opinions sought

[KevinG]

Hey everyone, i am building this site in my spare time - www.websitevrm.com - its not quite finished but I would like to hear your opinions. The ads will rotate and I will add some better stuff to the resources section.

For the backend i intend to either use loggerx.com or phpee.com - but if anyone knows of anything better please let me know.

[oracleguy]

Maybe it's just me but the main body text looks a little too small. Make it slightly bigger.

[KevinG]

Thanks for that.

I took your advice and lifted the font size up slightly.

[ronaldb66]

Looks pretty good; navigation is nice, balanced color scheme (if you're into orangeish).
Are you going to fill the home page with a little more than nav and banners? If not, it's a pretty useless page...

[KevinG]

To be honest i am kinda stuck on the home page. i wanted some cool animation or some relevant images. but photoshop was never one of my strong points. any ideas?

I selected orange, black and white as the site colours after trying a million other combinations. Everyone else had a white body'd site so i figured i would do something different. I want to keep the site simple, quick and easy to use.

I'm really impressed how global these forums are. I am from London.

[Roy Sinclair]

Originally posted by KevinG
To be honest i am kinda stuck on the home page. i wanted some cool animation or some relevant images. but photoshop was never one of my strong points. any ideas? ...


I think you've identified a problem here. A good web site design methodology is to identify the content first. Then organize the content to flow properly from page to page with logical and/or functional divisions and once all that's decided go back and add the window dressing.

It honestly sounds like you started with the window dressing and are still at a loss for content. Without content there's no need for anyone to even look at your page. LOL - you might want to put that advice into your FAQ page :D.

[RadarBob]

I recommend you puruse this book (no criticism of your site implied). At first it's title made me think this was trendy, cutesey, etc. but there is very solid advise on how to design excellent web pages.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0782140203/qid=1028900974/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/102-8194009-3207323

[KevinG]

If you read what I said.

I am looking for a image/animation for the home page - meaning I all ready know what text to put on the page.

[KevinG]

Thanks radar. Though I want my site to load fast and be easy to navigate and trying to think of a relevant image/animation for my splash page is not as easy as it sounds. I have the text ready. I just trying to come up with something pow wow.

[whackaxe]

in the nav bar at the top, instead of having the text underlined when you mouseover, you could maybe make the cell background change color?

[KevinG]

aside from making a graphics rollover, i have never understood how to do that.

[boxer_1]

Originally posted by KevinG
aside from making a graphics rollover, i have never understood how to do that.

If you decide to go with the suggestion of changing the bgcolor of the table cell onmouseover, here's one way you could do it:

<td bgcolor="#c0c0c0" onmouseover="this.style.backgroundColor = '#ff0000'" onmouseout="this.style.backgroundColor = '#c0c0c0'">
Content of table cell
</td>

Just change the color values to suit yourself ;) .

[KevinG]

thanks for that. I use one main style sheet to control the site, although tables and css is something i have yet to learn.

[newmate]

Originally posted by KevinG
To be honest i am kinda stuck on the home page. i wanted some cool animation or some relevant images. but photoshop was never one of my strong points. any ideas?

I selected orange, black and white as the site colours after trying a million other combinations. Everyone else had a white body'd site so i figured i would do something different. I want to keep the site simple, quick and easy to use.

I'm really impressed how global these forums are. I am from London. It's good that you are going to change your home page BG as it is washing over the text.
As this is a commerce site as opposed to a personal site, I suggest you keep the front (home) page fast, simple, clear and informative. Stay away from a horde of obnoxious, bandwidth eating animated gifs and banners and intensive graphics. There is nothing wronge with a mild solid color per se. You may want to try a faded or sketch type B&W or very limited color BG of a collogue with people from all over the world or of a globe with communication lines superimposed. You could even use a small simple tile like the one below from A page I have just started
Sample (http://www.newmateshome.com/homesite1/page5.htm)

[KevinG]

something like that faded in is exactly what i am looking for.

[newmate]

Originally posted by KevinG
something like that faded in is exactly what i am looking for. Well you can just snipe (save) the image from that page. The problem is that I am using a tiled .gif and even if I used an interlaced or saved it as a progressive .jpg (5 passes) the browser renders all the tiles and effectively voids the fade in properties. You can get a very slight fade effect by specifying a BG color and the BG image.
Maybe someone else can provide a solution.

[whackaxe]

arg:p animùated gifs are the worst thing you can do for a site unless they arent really that animated, a simple rollover effect but a big pink and yellow flashing thingy saying new! does look a bit tacky

[allida77]

I think it looks good. The orange background distracts the content. Maybe put a white bg behind your text so it sticks out more. I am using ie 6 and on the bottom left of my browser the ie icon spazzes out, that is also distracting.

[KevinG]

I'm not sure when you say ie icon spazzes out. I am using ie 6 too. I have put a script in to stop the links paths showing.

[newmate]

Originally posted by allida77
I think it looks good. The orange background distracts the content. Maybe put a white bg behind your text so it sticks out more. I am using ie 6 and on the bottom left of my browser the ie icon spazzes out, that is also distracting. Go with an off white background if you go decide to go that way.

[redhead]

i like the orange...

i'd go alot easier with all them adds... (http://www.websitevrm.com/resources.php)

The very first page of any site needs to sum up the point of that site, what it does, why its there, and why anyone should use your services, remember if they come to your first page and dont know why they are on your site they wont stay. A paragraph will do... if its too long it'll scare 'em away...

as for the rollover cells, i would use something more like this:

<style type="text/css">
td.menuoff {
background-color: #999999;
}
td.menuon {
background-color: #FFFFFF;
}
</style>


<table>
<tr>
<td onmouseover="className='menuon';" onmouseout="className='menuoff';" class="menuoff">
Home
</td>
</tr>
</table>


also you're using PHP so why do the date in JavaScript...

hope that helps... :thumbsup:

[KevinG]

It helps a lot guys. I'm still kinda fond of the orange too.

The javascript date - its a tool i added to my objects palette in DW so whether its a htm, php or asp site i know it will work.

I thought the ads in the resources section was better than having pop ups and ads of all shapes and sizes splattered across every bit page space. I want to keep my ads relevant, although i will do more with that page once i am 100% live.

Still unsure about which backend to go with :confused: I want to make a really good service for webmasters so any suggestions are welcome - I have a budget (and credit cards :thumbsup: )