’ functionality. Basically, I feel like it is a deterrent – I spend more time thinking about what I should click on rather than looking at your photos.
3. Please do not disable my right mouse button – there is absolutely no reason to do this… ever!
Please don’t think I’m trying to be mean…
-Mike
Very cool site, would you mind telling me which plugin you used forthe Portfolio section please
just fyi, because you used the default template as your starter, you have a nice little smilely ( 🙂 ) at the end of all of your pages, to get rid of this, go into your footer and remove it (I forgot the exact thing, but it would be the last non-closing tag in your footer)
Nice site, I like it. (well, except for the right-click stopper, this is not because I want your pictures, but because I want to look at your code…)
dunerider, it appears to be something with the initials ngg.
And I nearly refrained from saying anything about Galen’s site because … well, there’s nothing left to be said that hasn’t been said already, by others. It’s a gorgeous site, Galen. You have much to be proud of. Clearly your creativity spills out into web design as well as photography. Simply gorgeous. 🙂
And one more thing that struck me. You seem to understand typography as well or better than a lot of web designers, and that lends a lot to the way I feel about the site when I visit it. (Love the nature shots best!)
Wow – lots to follow up on.
Starting with dunerider: I’m using the NextGen Gallery plugin, as jonimueller has pointed out.
esone and mfields: The viewing of images is a “quirk” of NextGen, in that it’s not obvious how to close an image. It would be nice if there was something as simple as an “X” to indicate a control to close the window but as it is, the only way a user knows what to do is to hover the cursor over the image, at which time a message appears that says, “Click to close”. I’d love to see the feature added to a future version of the plugin. I’m so used to using it that I don’t think about it, but I can see how visitors might have problems with it. I’m torn because NG meets my specific needs in just about every other way.
mfields: Don’t worry about being mean. I appreciate and consider all comments, both positive and negative. And this type of discussion helps not only me, but other users looking for direction in the design and implementation of their own sites, as well.
I am fairly new to wordpress, having done a couple of basic blogs a year or so ago, i am now looking to do complete websites using it.
I came to this forum to learn, to see what others are doing and draw ideas.
Funnily enough my next site is for a painter – hence my interest in this site, wow have i got inspiration!
Wow, it’s real wonderful!
Hi galen3050 I love your site.
Im a photographer my self and I wish I had the knowledge to built a site like yours.
i was wondering if you can share the codes and all the html to build his type of site.
thanks
Eic
Hi Galen,
I am new to this and an amature travel photographer and your website is so wonderful and what I hope to make with my photograph website. Can you tell me how you were able to do so. I have been searching all over to find the right theme and plugin to do so. Tanks. I hope you can share codes and html to build this great website.
Best,
K
Amazing site Galen. You can really be proud. In no since of the word am I a photographer – I saw a picture of a camera once though – but if I were in the market for one, you’d definatly be at the top of the list.
Congratulations.
I can’t seem to help myself – I’ve gone and reworked my theme again, even though I said I was happy with the last iteration. lol
This is based on an HTML/CSS site template by Jonathan Atkinson at Themeforest.net, but built on the theme framework that I originally started this post with.
For those who are interested in this design, Mr. Atkinson tells me he will soon be releasing his own WordPress version of his template, so keep an eye on Themeforest for availability.
Regards,
G
gorgeous)
black and white always makes things look stylish.
you definitely have a sense of taste and vision))
really good job)
Hey Galen,
I actually bought the john atikinson template. How were you able to transform it for Wp. I have been wanting to use it too for my wp. I would really appreciate it. I am looking to add the slider with the background. I already have jquery slider installed but I am not sure what to do next. How did you add the gray background behind the slider? Thanks
kantoi09,
When I looked at the Modern Business template, I noticed that the general layout would work well with the theme I designed, so I just took the pieces that I wanted to add – specifically the front page slider and the tabs below – and dropped them into my header.php. He used background images for a lot of things that I prefer to do with CSS, so I adjusted my theme to look like his, but did it using mostly CSS. I replaced the slider background image with my own, but used only the visible area and not the black portion (since you have the template, you should know what this means). I did use his template images for the Lavalamp effect on the menu and for the tabs below the slider, but I think that was about it.
To make all of this work, I just broke it down into pieces:
– A top container for the header and the navigation menu
– A slider container for the slider and the slider background
– A content area for the tabs and text below the slider
– A bottom container, in case I want to show bottom widgets on the page
– A footer container for, uh, the footer.
Each main container has a width of 100% to span the entire page and has a sub-container set to 960px to limit the view.
If you’re using FireFox with the Web Developer toolbar, you can view the HTML to see the layout of the <div>s.
Since so many people have asked about this and my previous iteration – which are basically the same on the theme side of things, I’m working on a vanilla version that I can share. It may take some time though, because I want to make sure that the code is well documented so people can understand what to do and enable/disable what they want.
Regards,
G
