request for critique/suggestions on a site.

[daedreem]

I have a very complicated and outdated old website I want to totally rebuild using a new template... before I consider doing that, I want an easy to use and keep updated template... but I want it to look professional or at least semi professional.

I also have a new website I'm putting together that's intended to be a business page, if my new daughter will ever let me get back into my art...

I want to use the same basic template on both, even if I have different graphics used in both templates.

I always hated frames... but they seem to be becoming less irritating as people are learning to do them correctly or browsers are supporting them better.. whichever it is...

-- Anyway, I have just redone my NEW Business-to-be website with a new template using tables and javascript to pull up a menu (so I only have to keep one page updated when I add or remove pages, and it will update on every page.) -- The graphics i know do not look very professional... but hopefully will do until I figure out a better option.

Please have a look, and if you think I could do better using frames or some other method please let me know.. and the reasons why.
If you simply have suggestions on how to make this setup look better, let me know that too, please...

Here is my new business site...
[LINK="http://www.catscratches.net/"]CATscratches.Net[/LINK]

just in case you want to know where else I need to update... here's my old outdated hobby site..
[LINK="http://www.communitygaming.org/"]CommunityGaming.Org[/LINK]

P.S... I hand-code... (self taught/still learning) I do not have a decent web-authoring program, or the funds to buy one... and prefer Hand-coding vs using a lousey web-authoring program..
I tried MS Words built in web coder for a bit... I DESPISED it... it adds waaaay to much junk to the page.. and if I then wanted to hand code an addition when Word wasn't handy it was far more difficult to do than writing the page from scratch would have been.

any help or advise appreciated!

[tony_j15]

Have you tried sourceforge? they have quite a few free html/php web coding apps.

[ClubMed]

As far as the technical side of your site, if you're hand-coding your tables and javascript then you are better than me, so good job on that.

Concerning the design, to be brutally honest, your new site looks cheesey and 90's. Hope I haven't offended you but your community gaming site looks better, it has a cleaner look to it. The CAT site looks messy, the background doesnt fit.

[daedreem]

As far as the technical side of your site, if you're hand-coding your tables and javascript then you are better than me, so good job on that.

Concerning the design, to be brutally honest, your new site looks cheesey and 90's. Hope I haven't offended you but your community gaming site looks better, it has a cleaner look to it. The CAT site looks messy, the background doesnt fit.

No offense taken.
Critique, both good and bad, is what I'm asking for.

The graphics on the site are the best I've found so far. When I determine the best way to code the site, I may make my own graphics rather than using any pre-made sets, like this one.

The problem with the graphics on my Community-Gaming site is that it is very difficult to edit the site without dis-jointing the menu and header... Also, that was a freeby template I got from a site that no longer exists.. and I was afraid it was looking cheesy and outdated... glad to know if you think it's not.

One thing... the granite look back on the CATscratches site... how do you mean it doesn't fit? I'd hoped the kind-of engraved granite look would be able to take the title and kind of professionalize it... but I take it it doesn't.

------------------------8<----------------------
I take it back.... The place I got the template for Community Gaming DOES still exist... they must have just been down the last time I visitted...
looking now to see if they have anything free, good, and not quite as picky to code around as my communitygaming template.

[daedreem]

Have you tried sourceforge? they have quite a few free html/php web coding apps.

I think I've looked there before...
If I remember correctly, they had a lot of them, and no way to tell what was good and flexible..

I downloaded a few free programs from different sites a few years ago, and A) couldn't find any fairly easy to use but flexible ones, and B) wanted to be able to hand-edit... because I had TONS of free time at my job, where i was online all day and not expected to do anything if no calls were coming in.. So I would update my site from work.

Well, the business moved out of state.. so I do not have to worry about number 2 now.

Do you know anything about those programs, and/or can suggest any that are good?

[daedreem]

Sourceforge--

I think I've looked there before...
If I remember correctly, they had a lot of them, and no way to tell what was good and flexible..
-8<-------------
Do you know anything about those programs, and/or can suggest any that are good?

Well, they have a LOT of programs at sourceforge... and they do not have screenshots or good decscriptions on the programs i've looked at so far...

