Its up and running.... hopefully!

[clare]

Thanks to a vast amount of help from you folks and reading several books on web site I have now launch my new look web site.

So I am now anfter your opinions on the new design and whether you have any problems viewing the new site. I have tested it in opera and IE at 1024 by 768, 800 by 600 and IE at a larger size...can't quite remember the dimensions.

Please post any spelling and gammar mistakes and general opinions on the site.

All comments are greatfully recieved

Thanks in advance

Clare

p.s Those of you who know my old site - do you like the new one? Is there anything specific you like? How would you rate the change in functionality?

[winwintoo]

And you tried to make us think you were confused about web development!

I really like your new site - it's lovely. It loads quickly, everything works. I'm on a Mac, so I tried it on all the browsers and it also works in Safari - that's the new Mac browser and it's kind of an acid test.

I also tried it on Netscape 4.7 and it works there too! My code always breaks on the 4.7 browser

Congratulations Clare.

Take care, Margaret

[Ed_L]

I agree with Margaret. Loads quickly on my dial up account (very important), and it looks very professional. I assume you're aware that you have nothing showing for the red-eye and tonal corrections links? Also, maybe you didn't want it this way, but when I read there was a three tiered pricing structure, I expected to see *something* about pricing, even if it was only a range of prices for the categories. Very nice job though. You can be proud of yourself. I won't comment on the spelling differences between the UK and the US.

Ed

[Sanda]

It looks great Clare, I loaded it in both IE and Netscape 6. It's great in IE but in Netscape 6 it's not quite right. I've attached a screen shot of what I see in Netscape 6, hope it helps.

[clare]

Thanks for the input.

This is the third web site I have created this year and the only one that has made it far enough to go live.... I have learnt so much through building the others and still have so far to go. I am only half way through one of the three books that I bought recently on web design and other programing related subjects and am really hoping that I will beable to iron out some of the glitches that I have found soon.

Margret thanks for the vote of encouragement, I am really glad that it views well on the Mac, this is one of the things I have not been able to try out so this information is so valuable.

Ed, I have been thinking of including a price list in the three-tire levels section, but was just a little unsure, I will probably go with a loose price structure so that it complements the individual approach that I have tried to convey with the site. The red eye and tonal correction images are on their way, I need a picture of a person with red eye as I have none that are suitable for a web site ...... can anyone help!

Sandra, thanks for the heads up about netscape, it looks from the screen shot that it might be an issue with the css file that controls that background, I will have to hit the books to work out how to fix this one. Does Netscape show the web page in this way on all the pages or just the index page? This will help with me finding the problem, thanks.

[Sanda]

Clare, it's on all of the pages in Netscape 6, I think you're right about the background being the culprit.

[winwintoo]

I don't have a Mac version of Netscape 6 to see if the same problem exists here, but I found a download site for it and will dl it later and let you know. If it's any comfort, the download site had this to say:

Netscape 6 is the first standards compliance of any browser ever released. This is made possible by the small, fast, standards-compliant, free, open-source, cross-platform, cross-device, embeddable Netscape Gecko browser engine. (However, Netscape 6 is generally considered as premature product, Netscape 7 is a better choice for stability and much better standard

I'll let you know how it works in 6 when I get it downloaded - I need to be checking my pages in 6 too.

Take care, Margaret

[d_kendal]

Hi Clare,

you've got a very nice site running! I really like the menu, it works great and it's very easy to navigate. the one thing I noticed is that all the text appears very small in Opera 6 and 7 but it's just fine in IE. it's probably just a combination of having a fairly high resolution (1280x1024) and not using one of the most popular browsers, but I thought I'd let you know anyway. great work!

- David

[BigAl]

Nice one Clare. It's just a pity that you were forced to put watermarks all over the pics.

One thing I found a bit funny was on this page, if you click on one of the text links, I'd expect to go to the example, but instead you go to a page of the same name. I got into a cycle until I realised you wanted me to click on the pics.

[jeaniesa]

Clare,

I like the new layout much better than your old site! I think it is organized better as well.

