Topic: birdmansplace.myftp.org

[Birdmansplace]

I started a site dedicated to Counter Strike Source to track stats for me and a couple of friends that play.  Then I d-sided to go all the way and create a hole site for anyone that joined my server.  It about 4 to 5 months in the making and think i am about done.  I only have one issue at the moment and thats with my donate page that i am currently workin on. 

Every one has there option and please leave yours

birdmansplace.myftp.org

[nrg_alpha]

I would axe the 'enter' screen entirely.. this is like having two front doors one infront of the other on a house. Rather useless.. Have people get instant access to the 'meat and potatoes' (content) right away.

The following list of comments pertains to your rules page:
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Your rules page (http://birdmansplace.myftp.org/main/rules.html) does not validate.

On that same page, you have underlined text that looks like links but are not. I would remove the underlines from those.

I find you have too many different coloured text going on.. I would stick to making all non links one colour, and the links another. Unify the different text sizes as well.. too much variation going on. Having different link colours on hover would be nice.

Having the 'Welcome to the birdman's place' feels redundant, given the header.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

You have a top menu and a footer.. but the content feels just dumped in there.. would be nice to encapsulate this all into some form of GUI (graphic user interface), with perhaps borders and what not. Speaking of the menu and footer and content, they all seem to vary in width compared to the top header banner.. I would make all three sections the same consistent width.. it lines things up much better.. the eye doesn't feel like it is 'dancing' all over the place.

As for the home page, it doesn't offer much info.. I would make much better use of the content within this section.. (what the site is about, how to join, etc..).

The stuff in link 'Site-info' can probably be merged into the home page.. all in all... somewhat plain and has a disorganized and non-informative look and feel to it (sorry.. not trying to sound demeaning.

[Birdmansplace]

thanks for the input.  it will get put to good use

[Birdmansplace]

Well i have gone through my site and made alot of changes.

http://birdmansplace.myftp.org

[nrg_alpha]

Updated feedback:

- Your site still doesn't validate.
- Nor does your css validate.
- The layout is broken (viewed in Opera 9.62 and Firefox 3.0.1). Have you seen some of the elements sticking through the lefthand side? (especially the rules page.. but there are issues everywhere in this regard).

While you made better font organization (and in this sense, it is an improvement), overall, the structure is broken and the site plagued with errors. I really mean no offense nor am I trying to be rude, but the site is very rough looking. I would focus on getting your layout to function properly (fix the errors on both your html doc as well as any css errors, as these are culprits to be sure).

[Birdmansplace]

The rules i wanted to the left.  make it more like a list.  Main part of the site is the forum and stats.  As far as the rest goes its just easy nav.  I want layed back and basic for some of the pages do users are sign up to get any more info.  I guess i didn't know validate was a big deal a basic site but i guess so.  I do like the feed back.  its takin be many hours and months to get this far.


Edit:Used another computer on my network to view my site and i see what you mean.  for some reason probably what you stated is causing everything to be to the left. both my computers display it normal.  not sure. whats going on

[Birdmansplace]

well i viewed site in IE and everything si displaying like it should.  but if you click the links nav button in ie the page doesn't load right at all unless you refresh it. 

Any ideas?

[Birdmansplace]

Well i have found that 800x600 rez that nothing loads right.  and theres an issue in IE with links page.   everything displays correct in 1027x768

[nrg_alpha]

well i viewed site in IE and everything si displaying like it should.  but if you click the links nav button in ie the page doesn't load right at all unless you refresh it. 

I can only test in IE 6 at the moment (bad browser to use though), and same results: elements out of alignment... You should test your site on all major browsers (IE, Firefox, Opera, Safari & Chrome) not just IE (which is losing more and more browser market share [and rightfully so]).

Yep. Fix validation errors.
How? By rolling up your sleeves, getting diry in code grease and look at what the validator is complaining at, and go through your code and fix them point by point. That's about all I can offer.

