Working on a website

I am working on a website, and I'd like to know your opinions on it. It's still far from done (and the news I have now on it are old, also, most links dont work) but if you could take a look and provide some feedback, I would be grateful.

http://workspa.webs.com/website/index.html

I know I am posting threads like this from time to time, but your feedback is sometimes helpful.

@Alexandru said:

I am working on a website, and I'd like to know your opinions on it. It's still far from done (and the news I have now on it are old, also, most links dont work) but if you could take a look and provide some feedback, I would be grateful.

http://workspa.webs.com/website/index.html

I know I am posting threads like this from time to time, but your feedback is sometimes helpful.

Are you using a CMS or wrote this from scratch? Also, are you using any server side languages?

Design-wise it looks solid, although the text being semi-transparent along with those boxes over the images is kinda odd -- you'd probably want the text to be solid-colored in the end.

@EquitasInvictus said:

Are you using a CMS or wrote this from scratch? Also, are you using any server side languages?

Design-wise it looks solid, although the text being semi-transparent along with those boxes over the images is kinda odd -- you'd probably want the text to be solid-colored in the end.

Writing this in notepad. No programs installed (although I will install Zend server later on when I do a database).

@Alexandru: Ah, nice. If you'd like a graduated notepad that actually marks up the code and color-coats it to make it look much, much more readable and organized I'd definitely suggest Sublime Text 2.

Are you already familiar with PHP/MySQL and the like?

@EquitasInvictus said:

@Alexandru: Ah, nice. If you'd like a graduated notepad that actually marks up the code and color-coats it to make it look much, much more readable and organized I'd definitely suggest Sublime Text 2.

Are you already familiar with PHP/MySQL and the like?

I'd recommend notepad ++ myself.

I'm looking forward to your new site:

www.isjeffrich.com

The about the life long question that everyone ponders once in their life.

Is Jeff Gerstmann really Rich Gallup?

@Jams said:

@EquitasInvictus said:

@Alexandru: Ah, nice. If you'd like a graduated notepad that actually marks up the code and color-coats it to make it look much, much more readable and organized I'd definitely suggest Sublime Text 2.

Are you already familiar with PHP/MySQL and the like?

I'd recommend notepad ++ myself.

I'm looking forward to your new site:

www.isjeffrich.com

The about the life long question that everyone ponders once in their life.

Is Jeff Gerstmann really Rich Gallup?

Oh man, good one :=))

If this site had rep I would give you a fucking ton.

@Jams: Notepad++ is another good one; I actually used to prefer it myself until an acquaintance of mine called out my credibility for not using Sublime Text 2. Didn't think it was that much better until I actually tried it myself.

If you really want to be hardcore, though, use vim on a linux terminal prompt!

@EquitasInvictus: Thx for your feedback, I will try Sublime Text 2.

@Fredddi43 said:

Well I don't know a lot about website coding, but I can give you some feedback as a Design student:

- I would get rid of the transparency on the text box at the top. Making it completely white increases readability as well as looks (my own humble opinion).

- The buttons near the footer need a lot of work, they don't really fit the style of the rest of the page. Again, try reducing transparency (It's something I wouldn't work with in general, stuff often looks better non-transparent, look at the buttons of for example Giantbomb)

- Also try choosing a general colour-scheme, I find the use of different colours a little overwhelming, maybe settle on just the green.

Again, this is all my own humble opinion, hoping it helps you :)

I will see about the transparency after I write some text. I may need to increase the opacity.

The buttons are a placeholder, I will create some in photoshop later.

I was always criticised that my websites never have enough color (I always prefered simple gray and white websites). You are right that it may be a bit too much this time tho (fortunately it shouldn't be hard to change if i so desire).

Thx for your feedback man.

It looks good enough, you just need polish it up a bit and it'll be great.

Apropo, salut.

I'll reiterate the greatness of Sublime Text 2. There's a bunch of videos explaining the features of the editor here.

I would avoid duplicate ids on elements in the same page. Usually, they are for marking unique sections of the site. Such as your news feed or "Hottest Stuff" list on the sidebar. For example you could have Hottest Stuff and Latest Release share a class called "box", which would have all the styles that are shared between them. And then use the ID to add styles that are unique that box alone.

.box { padding: 10px; border: 1px solid black; // more shared styles }

.box a { font-weight: bold; // more shared styles }

#hot.box { color: red; // more unique styles }

#releases.box { color: green; // more unique styles }

So if you ever wanted to add another box in the sidebar you could just give it the box class and it will look like the others except the unique styles that were given via the ids.

Also the border-radius styles you have on #main. You could shorten that to just "border-radius: 5px;". Don't think you need the experimentals ( -webkit, -moz, etc ) either. I believe all updated modern browsers fully support it now.

Keep it up.

@FirePrince: Salut. Nu stiam ca mai sunt romani pe aici.

@Vager:

Thx for the border radius thing, man. I asumed I have to specify each.

So I don't think I saw an answer on if you are just doing this in raw HTML or if you actually have some sort of server side code (PHP, Python, Ruby, etc.).

If you are just doing raw HTML (and I would recommend not getting too deep into it if you are), you could spend $50 and get yourself WebStorm from JetBrains. It could help you out quite a bit.

I highly recommend looking at some sort of server side framework though as it will at least allow you to template your site. If you are doing just basic HTML, then I can only assume when you change the layout, you have to update every single page.

Quick note: Before you shrug off my suggestion of WebStorm because it is $50 for something that is free (and there's nothing wrong with free tools), I recommend watching the WebStorm video on the link I provided.

• Use some alt/title text on your images. Especially when they're functional (links).
• Images next to article summaries should also be links.
• "Hottest Stuff" and "Latest Releases" titles are styled a bit differently. Maybe that's work in process.
• "Latest Releases" section has a scrollbar. Seems like this section should just grow to a max number of entries, and have no scrollbar.
• "Supported Browsers" section could be a lot less prominent, take up less space.
• "Newer Posts"/"Older Posts" buttons seem kind of out of place. Maybe match your green/gray color scheme. Maybe try a different font.
• Guessing you'll be changing your article pages yet. Right now, the top of the article (user image, red title text, little arrow) looks very much like Destructoid.
• And of course add dates/times to all your articles, both in the main page and articles themselves. This is a pet peeve of mine on some sites. If they put NO date or time on their posts, I have no idea if this information is 5 minutes old or 5 years old.
• The three-image header looks great at 1280x1024, but you may want to consider how it'll fit on smaller (tablet, netbook, phone) and larger screens.
• And I'm guessing you'll add a title and some kind of "who we are, what this site is" blurb, so people know what the site is about.

These are all my suggestions, take them for what you will. I do like the overall layout/style. It's a nice clean base to build on.

@Jams: Notepad++ is another good one; I actually used to prefer it myself until an acquaintance of mine called out my credibility for not using Sublime Text 2. Didn't think it was that much better until I actually tried it myself.

If you really want to be hardcore, though, use vim on a linux terminal prompt!