A couple of things I noticed (wrt comments others have made):
- The strange layout that Sanda found in Netscape 6 does NOT appear with Netscape 6.2. (I did see it in Netscape 6 though.)
- Your text size looks just fine in my Opera 7 browser. I'm running a 1024x768 screen resolution. Actually, your bold text in the main portion of your site (i.e., the main page and all of your description titles) appear quite small in all of my Netscape browsers - though I didn't really notice it until David mentioned the small text size he saw in his Opera browsers.

A few comments that I think would help with the consistency of your site...

- In your galleries, it would be nice to be able to go from one "large" picture to the next without having to go back to the thumbnails to get to the next large picture.

- Also, the phrase which indicates to people that clicking on the larger picture will bring you back to the thumbnails is inconsistent in your different galleries. In your Restoration/Retouching examples, I know I can click on the large picture, but I don't know what it will do - there's nothing to tell me what clicking on the picture will do, and there's nothing to tell me how to get to the next picture or back to the thumbnails without clicking the back button on my browser. In your Business Commissions gallery, you use the phrase "Please click on image to enlarge" even when the large picture is showing. I clicked a picture expecting to see an even larger version of the image and was brought back to the thumbnails. I haven't checked every page in that gallery, but the ones I did check were all like this. In your Image Library, the wording tells me what to expect and everything works like I expect it to (with the caveat of my comment above this one). Again, I didn't check every image, but those that I did appeared consistent.

- Is there a purpose for the rollovers of the "bar images" in your navigation area? I'd like to see the bar at 100% opacity when a particular area is selected to give me a visual indication as to where I am in the site. Perhaps you have a reason for not doing that though.

I didn't look at every page and I didn't look for hard for typos - I was looking at your site more from a navigation standpoint. I do think it's much better than your old site!

Now if I can just get my site up and catch up with the rest of you...

Jeanie

[clare]

Thanks for the comments

Margret,
Thanks for checking Netscape on the Mac, I will wait and see if you have the same problems with the background, thanks for checking this for me.

David,
Big screens are really hard to write a website for in a consistancy view point, thanks for pointing out the titles being small I will have to add a small bit to the css to sort this out. I think its the fact that the CSS script takes over the size of the text and is making the <h> header tags to small, I will check this out and hopefully get it working as it should.

Big Al,
I think it is ashame that the watermarks are needed, but once bitten by someone stealling your work it makes you more security minded. Hopefully in time this will not be nessesary.
I will change the text on the restoration examples so it sends you to the images, thanks for all the input.

Jeanie,
I'll check out all the gallery pages to check for consistancy for viewing a larger image, and try to implement a click here for the next image into it at the same time
I like the idea of the menu bar images staying 100% opacity when you view certain sections, Nice idea thanks.

Well I'm going to head back to the books for the CSS problems and implement all the other bits and pieces, thanks again folks

Clare

[winwintoo]

Hi Clare, I downloaded Netscape 6.1 (couldn't find 6.0) and tried your site and sadly, I had the same problems as Sanda.

I noticed that the RetouchPRO site has a few small problems in Netscape 6.1 too so I suspect that some of the problems are more Netscape's fault than your's.

I need to get busy on the site I'm working on this weekend and get it up and running too.

Take care, Margaret

[clare]

Thanks Margret,
I will have to look into the Netscape thing to see if there is anything I can do to help with the site but I needed to fix a few things this morning, thanks for checking it out for me.

I have just uploaded the site again, there are a few changes that I have made. I made the text in the restoration and retouching examples link to the examples, Changed the linking header so it is 100% opacity when viewing resoration, commissions or the library. You can also now forward to the next picture without having to go back to the gallery. I have also added to the CSS script to hopefully make the text larger in the titles.

Thanks for all your help, What do you think know? Is it working better?

Thanks again

Clare

[winwintoo]

Hi Clare, I did some fooling with your code and got a better result (although not yet what you want)

In global.css, I changed the "table" to ".mytable" so that I could call it as a "class" in the table in index.html.

The result of doing this was that the background image only showed up once in NN6 - that's the good news. The bad news is that it didn't show up in quite the right place

I have to go out for a bit but I'll try again later.

I hope you understand that I'm not trying to find fault with your work - I've run into the same problems and working with your code is easier than writing my own.

