Please review the site again..

[Ben Rogers]

I've made some major changes since last time. It now uses PHP, full CSS, images, and has more content. The page used to look good only on Mozilla, but now passes Mozilla, IE, and Opera (the 3 browsers i have). i would like to know if there's any further changes i should make, and what you think of it on a coding level and on a visual level.

EDIT: another note: i deleted the games because they were corny, there's better games out there, and as a result they were a waste of space. Now all content and code is mine or mine with direct unquestioned permission of the author (stories)

EDIT 2: This is my 500th post! lol my first was "review the site plz"... seems kindof appropriate :D

[Sux0rZh@jc0rz]

ironic. one would think after 500 posts, one would be able to review their own damned site :D

[Sux0rZh@jc0rz]

on MAC IE 5.2 it seems to be mis-aligned. some things are bunched together and look like crap, but nothing is impossible to see. it just doesnt seem to flow smoothly. owell, i doubt it matters. not many people use mac's... just me and like 54 other people. :D

[Ben Rogers]

yes, but i like to have others opinions.. im still a learner, just kind of pretty advanced :D im at the stage where i know exactly how to do most things... its just waht to do that sometimes eludes me.

[Ben Rogers]

Originally posted by Sux0rZh@jc0rz
on MAC IE 5.2 it seems to be mis-aligned. some things are bunched together and look like crap, but nothing is impossible to see. it just doesnt seem to flow smoothly. owell, i doubt it matters. not many people use mac's... just me and like 54 other people. :D

ok.. so its legible still. i cant really fix it for mac users, because to be able to do that i have to be able to tinker with it, saving and refreshing that sort of thing... id only be worried if it was totally illegible.

[Sux0rZh@jc0rz]

yeah.. actually the main problem is the frame. its like... tiny for some reason. and its at the very top of the page where i KNOW it wasnt meant to be, cause it cuts higher than all the other content. owell, like i said, everything is legible.

[Ben Rogers]

frame? oh you mean the divs with overflow: auto. those are mainly to have it so giant fonts don't destroy the layout- that is, intil they get ridicoulously big.

[Sux0rZh@jc0rz]

um.. sure.. whatever floats ur boat... personally i would have had it in the middle of the page and put that crap in the middle on the side... :(

[Paul Jr]

I don't dig the colors. You and Vladdy seem to have smiliar tastes, though. ;)

Also, things seem cluttered. But that's just me... I like equal space everywhere, so things look nice and square and "fit".

Also... it lags down my scrolling... it's like... slooooooooooooooooooooooow... I can't scroll very quickly. It's very odd.

[Sux0rZh@jc0rz]

aye. vladdy's website looks like half-eaten, sun dried, rotten monkey droppings. pyro seems to have found design that incorporates beauty and validity. vladdy is just plain unimaginative in his design.

[Ben Rogers]

look at it with mozilla on 1024*768 resolution, and you'll see what i was going for... i really want to keep my page the way it is you know? i like it... and its valid too... but does it really look that bad? ive never seen pyros or vladdys.

[Sux0rZh@jc0rz]

www.ryanbrill.com <- pyro.

[Paul Jr]

Pyro's personal site. (http://www.ryanbrill.com/)
Pyro's business site. (http://www.infinitypages.com/)

Vladdy's site. (http://klproductions.com/)


Also, I don't know what you're on about Vladdy's site. I like it. It may not be as "artistic" as Ryan's site, or "The Garden", but it's aesthetically appealing, it's very accessible, customizable, and the content is served up nicely.

[Ben Rogers]

Geh. Pyros is kind of blah too... and how do you even begin to see similarities between me and vladdys site? that IS ugly.

[Paul Jr]

Originally posted by omega
Geh. Pyros is kind of blah too... and how do you even begin to see similarities between me and vladdys site? that IS ugly.
You're joking... right?

[Ben Rogers]

No, I'm not, actually.

