davebrent.com

[davidbrent]

Well I had an idea to start one of those CMS powered sites, so here you go:
Rip it apart (nicely, of course)!

http://www.davebrent.com/

Note: Please remember the CMS is not complete so you will not be able to use a lot of features such as Permalinkage or Comments.

I am just looking for a design review.

Best Wishes,
David

[NogDog]

Overall, I like the look. A couple problems though:

Viewing it in IE6 on Win2000, the portion of the left column beginning with the "Thinkpad" heading does not start until after the end of the end of the text in the right column, thus leaving a large white space above it (as well as a large white space below the right-column text).

Viewing it in Firefox on Linux, the columns look OK, but there is a thin blue border about 1/2 inch above the "David Brent's Outlook on Design" logo (which does not appear in my Win/IE6 browser).

[davidbrent]

Problem number one, sorted. I had typo'd the header width.
Problem number two, will fix a.s.a.p. it's to do with the default text-underline and border-bottom.

Cheers
David

[NogDog]

Originally posted by davidbrent
Problem number one, sorted. I had typo'd the header width.
Problem number two, will fix a.s.a.p. it's to do with the default text-underline and border-bottom.

Cheers
David
Much better in IE now. :)

[davidbrent]

Thanks! The site was designed on a Mac so obviously I didn't realise how it was looking in Win/IE unti i turned on my XP system. I am thinking of redoing all the typography for Win as it really does not look nice ;)

[Jona]

Woo! I like! I'm a tad short on time, so I'm letting you off easy with no critical comments. As far as I can see, it looks good enough to go up in one of those CSS galleries. Oh, and that link about iTunes and XHTML - very nice. ;)

[davidbrent]

Originally posted by Jona
Woo! I like! I'm a tad short on time, so I'm letting you off easy with no critical comments. As far as I can see, it looks good enough to go up in one of those CSS galleries. Oh, and that link about iTunes and XHTML - very nice. ;)

Thanks for the exceedingly nice comments. To be honest it wasn't planned. I'm a bit of a speedy designers, I created the composition, then split up into the XHTML & CSS, then put the template into a ready setup Textpattern system and now I am tweaking testing/complicating everything.

Running two sideline categories gets a bit complicated when switching positions and requires a calm perspective so it may take a while before everything is finished CMS wise.

The typography, as I mentioned, needs some perfection - but I'm happy with my graphics so we'll see how it gets along eh!

Best Wishes,
David

[LiLcRaZyFuZzY]

like it, looks great with those curtains and background!

hmm...i dunno if its intentional, but the central part goes to high in FF

[davidbrent]

Originally posted by LiLcRaZyFuZzY
hmm...i dunno if its intentional, but the central part goes to high in FF

I don't understand. Can you put up a screenshot? That would be really great if you could.

Thanks for the comments ;)

Best Wishes
David

[Jona]

I'm sure that's intentional; the way the content box (with the traverse lines at the top) goes on top of the curtains. If it were unintentional, the shadows would likely be out of place.

[davidbrent]

Ah. Now I understand what was meant. Yes Jona is quite right, The curtains are supposed to be behind the "content box (with the traverse links)" :p

Any other obvious (or not) bugs?

Best Wishes,
David

[chrismartz]

As far as I can tell from my perception, all looks great. The only question I have is "What is the horizontal box below your header for. There is no content in there. Is this done on purpose? Otherwise, Good Job! :D

[davidbrent]

Originally posted by sirhcchris3
As far as I can tell from my perception, all looks great. The only question I have is "What is the horizontal box below your header for. There is no content in there. Is this done on purpose? Otherwise, Good Job! :D

Thanks! If by horizontal box you mean the box with transverse lines then you will have to wait and see. I was trying something out but decided against it. Let me get Textpattern working first!

Best Wishes,
David

[davidbrent]

I have sorted Textpattern out and made some changes, especially in the comments area.

Any comments er on the comments?

[LiLcRaZyFuZzY]

hi,
have u watched ur site in IE6/Win?
The "Elsewhere" and "Reading" sections go down the page, weird.
i attach a snapshot

[davidbrent]

Oh, it will be a problem with the left and right float side. Will check that out.

Best Wishes,
David

[pyro]

Well done. I like it.

One of the only things I don't like is how your left and right borders meet up with the bottom border. It looks too much like a picture frame, to me.

Nicely done, though. I definitely see it making it's way into most of the CSS galleries. ;)

[davidbrent]

Originally posted by pyro
Well done. I like it.

One of the only things I don't like is how your left and right borders meet up with the bottom border. It looks too much like a picture frame, to me.

Nicely done, though. I definitely see it making it's way into most of the CSS galleries. ;)

Thanks pyro! I am having problems with the borders at the moment. I am not a big fan of boxed in designs and prefer nice open and whitespaced web sites. Strange, seen as I have just created a boxed up layout. Anyway, I am not sure about the inner borders so there maybe some change there.

Thanks for the comment.

Best Wishes,
David

[pyro]

Oh, just noticed your links, too. I'm a huge fan of cruft-free URLs (http://www.ryanbrill.com/archives/cruft-free-urls/). If you're on Apache with mod-rewrite, it'd be a cinch to re-write the URLs you've got to something much more user/search engine friendly. Let me know if you need help with it.

[davidbrent]

Originally posted by pyro
Oh, just noticed your links, too. I'm a huge fan of cruft-free URLs (http://www.ryanbrill.com/archives/cruft-free-urls/). If you're on Apache with mod-rewrite, it'd be a cinch to re-write the URLs you've got to something much more user/search engine friendly. Let me know if you need help with it.

I also prefer cruft free URLs but have had a problem implementing Textpatterns default method. I am hosted on Dreamhost and have a problem with .htaccess, I can't access them or upload my own written .htaccess files for some reason. The panel offers little options, the basics like passwording directories and WebDAV. I am still unearthing more server specs and will see what their approach to mod-rewrite.

I will ticker the problem over to them. Didn't know you had written about this topic so I will check out your article now.


Thanks!
Best Wishes,
David