Take care, Margaret

[clare]

Margaret,

You are quite welcome to play with my code, hopefully between us we can come up with a solution .... two heads are better than one

Thanks

Clare

How did you edit it to make it show up once? what line of text did you add/remove/alter?

[KevinBE]

Hi Clare, congratulations on the new site. I really like the overall design. The consistant menu structure is a plus ( am working on that for my site). I echo most of the other comments. I don't have access to another browser right now so I can't comment on that. I need to get access to other browsers to test my work as well.

One thing I noticed is the access to pricing. Maybe you should consider a menu link to a pricing discussion page that covers all your pricing elements? It is hard to find the way it is now. I'm new at this so I may not be a good judge as to what a site should have. Right now some of my planned changes are evolving before I can impliment them.

Good work! You should be proud of your creation, your hard work shows.

[clare]

Thanks Kevin,

I was meant to address the pricing today but clean forgot! So many other tweaks to implement.... Maybe I will produce a page that is hyperlinked to by other pages but is not in the menu. What do you think? that way it could be an overall price list that includes the restoration, commissions and the image library. I am still so unsure of how to place a price list in that makes it not to fightening for people (not that I even charge the earth, but its just a hang up with financal stuff!)

Clare

[jeaniesa]

My experience is that Netscape and tables are a terrible mix. My site looks so ridiculous in Netscape 4 to 4.8 that I'm just ignoring it. Netscape 6 is better, but has some cosmetic problems with repeating background images (some don't show up - some do, but it doesn't hurt the usability of the site, just the cosmetics). Netscape 6.2 seems to fix the problems with the background images, but makes some of my text overlap and is unreadable - definitely hurts the usability. Netscape 7 is the only one that seems to render my site perfectly.

I guess what I'm saying is if you're using tables and background images, your site might never look right in Netscape. If you're able to figure it out, I'd LOVE to know how you did it. I've spent literally hours trying to get my site design to work in multiple browsers and my husband and brother (both techies) have finally convinced me to get the site out there for the 92% of people (according to stats that I've seen) who use Internet Explorer and work on fixing the problems in the other browsers later.

I took a look at your code to see how you've put things together and I'm impressed with the way you incorporated that full background graphic. I never would have thought to do something like that. But then, I don't think my site would work with that kind of setup anyway. Interesting to think about for the future though. I have so much to learn about CSS!!! (I just spent the past two days learning Flash so that I can make a photo fade from before to after. I still don't fully understand Flash, but I can at least do photo transformations. There is so much to learn. )

Good luck!! If you do find a fix for your site in Netscape, I'd really like to know. I wish I could offer some great advice, but I've about given up on my own site.

Jeanie

[clare]

QUOTE]Originally posted by jeaniesa

I took a look at your code to see how you've put things together and I'm impressed with the way you incorporated that full background graphic. I never would have thought to do something like that.

Jeanie [/B][/QUOTE]

I had no idea what CSS was until the other day after screaming at my computer because nothing was making sense, my partner dragged me down to the local book shop and said 'buy which ever books help you!' So I bought three, and one was on CSS and DHTML. It was in a readable language that said do this do that and theres a whole bunch we haven't even covered.... but it gave the general idea and was enough to get me started.

The book was :

'DHTML and CSS for the world wide web' (Second edition)
Jason Cranford Teague
Peachpit Press (Visual quickstart guide)

I haven't read the second half of the book on DHTML yet, and have only scraped the surface of the other 2 books.

I have no idea about flash!, I look forward to your site.

I have to agree with your 'husband and brother (both techies)' that you can not please every browser at every screen resolution, you just have to create what you can and modify it later if you can. My main problems were with screen resolution, they are now with browsers, oh well you can't win them all If I find a way round the latest problems I will post them, thanks to everyone who is helping me overcome these problems, together I am sure we will suceed.

Clare

Jeanie,
Don't give up on your site, you have learnt so much and have so much to share .... Don't give up you will succeed .... Don't let the web get you down. If I can help in any way just shout

[jeaniesa]

Jeanie, Don't give up on your site, you have learnt so much ...

Yeah, like I just "learned" that the pull-down menus I've implemented show up behind the Flash image I just spent days learning how to create! Ahhhhhhhhhh!!! (Anyone have any clues on that?? The pull-down menus are JavaScript.)