OK- but could you list some things for me to change?

[Ben Rogers]

Right.. I put in a ton more php and added a new .css file.. opinionns...

[Sam]

pyro's site is one of the most clean cut/artistic/beautiful sites I've seen
as far as your site goes,
1) color scheme bothers me.
2) Resolution issues (especially when resizing).
3) Cross-hair cursor is kinda obnoxious <-(spelled wrong I'm sure)
4) tryed switching to [boxed] view, and it really made no sense.
5) kinda nitpicky here, but the arrow on the hover on the right menus is kinda scetchy. could probably look better if it were symetrical

On the whole, your site's code is done nicely, but there are still some loose ends you need to take care of.

also, on a slightly unrelated note, I noticed your "pixel imperfect" comment. Not sure why, but for some reason in reminds me of the disney channel movie "pixel perfect"

[iniquity101]

the "want your name in 10px tahoma" thing goes all over the place on small screen resolutions.

[Ben Rogers]

er. how huh? it should stay at the top...
in reply...
1) thats why i have multiple color schemes, or plan to anyways. so you can pick+choose ur fav :D
2)yes.. i no my page is very flipped up in diff res's. my comp doesn't render 800*600 properly, tho, it was made for 1024*768, so i cant fix that... all i can hope for is legibilty by making the #ramblings div hover above all.
3) I'll take that out.
4) i fixed it so it now has an h3: styl1n', then has a paragragh saying your style has been set, then has a link to go back using server's http_referer uni var
5) gah. will do.

[Sam]

Originally posted by omega
2)yes.. i no my page is very flipped up in diff res's. my comp doesn't render 800*600 properly, tho, it was made for 1024*768, so i cant fix that... all i can hope for is legibilty by making the #ramblings div hover above all.

understandable, but yet another argument for fixed width desgin vs. fluid imo.
Originally posted by omega
4) i fixed it so it now has an h3: styl1n', then has a paragragh saying your style has been set, then has a link to go back using server's http_referer uni var

could you automate this, then have that message incase the browser doesn't support serverside redirects?
I was really confused by that, even after you added the msg.

[Sam]

also, I would suggest a slightly lighter blue on the black, i can't read the text without highlighting it first.

[Ben Rogers]

understandable, but yet another argument for fixed width desgin vs. fluid imo.

yeah.. i have a fluid one right now... the new set up supports it.. (having gotten rid of the extra sidebar that now resides on the "written" page.. the stories ive gotten over theyears.. well, year, but you get my point.

could you automate this, then have that message incase the browser doesn't support serverside redirects?
I was really confused by that, even after you added the msg.

its not a redirect, the php file is in the "action" attribute. there is no other way, at least not one that im feeling lucky enough to try. since i use php it has to go to another page... i felt guilty about leaving such a good feature in the hands of javascript so i wrote an entire script for it adding variables up the ying-yang so that there wouldnt be a need for another cookie.

and yeah.. it needs better explanation. maybe ill make a page for it, and have a link next to it saying: wtf is this? --> [select form] that leads to a page.. sound good?

lighter blue on black? do u mean the links or the ramblings div?

[Daniel T]

Originally posted by omega
lighter blue on black? do u mean the links or the ramblings div?

i think they mean both;). bold colors like #f00(bold red), #0f0(bold green), and #00f(bold blue), tend to never look good, especially with black. i might suggest switching your bold blues to sumthing like #66f, #99f, #66c, etc. just remember to keep them websafe;)
-Dan

[Ben Rogers]

i think they mean both. bold colors like #f00(bold red), #0f0(bold green), and #00f(bold blue), tend to never look good, especially with black. i might suggest switching your bold blues to sumthing like #66f, #99f, #66c, etc. just remember to keep them websafe

..what?

i use white for the ramblings div, i was wondering if he meant the links on those, or the links on #other- that is, if hes still talking about the arctic base stylesheet.

