Advised To Seek Advice On New Site

[varietyarts]

hello,

I have recently uploaded my site (after 2+ years of self teaching) and was advised by some to have my site graphics alalyzed (sorry if not spelt correctly). Any help given is geatly appreciated.

http://artinsideofart.com

[LJK]

Hi -
I'm not sure what advice you were looking for, so I'll just
hit a couple of points:

Am on dial-up and each page took quite a while to download -
at least 40 seconds. Not sure what the image sizes [kb] are
or it it's the fact that everything's in pieces - taking time
to re-assemble.
The design is fairly uniform but I'm not sure the glossy buttons
and bars go with the classic columns and faded parchment...I'd also
skip using an image for a big text block - better to use for special
areas where a 'normal' font won't do.

Also wondered why none of the site is hand-coded - each page
was created by a program! The alt="" attribute is missing on many [all?] of your image tags as well - this is a requirement to help those users with screen readers.

Continue to enjoy this new medium/outlet, but take a little time
to get back to coding basics in the process. You might want to
learn more about CSS as well - having one external style sheet is
much handier than all of those inline styles!

Good luck,
El

[varietyarts]

What is CSS? Do you know of a good site that explains this CSS for first timers ?

[LJK]

Hi -
This is just another coding language that's pretty easy
to learn - unless you're trying to copy a table-based
layout to a 'T'!

The (x)html is the CONTENT of a webpage, but Cascading
Style Sheets are the STYLES of it - where you declare
color, background, font, sizes, margins, background images,
etc.

If you look at your source code, it's full of *inline* style rules:
<h2 style="color:red; font-size:80%; margin:2% auto;">HI</h2>

An easier method is to type up all of your rules in a separate
file - styles.css, or whatever. Then, just need a link in the
head section of any web page(s) to apply the styles! [Superb for
doing an entire site - no messy inlines, yes...]

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Anyway, why don't you start with the forums here? ;-)

[Site Point is also excellent, but begin with the 'sticky'
posts to cover a lot of basics before having to read about
everyones' design headaches!]

Good luck,
El

[varietyarts]

Thanks for the advice. I'll start here and let you know what happens.