Does anyone know anything about any of the free HTML editors?
Also, please continue to creative criticize my site listed in the top post, and give any recommendations about what style or type of template you think would be good.

P.S.... Here is a program description from sourceforege.. with too many results, i added 'dreamweaver' to my search criteria hoping i'd get something similar to that program, since i would like to learn it anyway... does this sound like it's LIKE dreamweaver? or just works WITH it?

dreamTemplate is a PHP template engine based on Macromedia Dreamweaver/MX. It allows you to separate php codes from design/html page while still acquiring the view of Dreamweaver's WYSIWYG HTML Editor. HTML part isn't fragmented like other template engine

https://sourceforge.net/projects/dreamtemplate

[cryptoguy]

The gray font on top of gray background isn't too easy on the eyes (Cat website). I agree with ClubMed, the site looks too unprofessional. I would consider putting the Menu on the left on some sort of a different background so it does not blend in with the rest of the page. Or maybe use the links on the bottom of the page for the menu (ie put them where the curent menu is). Consider aligning the whole website in the middle instead of the left.

[daedreem]

The gray font on top of gray background isn't too easy on the eyes (Cat website). I agree with ClubMed, the site looks too unprofessional. I would consider putting the Menu on the left on some sort of a different background so it does not blend in with the rest of the page. Or maybe use the links on the bottom of the page for the menu (ie put them where the curent menu is). Consider aligning the whole website in the middle instead of the left.

I haven't found a decent graphics set to replace that one with, yet...
I first tryed with only 2 columns, centerred, but it looked odd that way, is why i added a third invisible column to constrain the main text to the center, but I may try removing it and including the title bar in the column with the main text to see how that looks...

but for now, i've just changed the menu on the left... keeping with the same colors until I get graphics that don't look very off with any other color of font...

is this better?

(the background will probably be graphical once i select a new set of graphics.)<-- i redid the old one lighter for here.

http://www.catscratches.net/testindex.html

[cryptoguy]

Looks better to me... How about this: maybe you can make the menu box extend all the way to the bottom, have the cat picture be on the very bottom, and remove the cat picture in the middle of the page? Just my two cents.

[daedreem]

Looks better to me... How about this: maybe you can make the menu box extend all the way to the bottom, have the cat picture be on the very bottom, and remove the cat picture in the middle of the page? Just my two cents.

I thought about doing that... I'm still learning tables tho, and not certain how to make the inner table go the full height of the table...

I'll try.

[daedreem]

Looks better to me... How about this: maybe you can make the menu box extend all the way to the bottom, have the cat picture be on the very bottom, and remove the cat picture in the middle of the page? Just my two cents.

ok.. unless i'm missing something, i can't add a height percentile attribute into that cell...

am I missing something?

[cryptoguy]

You do not need to add a height attribute to the cell, just to the Menu table, which you have done. What happens when you add more lines in the body text, does the Menu column expand vertically?

[daedreem]

You do not need to add a height attribute to the cell, just to the Menu table, which you have done. What happens when you add more lines in the body text, does the Menu column expand vertically?

I'm guessing no, since it currently does not go to the end of the cells that are on the page... but i'll test... gimme 30 seconds.

[daedreem]

yeah. no change to the height of the menu, even tho the 'home' button is in the last cell, and is now quadrupled.

[cryptoguy]

Hmm. Been a while since I have done HTML. Why did the Home button multiply? Did you add text to the About Us section?

Have you tried adding the attribute height=100% to the <td> tag of ROW 1?

[daedreem]

Hmm. Been a while since I have done HTML. Why did the Home button multiply? Did you add text to the About Us section?

Have you tried adding the attribute height=100% to the <td> tag of ROW 1?

The home button multiplied, because that was the easiest way to add space to the center of the table... the home button is in the bottom center square.

Putting the 100% where you suggested seems to have done the trick.

[daedreem]

I'm signing off for the night, but any further critique or suggestions will be welcome.
I have downloaded PageBreeze html editor to try it out, from downloads.com, so If I can find a good template for one of the sites, or figure out how to make one of my own, I may use it.