Thanks for the encouragement though. I won't really give up, I just feel like it sometimes!

Jeanie

[winwintoo]

Hi Clare - having coffee with friends and talking about anything BUT programming does wonders for the old gray matter.

I was able to get the background in the right place on NN6.1 and it works on all the later Mac browsers that I tried too. The background image doesn't show up on NN4.7, but like Jeannie says, who uses it anyway

I changed what I told you about before.

In the file "global.css" I took the background image lines out of the table element and created a new class called ".mybody" - I could have just called it "body" and not had to refer to the class in the <body> tag, but I want to get in the habit of naming classes. (my old programming neurons)

I also too the background color out of the table and put it in the body element. The default background in older browsers is a horrible gray so even though the background image doesn't load in the old browser, what does load looks nice.

In the index.html file, I added "class='mybody'" in the <body> tag.

global.css
table {
font-family: 'Trebuchet MS';
font-size: 12px;
height: 100%;
width: 100%;
color: #000000;
}
h5 {
font-size: 14px;
}

.mybody {
background-image: url(../images/back.jpg);
background-repeat: no-repeat;
background-color: #ffffff;
}

index.html
.
.
.
<body class="mybody" link="#000000" etc.
.
.
.
Hope this helps Margaret

[jeaniesa]

Brilliant fix Margaret. By removing the association of the background image from the table, you've gotten around the awful Netscape rendering of tables altogether!

Jeanie

[KevinBE]

Jeanie I know what you are going through. I spent a lot of time on my gallery design to learn that the Frontpage link bar doesn't support frames. Now I have located a javascript menu bar that I want to use to find out that it doesn't want to let me use the colors I want and it also wants to place itself behind my page header images. I will have to spend a lot more time on this gallery project than originally anticipated. It seems like every direction I turn only leads to another roadblock. Just think how good it will feel when it quits hurting!

You all are making good progress. Hang in there guys we will get through this.

[clare]

Margret you are a complete STAR

I will go and try this out right now

Thanks so much

By the way what was in the coffee, magic beans - I need some

Thanks Again

Clare

[winwintoo]

I have coffee with a group of ladies who range in age from 80 to 98 and they are the funniest, brightest people - even the one who has Alzheimers!

We talk about current events, kids, romance, recipes, investments and everything in between - it's a hoot.

I live in an apartment building that has a lot of retired folks living in it. Most of them have lived here since the building was new 30+ years ago and they thrive on getting together to talk.

I don't know what's in the coffee, but it sure does me good!!

Margaret

[clare]

Margaret,
Sounds like the coffee is made with a mixture of friendship and feel good beans

I have just put the web site up again, The only thing I changed was adding a line into the css class

background-position: 10px 5px;

this just helped to align the background with the buttons and Home - About Us - etc lines at the bottom of the page. This seems to work really well, thank you for helping me

Clare

[winwintoo]

Your site looks great on all my browsers but there is a spelling error in your CSS:

.mybody {
background-image: url(../images/back.jpg);
background-repeat: no-repeat;
background-colour: #ffffff;
background-position: 10px 5px;
}

Also, this line in your HTML causes a row of dots to appear on some browsers. I don't know if you intended that to happen:

<font color="#FFFFFF">..........</font><font color="#999999">&copy;Clare
Sadler, Image Pure 2003</font></p></td>

Good job!!

Margaret

[clare]

Colour..... that serves me right for not copy and pasting

I also get a row of ......... before the (C) symbol on some browsers, it was ment to move the (C) along so it looked in line with the background - and never used to show up. I might try moving the background up or down a pixel to see if I can eliminate it.

Thanks for pointing out the colour spelling, I probably wouldn't have picked that one up, isn't the english language fun! (that was the only spelling error wasn't it?????)

Clare

[winwintoo]

I've given up on the "British" spelling of words - spell checkers were making me crazy

I didn't notice any other spelling errors, and I only noticed that one because I've made the same mistake so many times in the past.

Have a good day, Margaret

[clare]

More spelling corrections, (paranoid) quite a few that the grammar and spell check missed but did not get past my sister I agree with you Margaret spell checkers are a pain, I have one set to British and one to International, together they really confuse me.

Clare