Cult of Apollo's new web site what do you guys think

[Tyler]

Hi ppl.
Just finished the new COA web site.
The first one was a hideous purple night mare with more bugs than entomologist could shake a stick at but, it was my first attempt I and learnt a lot by doing it.


www.cultofapollo.co.uk

I love to hear what you guys think of the new one.



Constructive criticisms welcome, but please bear in mined, before you start flaming me for making such amateurish site. This is only my second attempt at doing a web site, so be nice.

 

[Stinky]

Well done Looks good to me

My 2nd attempt at a web site was much worse, i won't be
ever posting a link to it

Hope all your soc buddies like using it

Regards, Stinky, Jurai Blood.

 

[beautygal]

It's visible you put a lot of effort in it, gratz!

Now, in a constructive manner, I would suggest a little brush-up in terms of looks: perhaps you could replace the Times New Roman fonts with something like Verdana or Tahoma, even Arial will make it look much more polished!
Also, some of the text is extremely small and almost illegible (I'm using medium size in IE and normal in Firefox), like the rules, members pages.
And one more thing, now this is of course a matter of personal taste, I think the site would look better, a bit more elegant if you wish, if a lighter shade of gray is used for the middle area. Right now it is about the same intensity as the turquoise background and is clashing a little.



Added: a few typos, like "How to contatct us", "IT city", "Fort Arus", "Miniopolis".

 

[Tyler]

It's visible you put a lot of effort in it, gratz!

Now, in a constructive manner, I would suggest a little brush-up in terms of looks: perhaps you could replace the Times New Roman fonts with something like Verdana or Tahoma, even Arial will make it look much more polished!
Also, some of the text is extremely small and almost illegible (I'm using medium size in IE and normal in Firefox), like the rules, members pages.
And one more thing, now this is of course a matter of personal taste, I think the site would look better, a bit more elegant if you wish, if a lighter shade of gray is used for the middle area. Right now it is about the same intensity as the turquoise background and is clashing a little.



Added: a few typos, like "How to contatct us", "IT city", "Fort Arus", "Miniopolis".

Thanks ill take that on board.

and +rep for the pointers

 

[Teranoz]

Stop using ms-office for building sites (span style='mso-spacerun:yes' and so)

 

[Tyler]

Stop using ms-office for building sites (span style='mso-spacerun:yes' and so)

I didn't use ms-office, I used Dreamweaver MX

 

[Teranoz]

But do you cut and paste text from ms-office to DW ?

You should learn a bit of basic html, so you can clean up your code a bit.
(btw nothing wrong with how it looks like to me)

 

[Tyler]

But do you cut and paste text from ms-office to DW ?

Yes but I'm dyslexic can't realy live with out spell check.

You should learn a bit of basic html, so you can clean up your code a bit.

Can't argue with that. I shall be looking into it.

(btw nothing wrong with how it looks like to me)

Thx

 

[Spud]

just got home from work and have taken a look at it

I'm verry impressed (although i liked the hideous purple one aswell), thanks for all the hard wrok you have put in. I agree about the text thou it would be better if it was a bit bigger and a differnt font.

You forgot to include our moto on it.

But overall a fantastic job, I just hope you dont want paying for it!

 

[TSCRYPTO]

Have just got home too and I am well impressed - you've done a good job Tyler - many thanks for the time and effort you have put into creating the pages.

And thanks too to those who have offered suggestions etc in the thread

I love the pic of you, Spud and Seba - a great screenie

(Damn hot here - where's my lager???)

 

[Ava]

Wow - I haven't seen such a retro website in a very long time

It's good to see you having a go ^_^. If at all you _ever_ need some help just PM me - I'll be happy to help and answer any questions that you might have Have a look at my website (www.rayzor-sharp.co.uk) to see what I'm capable of

And good luck with your society too

 

[mrproper]

The top menu needs to be bigger, and lower, I can hardly find it...

And it's Entropia Directory (not PE Directory... hmmm... wait till I find Dan... )

 

[Tyler]

The top menu needs to be bigger,

good point i'll sort that out

lower, I can hardly find it...

there isn't one that will explain why you can't fined it

it's Entropia Directory (not PE Directory... hmmm... wait till I find Dan... )

My bad again ill sort that one out. Thank's for pointing that out and taking time the time to comment (+rep)

 

[Pirx Danford]

You have received a lot of good pointers.

In order to implement them you will take some time,
but while at it I strongly suggest you try and understand how CSS works.

To be able to understand HTML and CSS and maybe later on some JS you may want to visit this site http://en.selfhtml.org/
It is a very big help no matter how low or progressed your web design skills are.

If you understand CSS you will see how easy it suddenly becomes to change the layout.
You can even become a bit dynamic without the use of that JS stuff.

Aside CSS or anything: please set font sizes in % and not in pt.
Because then the surfers browser setting of font size will be used which is giving good results in nearly all resolutions.

When all is done and you understand CSS please take a look at the border layout possibilities in CSS - you can make your table-elements look GREAT and distinguished by just implementing some nice border settings.


Have fun learning
Purx

 

[Tyler]

You have received a lot of good pointers.

In order to implement them you will take some time,
but while at it I strongly suggest you try and understand how CSS works.

To be able to understand HTML and CSS and maybe later on some JS you may want to visit this site http://en.selfhtml.org/
It is a very big help no matter how low or progressed your web design skills are.

If you understand CSS you will see how easy it suddenly becomes to change the layout.
You can even become a bit dynamic without the use of that JS stuff.

Aside CSS or anything: please set font sizes in % and not in pt.
Because then the surfers browser setting of font size will be used which is giving good results in nearly all resolutions.

