In need for feedback

  • Bodhipaksa

    (@haecceity)


    19 years, 1 month ago

    I’ve been working for some time now on a new design for my main site. The old one is getting rather tired.

    The test version is at http://test.wildmind.org/. It’s a much-hacked-around version of an Andreas theme. I’m kind of embarrassed to despoil one of his simple elegant themes, but I have a large site and simplicity’s hard to do when you have hundreds of pages in a large number of categories.

    It’s mostly Page-based with a smaller blog section for book reviews, etc.

    I’d appreciate constructive criticism regarding anything I could do to make it look prettier!

    The only problem I’m aware of is with the two center “columns” on the home page, which misbehave (I’m told) on IE 7 and which definitely misbehave when I bump up the font size in my browser. I have trouble understanding how floating works!

    You’ll probably still find some placeholder links here and there, like the “featured article” link on the home page — and article that I haven’t actually written yet.

Viewing 7 replies - 1 through 7 (of 7 total)
  • forgetthebull

    (@forgetthebull)

    19 years, 1 month ago

    I like it. Comparing the two, I see vast improvement!

    One note: On the hover on the left sidebar, preload the hover image so there isn’t a pause the first time someone hovers.

    Just a pet peeve!

    Otherwise, I love it! Beautiful work!

    Thread Starter Bodhipaksa

    (@haecceity)

    19 years, 1 month ago

    Hi ForgetTheBull,

    Thanks for the advice, and I’m pleased to hear you like the design. I wasn’t being modest though when I said I was embarrassed to be hacking away at Andreas’ design. The man’s an artist and I have the feeling there are things about my design that need tightened up.

    technically, I just found out that it’s too wide for an 800×600 monitor, so I’m going to have to change that and it’s going to be messy for a while.

    Thanks for the preload suggestion, which I’d never have thought of. I used suggestions on http://www.frontpagewebmaster.com/m-315188/tm.htm to preload the images, but so far only on the home page. Has that helped?

    forgetthebull

    (@forgetthebull)

    19 years, 1 month ago

    no, do a Shift+F5 on your page, then hover over a link under “meditation practices” and you’ll notice a quick pause while the image loads.

    its no big deal, but i think it looks more professional to have everything done loading at the start!

    as for the screen resolution… 800 x 600 is rare! I actually just noticed that only <2% of my visitors run 800 x 600, so I’m currently in the middle of a redesign that drops support for this screen size. I’ll probably include a hack that checks screen resolution and redirects the stylesheet if it’s 800×600.

    anyways, good luck!

    Thread Starter Bodhipaksa

    (@haecceity)

    19 years, 1 month ago

    Do you have a recommended preloading technique? The one I’ve used obviously isn’t working.

    Hitting Shift and F5 on my computer only changes the volume on the speakers (I use a Mac), and I haven’t yet been able to see the flicker. It’s a bit frustrating trying to fix a problem when I can’t see the results of what I’m doing!

    What browser are you using, incidentally?

    Thread Starter Bodhipaksa

    (@haecceity)

    19 years ago

    I’m so embarrassed about that “In need for feedback” typo.

    Anyway, I moved the site to the www directory and it’s now live. Comments are still welcome.

    Suggestions about preloading techniques are particularly welcome 🙂

    forgetthebull

    (@forgetthebull)

    19 years ago

    hey, sorry about being late in this reply. When i said shift+F5, i just wanted it to do a complete reload. this would be the same thing as clearing private date in firefox.

    I would preload using CSS. Essentially you would need to make an image 2x the height of the image/hover image. The top half of the new image should be the the regular image and the bottom half should be the hover image. Then use CSS to set the background for the link to be the new image at position 0 0, and set the hover to have a background of the same image at 0 -20px (or whatever half the height of the image is).

    Thread Starter Bodhipaksa

    (@haecceity)

    19 years ago

    Hey, no problem. I knew what you meant with the Shift-F5 thing, but I like joking around.

    That sounds like a good preload technique. I’m off on a trip in 12 hours, but when I get back in a couple of weeks I’ll give it a try.

    Thanks for the suggestion.

Viewing 7 replies - 1 through 7 (of 7 total)

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