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Posted on 16/11/08 08:01:19 AM |
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tank172
ThreeDee Thriller Posts: 692 Reply  |
Website test
Hi guys, I've been working on the website based on the brochure I posted a couple weeks ago. It's been an ongoing challenge to get the formatting correct and consistent throughout different browsers. Even though, it's a rather simple design - Webpage design for me has been a seemingly impossible learning curve. Since everyone has a different computer setup/screen resolution and browsers, I was hoping some of you might like to be the 'Guinea Pig' and let me know if any text overlaps graphics in your browser, of if something renders improper on your screen. I've already checked the site on all the computers I have access to, and finally fixed those errors. Just hoping to prevent any problems once the site is approved and I can finally finish this project. The site is about to go live, but right now is in a 'beta' folder on the server. http://www.cleanplay.org/beta/ Thanks! --Chris |
Posted on 16/11/08 08:56:23 AM |
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Deborah Morley
Makeover Magician Posts: 1319 Reply  |
Re: Website test
Hello Chris, I have an iMac, running Leopard, latest version and it all looks good to me. A good looking clear site. Great work! |
Posted on 16/11/08 11:58:08 AM |
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katew
Virtual Virtuoso Posts: 681 Reply  |
Re: Website test
It all looks great to me. I'm on a PC with Windows Vista and Firefox 3, with a wide screen monitor. |
Posted on 16/11/08 1:26:07 PM |
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Steve Mac
Grunge Genie Posts: 539 Reply  |
Re: Website test
I use Windows XP with Internet Explorer. Looks good from here. Nice work! |
Posted on 16/11/08 6:21:32 PM |
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dave.cox
Marquee Master Posts: 518 Reply  |
Re: Website test
Hi Chris As someone that does a lot of web development, I applaud you on your efforts to get your site to work consistently across browser version. This can be a very challenging thing to do. I checked your page on Firefox, IE7, and Safari. I run these on an XP machine. I only notice one thing that you may or may not want to address. It is still possible that you may have some one view your web site that doesn't allow graphics. I noticed that your header with the title doesn't display when the graphics are turned off. A good practice to handle this is to put a text header that you hide using CSS. You can do this by adding it to your grapic header in CSS, and setting the indent property to -1000px. You can test how the site works with no graphics in Firefox by setting View>Page Style>No Style. Good job! Dave. |
Posted on 16/11/08 9:05:04 PM |
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steve hill
Brain Basher Posts: 228 Reply  |
Re: Website test
Hi Chris Its a great job clean crisp and loads fast, nearly registered myself. I am using windows vista and have checked it on both my laptop and desktop PC using IE, Firefox and Chrome with no problems. I agree with dave about viewing with images off, also there are a lot more disable people using the internet these days who would use a screen reader this relies on image tags having as much infomation as possible. |
Posted on 17/11/08 02:02:40 AM |
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oceansblue
* Posts: 2 Reply  |
Re: Website test
Looks so clean. Bravo What do you use for developing this site? HTML & PHP ? All the best. |
Posted on 17/11/08 11:14:08 AM |
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Paul 2007 thru 2010
Lego Legend Posts: 361 Reply |
Re: Website test
It looks fine on my XP Pro with Firefox 3 on a 1440x900 screen. It's a nice clean looking unfussy site. |
Posted on 17/11/08 7:49:04 PM |
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tank172
ThreeDee Thriller Posts: 692 Reply |
Re: Website test
FANTASTIC!!! 
Thank you so very much for the helpful replies! And the warm compliments have been wonderful! Dave, Thank you for the hint. I'll be sure to add that to the site before it goes live. Which the owners plan to do on Thursday. Steve: Haha! Thanks, although I'm not sure they could test your child out of country. 
oceansblue, Thank you for your compliment. I used HTML, and ran away from PHD at all costs! lol. To be completely honest, I cheated so much Mr Caplin would be proud.  A couple years ago, I attempted to offer Webpage design as a service; and I crashed and burned like no other. A couple months ago though, I went to a Photoshop Seminar to listen to Dave Cross teach an 8hr class. He introduced me to this brilliant plugin that takes your Photoshop document and turns it into a website, literally. With that plugin and Dreamweaver, I was able to create what you see on cleanplay.org.
The plugin, Sitegrinder, automatically made 98% of the code and slices for the cleanplay.org website. It's like having a developer do the grunt work for you. And with it, I plan to offer BASIC website design as a service to my local clients once again. Don't get me wrong, though...there's still quite alot of work involved. But it's about as close to a golden parachute as one could get. The website is www.sitegrinder.com Hope this helps, oceansblue. Thanks again everyone! Best Regards, Chris |
Posted on 17/11/08 9:58:32 PM |
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David Asch
Tech Support Posts: 1913 Reply  |
Re: Website test
That looks great Chris, very professional and clean. My only reservations are the 10 reasons page, I think there should be a space between the numbers and text, and the box-out on the left of the layout: I instinctively went to the text thinking it might be a second nav-bar, as so many sites use that area for that purpose. Otherwise, excellent. It's interesting you should mention SiteGrinder. I've been looking into it quite a lot for the new HTCIE site as I don't have the time to do it from scratch. I've read mixed reviews, some from coders who basically point and laugh and some who say it's good enough for basic sites. I think it's a step or two above what Photoshop itself can do natively and if the result looks OK, sometimes it doesn't really matter what's holding it up out of sight.