[Daniel T]

o, ok my bad:rolleyes:. i hadnt looked at ur site since yesterday(or the day b4, cant remember;)), and i believe u didnt have this new layout/design then. still, i do not particualarily like the bold blue links.
-Dan

ps: i believe u have the 'x' backwards on the leet page. u have '<>'. i believe it should be '><';)

[Sam]

like the new blue much better

[Ben Rogers]

thats from when i was validating it, and i had to change the >'s & <'s &amp;gt;'s and &amp;lt;'s. thanks for the warning, your right it is supposed to be ><

hm.. wut would b a good colour to make the links then...? i let them me be blue bcoz it matched and blue is such a link-ie color. what would you advise?

[Daniel T]

i would say that even just a more subtle blue would b a good option. white would be the best, IMO, but your text is already white, and users may not see the link. u mite try the colors i suggested in my above post;)
-Dan

**EDIT**
i am also experieancing the slow, choppy scrolling that paul did. it is indeed very odd, and i have never seen it before...

[Ben Rogers]

ok, i changed it to a more frosty blue, to go with the name of the scheme "arctic base."

as for the chopping: i don't know how to explain that. try it on the other scheme, [boxed] and tell me if it does the same thing.

i kinda notice what you're talking about but i have no idea how to remove it. i cant take out the stripes theyre part of the scheme. just wouldnt be the same, ya no?

well i may deck out this new scheme im making with some really good navigational images and make it the default. as for you saying red doesn't look good on black: what r u smokin? it looks gr8 if done right.. but u need to bring out some neons, and some yellows and oranges. its what the scheme im making is based on: Singed 2.0 :D

EDIT: It's definately the stripes causing the scrolling lag. is it really annoying? coz then ill try to fix it by using a larger image for the bg...

[Daniel T]

the links look better. u mite wanna also change the ones in the ramblings section;). im not sure y the stripes would cauze a scrolling lag. ive used striped bkgrounds b4 and havent witnessed ne probs. and yes, it is really annoying;). the [boxed] scheme looks rather screwed up on my comp. there's a bunch of divs overlapping text and the likes.
-Dan

[Paul Jr]

Add some padding or margin to the "Updates" text so it's not so close to the "Want your name in 10px Tahoma?" thing. Then, change the color of the actual Updates <div>. It doesn't match, you don't have any thing else, at least on that page, that has a white background, and nothing else has a teal background, either. Then make the Updates <div> longer, and you should be set.

I like it, lot cleaner than it was before. Nice work ;)

[Ben Rogers]

Hm. OK, i'll try to fix the stripes. and r u serious? its pixel perfect on my comp with mozilla, opera, AND Internet Explorer.

http://projep.t35.com/pi/scrnshot.html

hm. ill change the colors for the links too then.

[Sam]

just out of curiousity, why can't you have an index.php?style=box
then if it has a style attribute defined use $style.css else use $default type thing?

[Ben Rogers]

Originally posted by Paul Jr
Add some padding or margin to the "Updates" text so it's not so close to the "Want your name in 10px Tahoma?" thing. Then, change the color of the actual Updates <div>. It doesn't match, you don't have any thing else, at least on that page, that has a white background, and nothing else has a teal background, either. Then make the Updates <div> longer, and you should be set.

I like it, lot cleaner than it was before. Nice work ;)

Yeah it was pretty badly cluttered before, and it took me long enough to change it :rolleyes:

ill add that padding, and i guess ill make it a little bit longer even though i will have to shove #other further down and make the minheight for #ramblings longer.

ok.. fine ill change the bg for updates .. i originally had it like that to stand out.. not a good thing, huh?

[Ben Rogers]

Originally posted by samij586
just out of curiousity, why can't you have an index.php?style=box
then if it has a style attribute defined use $style.css else use $default type thing?

huh? it would index.php?css=box and u havent seen my php have you? cuz that made no sense. its a little more redundant than that.. simply finds $css, if it is none that it makes it equal to ab, and if it is there than uses it.