When all is done and you understand CSS please take a look at the border layout possibilities in CSS - you can make your table-elements look GREAT and distinguished by just implementing some nice border settings.


Have fun learning
Purx

Thanks for your advice all good stuff. Just one thing Unfortunately I can't read German, I shall try and fined a similar page in English.


A big thankq to every one who has posted good advice on this thread.

 

[Pirx Danford]

Oh damn I see they are just in the progress of translating it.

But I can recommend the already translated CSS chapter nonetheless.
Its found here http://en.selfhtml.org/css/index.htm

Well and for the deep stuff go here http://www.w3.org/
these are the ones defining the standards and this will be completely english.

And please use that http://validator.w3.org/
even on this forum on exactly the editing page I am on right now there are 32 warnings - though no errors which is good.
Of that tool there exists a cool plugin for firefox http://users.skynet.be/mgueury/mozilla/
with that you can always see how standard conforming a page is coded and if there are real errors or some glitches on it.

Much fun and good luck in finding a good english tutorial.
Be sure to check back on selfhtml from time to time - my belief is there is hardly something better out there.

 

[Tyler]

Oh damn I see they are just in the progress of translating it.

But I can recommend the already translated CSS chapter nonetheless.
Its found here http://en.selfhtml.org/css/index.htm

Well and for the deep stuff go here http://www.w3.org/
these are the ones defining the standards and this will be completely english.

And please use that http://validator.w3.org/
even on this forum on exactly the editing page I am on right now there are 32 warnings - though no errors which is good.
Of that tool there exists a cool plugin for firefox http://users.skynet.be/mgueury/mozilla/
with that you can always see how standard conforming a page is coded and if there are real errors or some glitches on it.

Much fun and good luck in finding a good english tutorial.
Be sure to check back on selfhtml from time to time - my belief is there is hardly something better out there.

Thx again your a star

 

[la aurora]

Well, first of all I must say this site is really nice for one's 2nd attempt. You avoided some comon mistakes many new designers make.

Can you make it better? Yes you can. And you don't have to spend years learning how to make professional sites for that.

Here are 3 points I believe are important:

1. Coding.
DreamWeaver is a nice program but it provides much better results if you have more control over what you are doing. I'd suggest forgetting about it for a while and learning some basic stuff with the help of NotePad and any browser of your choice. There are many sites online that provide HTML lessons for beginners. I personally prefer paper books but it's just a matter of personal taste. Learn basic stuff of how to manage font size, type, color etc, how to make breaks, alignments and simple tables. Learning this is a matter of few hours. You don't really have to go too deep here for a start. You may not even need most of it after getting to know CSS but understanding of options you have is important. Do same with CSS. Do it step by step trying everything out. This way it will be easy and even entertaining. Later you can keep studying hand-made coding or go back to DW but with better understanding of what this program can do and ability to make some changes 'by hand' if needed. Like that mso thing that I believe can be avoided if you paste your text to NotePad and only then Copy/Paste to DW. But with some knowledge you won't be afraid to delete stuff that has no use on the site.

2. Graphics.
I'd suggest browsing the web and paying attention to what looks good and what not, what is comfortable to use and what's not. Nothing much, just paying attention. Or take your time and read some helpful sites like f.ex. http://www.alistapart.com/. It will give you better idea on how to make things look more stylish and professional. Once again it's not the matter of years of training. All you need is to catch this feeling of style. In most cases better solutions are simplier ones.
It won't harm paying attention to the way space is organized on other sites and how important elements are positioned. On this your site there's much space for improvement in this department. You are using a lot of space and scrolling for displaying very small ammount of information. There are some other issues but most are already mentioned above, so I won't go repeating.

3. Content.
Here lays, imho, the main problem of your site. It has almost no content. It's not worth making a site if there's nothing to write and show there. At this moment most of your site is what can be seen in society terminal in game plus couple of links. I'd say add more details. Add more information about the members of your soc.. may be some pictures and descriptions. When there's near no content, it's important to use what you have on its full, providing as much details as possible. I also don't get your decision to hide link to News and Events in the body of Rules and Structure. This is important 'original' content of your site and it should be at least in menu if not on the main page of the site.

Anyway I'm glad you understand the importance of soc site and have enough will and patience to work on it. I wish you luck in futher developments that I believe will follow

 

[Tyler]

Thx la aurora
you given me a lot to thnk about

 

[Zei]

I thought you guys like your lager warm

 

[Epictetus]

To reiterate what someone said above, serif fonts are NOT TO BE USED ONLINE.

Use Arial so that everyone can see the same font as you and it's more readable. Not negotiable in my book.

Also place your navigation links to the left as that will load first and then the user doesn't have to scroll over to the right.

Always give the user a way to go Home.

I would ditch the table cell borders.

Cool header graphic.

 

[Ava]

http://www.evrsoft.com/1stpage2.shtml

This programme I cannot exhault enough! It's a nice piece of kit where you code the HTML yourself, but has a built in preview with it too. (You press F9 and F10 to switch iirc)

What makes it really worthwhile though is it has a massive reference guide and loads of scripts that you can play with to give you a better understanding of how stuff works

Seriously, at least have a play ;-)

Well, first of all I must say this site is really nice for one's 2nd attempt. You avoided some comon mistakes many new designers make.

.............

Anyway I'm glad you understand the importance of soc site and have enough will and patience to work on it. I wish you luck in futher developments that I believe will follow

I agree completely - just in too much of a rush (being as I'm at work) to write that out in full ^_^

 

[Spud]

I thought you guys like your lager warm

I hate lager give me a cold pims any day

 

[TSCRYPTO]

In the next week or so, I will complete an introductory section for newcomers and pass this to Tyler for addition to the site.