Inspiracode web design site 95% complete!

[DanT07]

Hiya,
www.inspiracode.com (http://www.inspiracode.com)
Just posting up our now VERY NEARLY complete web design site for you guys to pass on some feedback. The site is now totally operational, accepting online orders,instant quotes,auto email responders, logins, client areas, file uploads, sign off lists....u name it, its in there some where!
Any feedback would be much appreciated.
Also if any one feels like link exchanging with us, we have set up a directory here (we have PR3 on most pages so far):
http://www.inspiracode.com/directory_listings.asp
thanks in advance!

[Richard Conyard]

The site looks okay :-)

That's the good news out of the way, the bad news is that under the hood it's terrible:
Inline CSS
Tables for layouts
Obtrusive JavaScript

Fortunately most people will never see that.

[DanT07]

Yes youre right some of the CSS is a bit sloppy. I dont see anything wrong with using tables though. Its still an industry standard and they will be around for quite some time i feel. It can always be changed when the time comes though. And javascript is everywhere nowadays, it provides the extra functionality we need.

Thanks for you comments, would you really go so far as to say it was terrible though?

[Richard Conyard]

Without going to check which priority it is (AA at a guess), use of tables for layout is frowned upon by the W3C WAI. It's also a bit naff for search engines since loads of your code goes into maintaining tables, and not the content of the page.

Have a look at CSS Zen Garden ( http://www.csszengarden.com/ ), to find out about CSS-P :-)

[DanT07]

Well i suppose converting it over will have to be a focus of our work over the next few weeks then. :P

[aznchong91]

I think tables are very useful. How else would you center all of your content in the page on your user's screen no matter what size screen they have? They are still widely used today and anyway...who cares as long as it works and downloads at a minimal time?

[DanT07]

Agreed :)

[Richard Conyard]

margin-left: auto;
margin-right: auto;

[DanT07]

It doesnt work though does it? Not on all browsers. Ive tried many many attempts at getting it to work perfectly and asked for much help in forums etc. Admittedly it was some time ago. Does it work perfectly cross browser now?

[Richard Conyard]

There are a couple of techniques that our designers use (I program), that make it cross browser and work from about IE / Netscrape 4 upwards, but it pretty much works like that.

[DanT07]

Thats good then, i remember trying to do a whole site that way but it would never work the same on all browsers. If you applied a fix it made something else not work. Noone appeared to know how to get it to work completely at the time. Maybe its time to try again.

[Richard Conyard]

Check the site in my sig, you'll be able to nab the CSS from the page and alter from their.

[DanT07]

Ok thanks ill take a look at it.

[dera]

Yes youre right some of the CSS is a bit sloppy. I dont see anything wrong with using tables though. Its still an industry standard and they will be around for quite some time i feel. It can always be changed when the time comes though. And javascript is everywhere nowadays, it provides the extra functionality we need.

Thanks for you comments, would you really go so far as to say it was terrible though?
its not an industry standard

[bathurst_guy]

tables arent an industry standard

I think tables are very useful. How else would you center all of your content in the page on your user's screen no matter what size screen they have? They are still widely used today and anyway...who cares as long as it works and downloads at a minimal time?Use CSS, then its even quicker than tables... And as for who cares... someone who is blind or other disabled people, thats who. So are there any good reasons to use tables other than CSS (except for tabular data)... Nup.

[aznchong91]

I still find tables much easier to use than CSS. In CSS, you have to do a LOT more stuff, whereas all you have to do with tables is move them around.

[bathurst_guy]

Depends if you know what your doing with CSS, once you learn it (properly, not just font colour lol) its very easy to use. otherwise (http://www.job-hunt.org)

[Ness_du_Frat]

I think tables are very useful. How else would you center all of your content in the page on your user's screen no matter what size screen they have?
We all managed to do it without tables. Obviously, there is a way... :)
You can find great tutorials on the web.

They are still widely used today and anyway...who cares as long as it works and downloads at a minimal time?
If you want to design your personal page, just don't worry about tables. You can use them, it's up to you. But when you do a professional site, you expect it to work with all browsers, that include browsers for blind people, who surf the web with a Braille Keyboard.
One of my friends is blind, and she told me it was a real nightmare for her, because so few sites are fully accessible.

I personally still use tables for forms. I'm too lazy to do a model once for all. But some people do agree that tables are a more efficient way to design forms.
Still, one day, I'll find the strength to do them without tables....



Sorry for the little off-topic explanation.

DanT07, I like your site a lot. Even if your code is not the next best thing, your whole site really looks good :)

[DanT07]

Lol, thanks :)

[hansons]

i have seen ur website........i like ur webiste.....i will do link exchange with us

[spufi]

I personally still use tables for forms. I'm too lazy to do a model once for all. But some people do agree that tables are a more efficient way to design forms. Still, one day, I'll find the strength to do them without tables....

http://www.stuffandnonsense.co.uk/archives/stylish_accessible_forms.html
http://www.stylephreak.com/index.php/archives/2004/08/standard-forms/
http://www.themaninblue.com/experiment/InForm/index.htm

:)

[DanT07]

i have seen ur website........i like ur webiste.....i will do link exchange with us

Hi hansons, have you added your link yet?