[Sam]

what I'm saying is why have the page in between when you could just add a query argument to your main page?

[Ben Rogers]

because you need to have the form using the action thing.. random visitors aren't going to think "hmm, maybe ill type in "?css=box" after the url!

[Sam]

no i mean, you can have the form be action=index.php rather than styles.php

[Ben Rogers]

i think thatd be more confusing, to be sent back to the homepage every time you changed the stylesheet.

[Sam]

or you could get the current url via php and make that the action

[Ben Rogers]

i don't know how to get the current url.

[Sam]

$REQUEST_URI i believe, no php access @tm to test though

[Sam]

you might need to use parse_url() on that to exlude the query string & fragments

[Ben Rogers]

im no php expert, but a lowly noob with ambition :D i donno what parse_url does or how it works...

[Sam]

This should help:
http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.parse-url.php
if you still need help after reading this, i'd suggest ya start a new thread in the php forum as this is starting to deviate from site review...

[Daniel T]

omega, there's definitely sumthin rong wit ur site! im not sure if its the images, or wut, but its actually slowing down my comp significantly when i have it open. normally, it would take bout 5 seconds to open up a page(in this case, ryan's website (http://www.ryanbrill.com/)), but it took me bout 25 seconds just to get anything to show this time. to c if it wuz ur site, i tried it again after closing ur site and clearin muh cache. it took the normal 5 seconds. very odd indeed...
-Dan

[Ben Rogers]

try it again using the [boxed] style.. its those damn stripes i know it... gotta do sumtin to em.

[Ben Rogers]

i'll be working on that php... as for it being off topic the purpose of this review is to improve my site which is what your helping me do :)

[Daniel T]

yeah, sure enuff it works. but how could them damn stripes use up so much RAM? thats just weird!
-Dan

[Ben Rogers]

maybe its cuz the img used is 2px high, 1px wide.. think how many times its repeated....

as for the php im getting nowhere... php.net has the worst explanations in my opinion.

[Daniel T]

i cant even get PHP installed:(
BOOHOOHOO!!;)
-Dan

[Ben Rogers]

neither can i

apparently t35.com didnt have too many problems thogh... ;)

[Daniel T]

no, guess not:D
-Dan

[Ben Rogers]

do u use apache on ur own system? then im sure sum1 in the php forum can help you out.. i need to go ask q there myself...

[Daniel T]

i managed to get them both installed, but when i went to start apache, it said that AddModule wasnt a valid command, and u nee to use AddModule to configure apache to run with php.

as for looking for help in the php section, ive tried that. paul jr helped me out a lot getting apache installed, but i havent received any replys as far as php goes.
-Dan

[Ben Rogers]

ah... im still working on it... ive found some seemingly useful php commands, but nothings worked.

ive taken out the background and #rambling stripes and replaced them with a darker blue... i like it and the scroling lag :) opinionz....

[Daria]

I cannot see it at all. "file cannot be displayed"...

[Ben Rogers]

really? not even the homepage, http://projep.t35.com/ ? what about http://projep.t35.com/index.php ?

[Daria]

now I can. must've been a glitch

[Daria]

by the way, your updated site looks so much better.
can I suggest to make the blue links a bit more subtle? They are really "neony" and "sharp" for the eyes. Could be just me, though...

[Ben Rogers]

yeah... i need a new server VERY badly... and illusionfx hasnt gotten back to me, with a rejection or approval.

ok well paul jr. told me a way to explode a url to fit my needs... now i just need a way to get the url with a variable...

[Sam]

looks much better. now, for the pages other than index.php, I would suggest adding a <input type="hidden"> with the current value of "a" in your query so it will be able to find the file its looking for again.

