NSBE Beta Release Site. Critiques, please?

[ajreynol]

Hey folx...my 1st time posting a site for review (though I am not a newbie, as you'll see soon)! My site is a beta version of a new National site for my engineering student organization.

NOTES BEFORE VIEWING:
-->The homepage works for the most part. some links are inaccurate or don't work because that much of the site hasn't been developed. Just enough to get good critiques and allow people to see what the site will look and feel like.

-->The "NOL login" button works

-->Of the main links going across the top, only the "About Us" link and it's subNav links work (about 7 pages).

-->The little heart, sheet of paper, and envelope icons that you'll see on the templated pages work.


I look forward to having my site ripped to shreds. :-)

http://www.nsbe.org/operationlockdown


thanks!

[sharkey]

The design is nice clean easy to use navigation but the code could have some improvments i already explained about the frames to you in another post. Lose the tables and use css to control the layout of the page and use semantic(meaningful) mark-up.

The text doesnt enlarge in IE which is an accessiblity problem define font sizes in em not px becuase IE has a bug.

[ajreynol]

Ok, but if I loose my frames, i'll loose my music too. Any ideas on how I can keep my music, which is playing on the other frame? I just don't want it to reload every time someone refreshes the page or goes to another page.


thanx!

[sharkey]

One many people here will agree with is lose the background music it is annoying, amateur and makes the page take longer to load and with a site like yours which has a good design it will only bring it down.

Even if you wanted to keep the frames it wont make you lose the music but am a tad unsure of what you mean im sure the music file would be cached so it wouldnt have to be reloaded.

[ajreynol]

I'll definitely take that into consideration.

Thanks!

[sharkey]

No problem:)

[ajreynol]

OH ANOTHER QUESTION

Is there a way to make a server read a PHP file as the index file? If the file is named index.php or default.php, will servers recognize it as it would a regular .html file?

[sharkey]

No it will recognize it as a php file but that wont change anything if you have index.php thats what will be brung up by default if you get what i mean.

[ajreynol]

excellent. And I've already made the frame change to the site. If I can get your...ahem...frameless review, that'd be great!

http://www.nsbe.org/operationlockdown/

Also, any fancy way to keep the address in the address bar from changing now that I'm not using frames?

[ajreynol]

...and when I say changing, I mean from showing the extension of every page the browser surfs to on the site...

[Paul Jr]

Originally posted by ajreynol

Also, any fancy way to keep the address in the address bar from changing now that I'm not using frames?
Nope. It would be a bad idea, anyway. How is someone supposed to get the URL of the page they are on, to, say, give to someone else? Or how about bookmarking?

You should also make sure you have an alternate form of navigation for users who do not have the Flash Plugin.

[ajreynol]

Good question and I see your point. Based on how the site is functioning now, it would do that stuff regardless of what it says in the address bar (i think). Check out the miniature bottons on the templated pages (the heart, the letter, and the envelope).