[ILMV]

1) I do not care what my IP is.
2) I do not care how many visitors your site has recieved.
3) I do not care what the date / time is, that's why I have a clock in the corner.

I don't want to comment on the design, mainly because my rig breaks websites (I don't know how), but by the looks of things its not looking good, the colours look pretty bad IMO.

Happy Xmas!
ILMV

[Adam]

I've gotta agree with the masses.. An ILMV's right about the clock, IP and how many visitors you've received - they're pointless content fillers. A good tool to use to test how your website displays in different browsers is browsershots.org ..

Not to be harsh, but I'd consider remaking the design. The colours are awful.. Google for "color scheme generator" - plenty of tools out there to help you create a nice fitting colour scheme.

Also I'd get rid of the XAMP fav icon!

A

[ILMV]

Also I'd get rid of the XAMP fav icon!

Yes! I had forgotten to say that! It was a dead give away, no problem being able to get to the phpMyAdmin page, if someone knew how to exploit it you could have some problems.

[Birdmansplace]

Thanks for the input.  No hard feeling from me anyways.   Maybe i should just give up while I still don't have anymore members.

[Birdmansplace]

I am lookin for ideas for color.  every thing i try just doesn't look right to me.  I guess i am trying to go for a dark theme.   Thought about doing a color theme like my forum but then i would like to keep each area of the site a different theme.  I bet that makes no sence to do that but i am limited on what i do know and how to do it. Any and all ideas are welcome. 


Birdman (my nickname): beats head on wall repeatedly

[Adam]

http://www.colorsontheweb.com/colorwizard.asp

Try entering a color like #333333 in there and seeing what you can find. Click the "complimentary" tab at the bottom and playing around with the slides.. Eventually you'll come up with several colors that blend really well. I've found that tool very useful before...

A

[Birdmansplace]

well i made some changes.  code is still not valid but i am slow at that.  I changed background and nav bar back ground and workin on changin all the text to the same size.    I could use some ideas on what color for the .: (page name text) :. and font.  And anything else

[Birdmansplace]

well i am .css validated.  php code on the other hand i can't stop getting errors.  I fix and error and it tells me to do one thing. so i do that and go validate again and tells me its still wrong.  So the hell with that.....

[nrg_alpha]

well i am .css validated.  php code on the other hand i can't stop getting errors.  I fix and error and it tells me to do one thing. so i do that and go validate again and tells me its still wrong.  So the hell with that.....

Good for you and congrats on the CSS validation (I only checked the home page)!
As for your 'php code' not validating, it is actually your (x)html document (the php parser on the server that has executed your php scripts within your page and put the end results as html) is what is the problem.

Simply have a look at what the validator is saying... I had a glance at your xhtml code on your homepage... and I can immediately see many serious issues..
You have divs in your <head> tags (don't do that), and you have multiple <head> tags as well as Doctype declarations! (again, don't do that). You should have only one <head> tag and one Doctype declaration.

If you are using an IDE such as Dreamweaver, you can start off of a template. Here is a sample 'blank page':

Code: [Select]

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<head>
<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" />
<title>Untitled Document</title>
</head>

<body>
</body>
</html>

Note how the structure is laid out.. there is no double DTD doctype or <head> tag declarations.
Also note that in xhtml, tags like <img> are self closing.. so when I look at an example of an imag tag you have (in your header.. again.. don't do that):

Code: [Select]

<img src="images/header.jpg" alt="">Should be located within your <body> tag (along with your divs) and in this case, your image tag should be:

Code: [Select]

<img src="images/header.jpg" alt="" />
(note the closing / before the > character.. in fact, if you look carefully, even the meta tags follow this notion)

I know when starting out, webdev is rough.. but you're getting there..Do a google search on proper semantic xhtml structure. Read up on what is acceptable and what is not within say <head> tags by example.. Read up on how xhtml tags should be structured. You fix those problems, your site will really start falling into place. (FYI, I see 133 errors in the validator...Understand that in reality, you may have less than half that.. once an error occurs, this creates a chain reaction of sorts).. so don't get discouraged by that number.. it is really far less.

