Well-Actually War Trall Balladeer Posted March 8, 2011 Share Posted March 8, 2011 ...just for this. Makeover.zip (91.5kb) Sitemap Still a bit crude but a definite improvement. Not all the links are working yet as its just a prototype but its good enough for a beta test, yes? If you see anything that doesn't look good on your browser, take a screenshot and let me know. It'll be much appreciated. Next step is to learn JavaScript and fix those drop-down menus. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Well-Actually War Trall Balladeer Posted March 10, 2011 Author Share Posted March 10, 2011 You guys are so much work... I uploaded it so there's no download. Still don't expect all the links to work and currently I've noticed the issue with visited links keeping the visited color on subsequent hovers. Not sure how to fix it yet... Might just have to change my background hover color to compensate. Then I have no idea why the Contact button doesn't work like the rest. It's set up exactly like all the rest unless I made a typo somewhere. Feedback plz. Prototype Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Well-Actually War Trall The Ratt Posted March 10, 2011 Share Posted March 10, 2011 I'm a little confused as to what this is. Is it your website redone, or something else (Note: I didn't try any of your links yet, just to be safe)? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Magnificent Ornk nikki. Posted March 10, 2011 Share Posted March 10, 2011 It's TrueSite redone, yes. It looks good now that I can see it (didn't fancy downloading it), but there is something: the pattern behind the text makes my eyes funny when I try to read the white text. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Well-Actually War Trall Balladeer Posted March 10, 2011 Author Share Posted March 10, 2011 I'm formally learning how to build webpages and software. Going for a BSIT-SE. (Bachelor of Science in Information Technology with a Concentration in Software Engineering). As part of my homework, they let me update an existing website. So this prototype utilizes a CSS (cascading style sheet) which makes it easier to change the look of my whole website by only changing one file. At least if every page is set up to respond to the CSS it does. The SWArchive link goes to a reworked page, but the rest of the links either don't exist yet or go to the original pages. You won't break anything by clicking on them. @Nikki The download is smaller than most scenarios. Y'all are just being difficult. I've spent a good two-three hours trying to find just the right background. I didn't think I'd found it either, but homework has a deadline. I'll keep looking. Edit: Looks like the contact button problem I had was also an issue with the link being visited. I'll have to work on that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hatchling Cockatrice Aoslare Posted March 10, 2011 Share Posted March 10, 2011 Scrollbars that are too large to fit on my monitor (at 1280 x 800) are simply too large! If scrollbars do not dynamically size themselves proportionally to the window, you really can't make them that big. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Well-Actually War Trall Balladeer Posted March 10, 2011 Author Share Posted March 10, 2011 Hmm... Good point. I'll have to shrink that division. I don't know how to get the scrollbar to size itself to the window yet. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hatchling Cockatrice Aoslare Posted March 10, 2011 Share Posted March 10, 2011 Personally, I hate having scrollbars within web pages anyway. Scrollbars on static dialogue boxes are one thing, because the scrollbars always appear in the same place. But on a web page their position can vary as you scroll the page itself up and down. Something about that just gives me the heebie-jeebies. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Easygoing Eyebeast keira Posted March 10, 2011 Share Posted March 10, 2011 Originally Posted By: CRISIS on INFINITE SLARTIES Personally, I hate having scrollbars within web pages anyway. Scrollbars on static dialogue boxes are one thing, because the scrollbars always appear in the same place. But on a web page their position can vary as you scroll the page itself up and down. Something about that just gives me the heebie-jeebies. This. Other than that though, I like the new layout. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Well-Actually War Trall Balladeer Posted March 11, 2011 Author Share Posted March 11, 2011 You guys are weird. Updated a few tweaks. Found out it matters what order you have your css definitions for links in. Link then visited then hover/focus and active... Whee, look at me; I almost know what I'm talking about for once. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Garrulous Glaahk Matanbuchus Posted March 11, 2011 Share Posted March 11, 2011 Didn't take a look at the technical side, but I think that visually, the site is way too "busy" as it is now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Well-Actually War Trall Rowen Posted March 11, 2011 Share Posted March 11, 2011 Is the background out of focus or is it just my eyes? I like that text background is a solid color now it makes it easier to read. EDIT: Do you have a rubric for evaluating your website that you want us to use? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Well-Actually War Trall Balladeer Posted March 11, 2011 Author Share Posted March 11, 2011 The background is just something I made at grsites.com. I've tried close to 20 different ones but they never seem to be quite right. I might have to look elsewhere or go with a solid color. If anyone has any suggestions for a better background I'm listening. Didn't have a rubric... could maybe make one. @Matanbuchus Can you be more specific? Background aside, what makes it busy? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Well-Actually War Trall Niemand Posted March 12, 2011 Share Posted March 12, 2011 Quote: Can you be more specific? Background aside, what makes it busy? I also had this impression (of busyness) at first glance. I think it has to do with the fact that, while there is a cohesive color scheme, there are a lot of different textures which catch the eye. There's the plain purple background, the blurry cloudy background, the knot-like edge patterns, the gradients behind the boxes on the right and in the middle, and the different gradient behind the various items at the top. I think that a solid color (though it need not be identical to the solid color to the sides) might work better for the background. The blurriness of the current one seems distracting to me, when I try to focus on it showing between the foreground items, but can't. A minor nitpick: For some reason the page ends up with a horizontal scrollbar for me (using Safari on Mac OS, with a screen set to 1440 pixels wide and the window using that full width), even though all of the actual page content is in the narrow central column, and there are only a few pixels of space off the right side. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Easygoing Eyebeast Triumph Posted March 12, 2011 Share Posted March 12, 2011 Originally Posted By: Niemand A minor nitpick: For some reason the page ends up with a horizontal scrollbar for me (using Safari on Mac OS, with a screen set to 1440 pixels wide and the window using that full width), even though all of the actual page content is in the narrow central column, and there are only a few pixels of space off the right side. I get the same horizontal scrollbar using Firefox on a Mac. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rotghroth Rhapsody BJ Back From the Beyond Posted March 12, 2011 Share Posted March 12, 2011 I got another horizontal scrollbar here. I'm running Firefox on Windows XP. I agree that the current background behind the text is very distracting. I took it upon myself to swap the blurry background and the solid color one, just to see how it looks. I think it looks much better that way, but the blurry background still wants to draw my attention away from the rest of the page. I think if there wasn't so much contrast or if the color transitions were a little sharper it wouldn't be as bad. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Easygoing Eyebeast keira Posted March 12, 2011 Share Posted March 12, 2011 Also have the horizontal scrollbar, Firefox 4 RC, windows, 1024x760. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Garrulous Glaahk Matanbuchus Posted March 12, 2011 Share Posted March 12, 2011 Originally Posted By: Niemand Quote: Can you be more specific? Background aside, what makes it busy? I also had this impression (of busyness) at first glance. I think it has to do with the fact that, while there is a cohesive color scheme, there are a lot of different textures which catch the eye. There's the plain purple background, the blurry cloudy background, the knot-like edge patterns, the gradients behind the boxes on the right and in the middle, and the different gradient behind the various items at the top. This. I also think that both the header and the menu don't fit the rest of the site, graphicswise. Might be the font, might be the round shapes in the otherwise wery rectangular design, dunno. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Well-Actually War Trall Balladeer Posted March 13, 2011 Author Share Posted March 13, 2011 I think I found my background. Took one of shyguy's terrain carpets, brightened, and blurred it. Me like. Also changed out the image buttons for CSS ones. Not too pretty when you enlarge the text but I'm not sure how to compensate for that yet... Maybe make the current buttons into images that will at least match everything else? As for the horizontal scroll bar, I'll likely have to edit my horizontal border images in order to decrease the width of the page. I made it just big enough to catch the end of one of those blocks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Easygoing Eyebeast keira Posted March 13, 2011 Share Posted March 13, 2011 Ooooooohhhhh, it looks much better now. The new font really makes a huge difference. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kyshakk Koan ef Posted March 13, 2011 Share Posted March 13, 2011 Quote: As for the horizontal scroll bar, I'll likely have to edit my horizontal border images in order to decrease the width of the page. I made it just big enough to catch the end of one of those blocks. The horizontal scrollbar is due to a little line of code in your updatetext container: <overflow:scroll;>. This gives you scrollbars, if you need them or not. Try <overflow:auto;> instead. And for dropdown menues, you want Suckerfish. Thumbs up, Jewels! You can use colour just to create a nice look, you can also use it to guide the eye and let it go to and rest on whatever section of the page is your priority. It depends on what you want to do with the page. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Well-Actually War Trall Balladeer Posted March 13, 2011 Author Share Posted March 13, 2011 I thought Niemand meant a horizontal scrollbar for the entire page like what you normally get when you shrink the width of your browser. Ps. Thanks for the overflow: auto tip. Looks better. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Magnificent Ornk Student of Trinity Posted March 13, 2011 Share Posted March 13, 2011 One nitpicky comment: the possessive of "it" is "its", with no apostrophe. It's a funny exceptional rule in English spelling. "It's" can only mean "it is". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Magnificent Ornk Dikiyoba Posted March 14, 2011 Share Posted March 14, 2011 Another nitpick: a couple of buttons under Contact and Extras are cut off when viewed with Internet Explorer (screenshot). Dikiyoba. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Well-Actually War Trall Balladeer Posted March 14, 2011 Author Share Posted March 14, 2011 Icky... Checking on Explorer 8 on my own computer, though, it looks fine. What version of Explorer are you running? Some of the older versions don't support all of the CSS definitions. On another note, changing the width of the body from 100% to 95% fixed the horizontal bar problem. Yay! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Magnificent Ornk Dikiyoba Posted March 18, 2011 Share Posted March 18, 2011 Whoops, sorry Jewels. Dikiyoba is using Internet Explorer 7. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Well-Actually War Trall Balladeer Posted May 22, 2011 Author Share Posted May 22, 2011 Part 2: PixPro http://www.kfandale.com/web505/Traci/index.htm It's not exactly how I would keep it since I haven't linked it to TrueSite. That's more for the classroom homework purposes, but it uses the same CSS file as the other one so integration is in process. Still working on that JavaScript... just need to find the time to read my textbooks. Four kids, four jobs, and a sudden lack of wireless internet... Boo. Boo I say. Edit: TrueSite needs a logo. Any takers on working something out for me? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Well-Actually War Trall Balladeer Posted May 27, 2011 Author Share Posted May 27, 2011 Nothing? Huh, I guess blades really is dead. Ah, well. Duly noted. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Well-Actually War Trall Niemand Posted May 27, 2011 Share Posted May 27, 2011 Oops, I looked at it and wrote up some comments, but forgot to post them. Sorry, here they are now: I like it a lot! It looks like you improved the color scheme in the main site prototype based on earlier comments (which I hadn't noticed before) and used it here as well. I think that it looks good; it retains the main elements of the original but simplified it so that it isn't distracting. The thick, dark green border around many of the buttons looks a bit odd to me. I think that it might look better if it were one or two pixels wide, but I wasn't able to test it; the markup seemed rather odd, particularly with the use of absolute positioning, and I couldn't modify it to get it to do what I wanted. I'm no expert at that stuff, though. You might consider making the screenshot image for the BoA section in the 'realistic' view style, without the gridlines. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kyshakk Koan Mistb0rn Posted May 27, 2011 Share Posted May 27, 2011 Originally Posted By: Jewels in Black Edit: TrueSite needs a logo. Any takers on working something out for me? What sort of logo do you mean? A little one, a banner for the top, or something else? I'd be glad to give it a try. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Well-Actually War Trall Balladeer Posted May 27, 2011 Author Share Posted May 27, 2011 Thanks for caring. I'll take a look at those things, Niemand. For the logo I was thinking ~1"x1" that would go in the upper left hand corner of every page and serve as an extra Home button. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hatchling Cockatrice Aoslare Posted May 27, 2011 Share Posted May 27, 2011 Ooh, this one looks really nice! I like this one. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Well-Actually War Trall Balladeer Posted June 11, 2011 Author Share Posted June 11, 2011 If you have JavaScript enabled, check it. Nifty, no? http://www.kfandale.com/web505/Traci/splash.htm @Dahak If you want something different for the captions just let me know. I didn't save the names you had given for them with the pics. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Magnificent Ornk nikki. Posted June 11, 2011 Share Posted June 11, 2011 hey, mercenary is misspelt. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kyshakk Koan Mistb0rn Posted June 12, 2011 Share Posted June 12, 2011 Originally Posted By: Jewels in Black For the logo I was thinking ~1"x1" that would go in the upper left hand corner of every page and serve as an extra Home button. Sorry I took so long, I sort of forgot until today. Since you didn't specify an exact size, I went with 100x100px, but I can easily change it if it's too large (or small): v1 Words and crossed swordsv2 Words, swords, and characterv3 Characters and crossed swordsv4 Everything I'll be away until the end of August, but go ahead and let me know what you think and anything you want changed, and I'll work on it when I get back. If there is specific imagery/layout/color/whatever that you'd prefer instead of what I have, please do tell me; I work best with a clear idea of the desired outcome, so the more info the better. :-D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rotghroth Rhapsody Locmaar Posted June 12, 2011 Share Posted June 12, 2011 Nice work. In the the second menu appearance requests is spelled requsts. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Well-Actually War Trall Balladeer Posted June 13, 2011 Author Share Posted June 13, 2011 Those look nice Mistb0rn. None of them are quite ready but I think they're a great place to start. I think first we need a background that will match the rest of the website. Try shrinking this.It might need a border of a couple pixels. Then I like the concept of the swords behind the words in v4 only I'd rather they were behind "for Blades" instead of TrueSite. Make sure the S in TrueSite is capitalized. No characters and I'm not sure about the font... I like the medieval look but that specific one's not really grabbing me. Let me look around for a font I like. I'm sure I can find something before August. I'm not sure how the font color will work with both the dark background and the light swords. Maybe the font will need to be light with a dark outline. Or maybe we'll just have to go with a lighter background. Thanks for the help. @Everyone else. Where's my ooohing and ahhhing? I have only a rudimentary understanding of JavaScript and I still managed to make a slideshow. Does nothing impress you anymore? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Easygoing Eyebeast Triumph Posted June 13, 2011 Share Posted June 13, 2011 Quote: Ooh. Quote: Ahh. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Well-Actually War Trall Micawber Posted June 13, 2011 Share Posted June 13, 2011 Originally Posted By: Jewels in Black @Everyone else. Where's my ooohing and ahhhing? I have only a rudimentary understanding of JavaScript and I still managed to make a slideshow. Does nothing impress you anymore? I was impressed! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Easygoing Eyebeast Sullust Posted June 14, 2011 Share Posted June 14, 2011 Originally Posted By: Jewels in Black @Everyone else. Where's my ooohing and ahhhing? I have only a rudimentary understanding of JavaScript and I still managed to make a slideshow. Does nothing impress you anymore? To be honest, it's not that impressive at the moment. Though I do this for a living, so my opinion may be a bit biased. Is there any sort of database on the backend or is this all hard-coded html? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Well-Actually War Trall Balladeer Posted June 15, 2011 Author Share Posted June 15, 2011 No database yet; all hard coded. I know its not impressive from a professional standpoint. I'm still doing beginner stuff after all. I'm really just looking for feedback. I work best when I have feedback (positive or negative). I've already realized that actually incorporating the changes into my website would be purely for my own benefit of practice. There just isn't enough interest anymore to make it worth it for the community. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rotghroth Rhapsody BJ Back From the Beyond Posted June 16, 2011 Share Posted June 16, 2011 I'm interested. I'd love to have a central database for BoA graphics. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Easygoing Eyebeast Dintiradan Posted June 16, 2011 Share Posted June 16, 2011 Originally Posted By: B.J.Earles I'm interested. I'd love to have a central database for BoA graphics. http://www.personal.psu.edu/bxb11/boa/louvre/ and http://blades.ermarian.net/graphics? @Jewels: Like Sullust, I'm all "Oh, okay, you're using a Javascript slide show library." If the Blades community was bigger, I would recommend that you move to a three-tier architecture (database layer, business logic layer, and presentation layer). But it seems that you're most interested in getting more experience in the presentation layer, so go ahead and focus on that. I've reimplemented the back end for my BoA website a number of times now. Do I have anything useful on it? No, not really. But it helps that I have a working example whenever I want to learn a new PHP framework. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Well-Actually War Trall Balladeer Posted June 16, 2011 Author Share Posted June 16, 2011 I'm focusing on the presentation layer for now because that's what my classes are teaching me about. My database classes don't start till next January. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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