[EXreaction]

For an HTML editor try out Dreamweaver 8...you can switch between the code, and wysiwyg editor with the touch of a tab...it is really nice...
http://www.macromedia.com/cfusion/td...ct=dreamweaver

[cryptoguy]

Yeah, definately Dreamweaver is the best option for this task.

[Iturea]

I am just going to comment on your cat site since you are changing the old one anyway.

Things that are good...

1. The page loads fast.
2. Graphics look good for this type of business
3. Centralized Navigation (Javascript Include)

Things that are bad...

1. Can't read links or text... Text on textured backgrounds never work. You can always add a white or light grey background color to your tables or cells to bring attention to your table layout while keeping your textured background surrounding the design, not overtaking it. Your graphics can either take upon themselves the new color of your table(s) or have a transparent background.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Free HTML Editor: http://www.htmlbeauty.com/

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Below is example code for what you can do to resolve this:
[This is your Credits Page]

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN">
<html>
  <head>
    <base href="http://www.catscratches.net/">
    <title>
      CatScratches.Net
    </title>
    <meta name="description" content="Handmade Arts Crafts and Collectibles. Computer Graphics and Logos.">
    <meta name="keywords" content="original art,art,crafts,logos,pastels">
  </head>
  <body bgcolor="#A3A3A3" background="images/template/ppgranitebg.jpg" text="#5F5F5F" link="#996633" vlink="#737373">
    <div align="center">
      <!-- TABLE BEGINS =-->
      <table border="0" width="740" summary="Main Table" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="5" style="border: 1px solid Black;">
        <tr>
          <th valign="middle" colspan="3" style="background-color: #F1F1F1; border-bottom: 1px dotted Black;">
            <img src="images/template/ppcslogo.gif" alt="image">
            <br>
            <h1>
              Credits
            </h1>
          </th>
        </tr>
        <tr>
          <td rowspan="4" width="15%" valign="top" style="background-color: #f1f1f1; border-right: 1px dotted;" align="center">
            <script language="javascript" src="http://www.catscratches.net/navbar.js" type="text/javascript">
            </script>
          </td>
          <td valign="top" align="center" width="75%" style="background-color: #f1f1f1;">
            <img src="images/template/pawprint.jpg" border="0" alt="image">
          </td>
          <td rowspan="4" width="10%" valign="top" style="background-color: #f1f1f1;">
            <img src="images/template/ppspacer.gif" alt="image">
          </td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
          <td valign="top" align="center" width="70%" style="background-color: #f1f1f1;">
            <img src="images/template/pawprint.jpg" border="0" alt="image">
            <br>
            Some graphics provided by CatStuff, A wonderful and
            <br>
            informative site for cat lovers everywhere.
            <br>
            <a href="http://www.xmission.com/~emailbox/catstuff.htm" title="CatStuff Graphics"><img src="images/template/catstufflarge.gif" border="0" alt="image"></a>
            <br>
          </td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
          <td valign="top" align="center" width="70%" style="background-color: #f1f1f1;">
            <img src="images/template/pawprint.jpg" border="0" alt="image">
            <br>
            <strong>Inspiration</strong>
            <br>
            My Husband, and new daughter, Cathy.
          </td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
          <td valign="top" align="center" width="70%" style="background-color: #f1f1f1;">
            <img src="images/template/pawprint.jpg" border="0" alt="image">
            <br>
            With thanks to people at places like:
            <br>
            <a href="http://www.techimo.com/forum/">TechIMO Forum</a> for a bit of advice when something <em>simple</em> wasn't working like it should..
            <br>
          </td>
        </tr>
      </table><!-- TABLE ENDS =-->
      <img src="images/template/CAT.gif" alt="image">
      <br>
      <br>
      <a href="images/template/index.html"><img src="images/template/pphome.jpg" border="0" alt="image"></a> <a href="images/template/links.html"><img src="images/template/pplinks.jpg" border="0" alt="image"></a> <a href="mailto:CAT@CatScratches.Net?subject=Regarding%20CatScratches.Net"><img src="images/template/ppmail.jpg" border="0" alt="image"></a>
      <br>
      <a href="credits.html"><img src="images/template/ppcredits.jpg" border="0" alt="image"></a>
    </div>
  </body>
</html>