Hang in there if you truly want to learn web coding.. the beginning is the hardest.. it gets easier from here.

Cheers

[Birdmansplace]

thanks for the boost. I have gone through and changed alot of things  i just have to go through all my html files.  have to weed out the double info. So basicly all the crap i have displayin should be after <body>.   I have set up overall_header and footer.html and everyother page with its own html.  So would it be smart to put <body> tag last in the header and then close it in the first line of the footer?

[nrg_alpha]

So would it be smart to put <body> tag last in the header and then close it in the first line of the footer?

No. You do not put the body tag within the header (again, look at the sample in my last post.. you should follow that structure without moving those tags around. All your content goes in your <body> tag (including your footer code... placed at the very bottom just before closing your body tag), all the initial info (stuff like doctype, meta tags, title and link tags by example) in the <head> tag.
Again, simply take a step back and google up how wesite (x)html structure works.. once you have this foundation down pat, it will fall into place much easier from there.

[Birdmansplace]

i will do that

[esgarrouth19]

The first thing I would suggest is boxing things in. Make your site the width of your header and separate the content with borders as you see fit. Generally, I'll have a border around the content, and below the header and menu. Sometimes I'll also include borders around some of the content if it's in several columns.

As for the colors, try a black base color (body {background-color:#000;}) and a dark grey content background (#content {background-color:#333;}). You could then go with #777 for #999 for the color of the text. The #777/#999 won't be too difficult to read, yet keeps the dark look you're going for.

After checking your code, I've noticed you several tables just to put the title or paragraphs of text in. It's completely unnecessary and that would be where you're getting the multi-colored borders from. Replace the title with h tags (<h1>, <h2>) and add an alt message to your header image (search engines can't read images :-)). Place the text of the page into paragraphs (<p>text goes here</p>) and set the borders/padding/margins of the tables in the css - it gives you a lot more flexibility.

Also, I could not completely load the website. You may want to look into that.

In short, ditch the tables, separate the content, and change the colors around a bit. If you have any questions, feel free to ask :-)

[Birdmansplace]

About the website not all loading.  There is one part of my site that runs on another computer and i have been having issues with that computer. but i think have it figured out. 

I like the lay out i have now but wish i new more about css.  I am html pron most of the time.  I may go and do another hole rewrite of everything.  I just have spent so much time on it already i hate starting over. I need to find something that works and that I understand. So thats the reason for tables.  Helps me find info when i forget where its at.

If i can get a template going of like the things you said above it would be and easyer change over.  But o well for now.

Also trying to find an easy graphics program to make better ones. I have been using gimp

[esgarrouth19]

About the website not all loading.  There is one part of my site that runs on another computer and i have been having issues with that computer. but i think have it figured out. 

I like the lay out i have now but wish i new more about css.  I am html pron most of the time.  I may go and do another hole rewrite of everything.  I just have spent so much time on it already i hate starting over. I need to find something that works and that I understand. So thats the reason for tables.  Helps me find info when i forget where its at.

If i can get a template going of like the things you said above it would be and easyer change over.  But o well for now.

Also trying to find an easy graphics program to make better ones. I have been using gimp

Code: [Select]

<p>Text goes here.</p>

Code: [Select]

p {width:470px;border:1px solid #333;padding:15px;}
That would make all paragraph tags a max width of 470 pixels wide (500 after padding) with a 1 pixel border that is colored dark grey. It would also have 15 pixels of padding on the inside. Just put the css in your css file (.css) and the other in between the body tags where you want it :-)

As for the H1, H2, and H3 tags, you can use the the same way - they just come bold and with font sizes... so change the font size (font-size:1.2em or something) and the weight if you want (font-weight:bold; or font-weight:normal;). If you have any other questions or need more help, feel free to contact me on any IM or by PM. Email works too

[Birdmansplace]

Just did a major change.  What does everyone think.  I do know my code is still not valid.