_________________ It must be Thursday, I never could get the hang of Thursdays |
Posted on 17/11/08 11:01:34 PM |
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tank172
ThreeDee Thriller Posts: 692 Reply |
Re: Website test
Thanks David. Yeah, I also read the mixed reviews for sitegrinder before plunging into the purchase. Most of the negative reviews I read was posted by senior developers and code freaks; which I felt was a little biased since most of them seemed like they can implement an ecommerce site using notepad. But for little ol' me, the plugin works like a charm. And if there's something small that needs adjusted, I'm fairly confident in Dreamweaver. When I get home, I'll post a couple screengrabs of the layer sets and comps that got me on my way. If you're thinking about purchasing, send me a pm and I'll send you the 15% discount code I used for my purchase. |
Posted on 18/11/08 00:06:38 AM |
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dave.cox
Marquee Master Posts: 518 Reply |
Re: Website test
Chris, I'm not familiar with Sitegrinder, but if what I am reading from your comments is correct, it is just a tool that takes a lot of the grunt work our of creating a web site.
There are always going to be those that think the job should be kept difficult and mysterious, just to protect what they do. Personally, I think that if you find a tool to make a job easier, or more productive, then go for it. If you want to do something that the tool doesn't do, then you can always resort to the old methods, such as hand coding in Dreamweaver or notepad. (These days, I wouldn't even consider coding in notepad, even though that is what I started out with.) So in my opinion, do what works.  |
Posted on 18/11/08 00:38:44 AM |
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David Asch
Tech Support Posts: 1913 Reply |
Re: Website test
Dave, Sitegrinder is a Photoshop plugin that sits on the automate menu. You create the layout of the site as a layered PSD then instruct SG how to build it by adding keywords to the end of the layer names, eg. Home - Button, Home - Rollover, etc. It's clever stuff but like SFW's HTML output it makes coders' blood boil. Personally, I couldn't give a stuff if it's just going to be a glorified advert that needs to be published to a deadline; I would probably think twice if I were building something more complex though. _________________ It must be Thursday, I never could get the hang of Thursdays |
Posted on 18/11/08 05:16:39 AM |
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dave.cox
Marquee Master Posts: 518 Reply |
Re: Website test
Thanks David. That is good to know. Probably something I wouldn't use then. My guess is it probably creates way more html than what is needed to do the job, and I find it to easy to layout my own site in dreamweaver. Still, that doesn't mean that it doesn't have its place. Not everyone has an interest in learning how to write code, and photoshopping is a whole lot more interesting. |
Posted on 18/11/08 05:27:49 AM |
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tank172
ThreeDee Thriller Posts: 692 Reply |
Re: Website test
Thanks, David for clearing up the details. I was a bit excited when I posted about the plugin. I have little experience and no interest to go around digging in code, which is why the plugin works so well for me on such a basic site. But if the client's requests are any bit more complicated, you just can't replace a talented web developer. And experienced web designers probably wouldn't like the plugin, because it would likely be frustrating to go in and change some code that wasn't originally produced by the person. That said, it fits my needs pretty well because i ain't diggin' in no code! lol |
Posted on 18/11/08 08:45:37 AM |
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David Asch
Tech Support Posts: 1913 Reply |
Re: Website test
I think the main gripe they had was that it doesn't produce purely cascading CSS; I assume they meant it had its definitions on each page and not as a separate file or on the index page. Looking at yours it seems OK, so I suspect the outcome very much depends on how the person sets the PSD out in the first place. I remember when I was first delving into CSS in Dreamweaver, I ended up with all sorts of local references because I didn't really know what I was doing. Once I have a good enough draft of my own site, I'll run it through SG and see how it fairs. Last time, I used SFW and just embellished on the code to suit my needs. _________________ It must be Thursday, I never could get the hang of Thursdays |
Posted on 18/11/08 1:18:08 PM |
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dave.cox
Marquee Master Posts: 518 Reply |
Re: Website test
Yeah, I took a quick look at the code for your site. The CSS that is being generated has seperate code with a seperate Div tag for each little thing on the site. A real nightmare to update manually, and a ton of extra CSS code that probably could be done without. Not a good thing for a large complicated site. But for a quick tool for a small site, to get it out there? Not bad.
Even Dreamweaver can generate questionable code at times. It is not uncommon for me to overide what Dreamweaver trys to do for me. Dave. |
Posted on 19/11/08 03:54:24 AM |
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tank172
ThreeDee Thriller Posts: 692 Reply |
Re: Website test
I've searched all over the internet to figure out what SFW means before I inadvertently ask a dumb question...What is this?  I thought it was some plugin or program, but couldn't find one.
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Posted on 19/11/08 5:57:49 PM |
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David Asch
Tech Support Posts: 1913 Reply |
Re: Website test
Save for Web (and Devices, in CS3) Ctrl+alt+shift+S _________________ It must be Thursday, I never could get the hang of Thursdays |
Posted on 19/11/08 8:49:07 PM |
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tank172
ThreeDee Thriller Posts: 692 Reply |
Re: Website test
 I just knew that question was going to backfire.
Thanks for the reply, David |
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