[Ben Rogers]

I'm working on something like that... I would've finished it last night, but i got bored so i slept over my friends house... it wouldn't have done anything had i kept working: once i get frustrated i can't script.

but yeah.... i have a system... now im working on sumtin similair for the name script... maybe send it as postdata..? would that be annoying you think, to have to see the error for postdata being on that page evry time you hit back..?

[Sam]

yeah, i was thinking this morning, it might be better to do this with cookies

[Ben Rogers]

nah, the style thing is already set. now all i have to do with it is add tp it more styles.... more spaced out though i plan to make good ones. i don't want to pollute my veiwer's comps with c00k1es. I don't mind using one for the name thing, but that's different, that's just a stupid random thing, ya no?

[mdoigny]

I don't like the site.
Mostly the miriad of pop-ups and requests to install spy software. It just makes your site behaving like a porn site.

[Ben Rogers]

that's not my fault. the server adds those.

[mdoigny]

The adds are poping up much more faster that your page.
Any page in your site takes more than 10 seconds to download. (i'm on a fast cable connection, 360k download speed or something like that).
And those nasty adds just appear above screen, so there is no title bar. Closing your page flooded my screen with another payload of adds and "free software".


It's supposed to be for the young guns, your site?
With my old and tired eyes, it's very difficult to read the text (it's not fresh news: when the Mac computer was developped, they switched from the DOS world of white characters on a black background to black characters on a white background).
I much like the colors, the purple background and the light blue one with stripes on it, but the text ... oh god ... maybe i should limit myself to reading the newspaper headlines.

Increasing the font size in IE6 does not work, because you are using fixed size fonts, who are, believe it or not ... fixed in size. Switching to 1024 * 768 instead of my native resolution of 1280 * 1024 didn't help much, my LCD display can't display this resolution properly.

[Ben Rogers]

1) Ads not my fault!!! I hate my server, but it's the only free one that supports php that i could find.
2) The test is white on dark blue... if it shows up as purple then there's some kind of error on your end. Maybe I should change to another hex of dark blue.
I use px's because font sizes can become mutatedly big with em's. i like px's. thery're only fixed in ie btw.
i have the multiple schemes there so that if you have trouble reading the text, or don't like the look, you can change to another one.
As for the res? Thats more of a layout thing. The layout looks best in 1024*768
As for IE... i would STRONGLY reccomend downloading and installing Mozilla's Firefox. It's a better browser by far

[mdoigny]

1) yes, i know, but it's realy annoying to have 3 pop-ups and two software offers for one page displayed.
Just a dumb question: why do you need to have php?

2) On the standard layout, the text displays rather nicely (white on dark purple), but with some annoying links (blue on black). Tried the Pyro thing. Much worse.
Got pissed of (why couldn't you make your page looks like those pop-ups :D )

Normally i use Opera as browser, but switch to IE when viewing sites 'professionally', since most users will be visiting your site with IE5 or IE6.

[Sam]

real browsers (http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/) allow users to change font size no matter what, so there's really nothing you can do about font size issues other than make something that looks good in IE

[Ben Rogers]

right. ok, i need php because i use A LOT of php includes, and it handles the scheme changer.
I haven't thoroughly tested or fixed the pyro scheme, its only for mozilla/firefox as it stands. the boxed and default schemes are browser proofed though.
i really want to change servers so any suggestions for a better-than-t35 server with php support would be great.

[Paul Jr]

Originally posted by omega
right. ok, i need php because i use A LOT of php includes, and it handles the scheme changer.
I haven't thoroughly tested or fixed the pyro scheme, its only for mozilla/firefox as it stands. the boxed and default schemes are browser proofed though.
i really want to change servers so any suggestions for a better-than-t35 server with php support would be great.
Pay 40 bucks a year for Dr2.net hosting. (http://www.dr2.net/)

[Ben Rogers]

um... no.
1) don't have $40
2) don't have any money
3)Don't have a credit card
4) parents paranoid about internet

i'm stuck with free hosting for a while.

[dera]

wow your sites design changes almost every week its changed again