need a favour

[deano_ue]

hey guys i finally got the time to re-do my portfolio, can you guys check it and give me some feedback, is the layout ok, do the links work etc.

i just need to double check it with a few people before i start re-working all my links to it

www.deanirvine.com

cheers guys

[Epimethee]

I suggest you test under multiple browsers. Rendering under Firefox 3.0 and 3.6 Mac has issues. Sadly, automatically generated table code is rarely consistent across all browsers.

[JeyNyce]

I don't see any of your work

Running Firefox 3.6.6 btw.

[murs47]

I don't see any of your work

Running Firefox 3.6.6 btw.

Ditto.

[Panther_Gunn]

The default window size seems to be a little big, in both dimensions.  If this is the case, with the information on the About & Contact pages grounded on the right side, it requires some movement of the page to see it all.

When clicking on either of the first two categories (photography & graphic art), it would be nice if the main page view changed, along with the menu at the top; as it stands, it's not obvious that anything has really happened/changed when clicking them.  Do you want the menus for those pages to still be visible after clicking on any of the other three pages (about, contact, & links)?

Running a semi-updated IE8

[WyldFyre]

Can't see the navigation menu under Google Chrome.

IE 64 bit shows the first letter of the Nav Menu.

All links seem to be working in both though.

[deano_ue]

hmm thats strange i tried it in firefox, IE, safari and chrome. i can see everything though trying it on a separate laptop i do see that the layers and inline frames i used don't match up with the background.

it could be with me using <center></center> to keep the content centered so that could be due to various screen sizes. i'm not sure what the problem with the navigation it seems ok on my end. as for the not seeing the work can you guys give more details you are the only ones to say this

[Podmark]

Here's what I'm getting in Chrome for the main page.

Spoiler

Everything seems to be working but you can see if it looks the way you want it to. It looks the same on my laptops copies of Firefox, Opera, Safari, and IE8 - all of which should be up to date.

I'd suggest centering the page. Also I'm not a fan of all the horizontal scrolling but that's up to you.

I'm not sure if there's anything you can do about this but the lightbox doesn't seem to work if you don't allow all the thumbnails to load up first.

[Previsionary]

I'm not particularly fond of the scrolling. I thought it was going to be an automatic type of thing when you told me. Using Photography > Nature as an example, it's really obvious when the pics aren't the same size (especially in length), and considering your photos' border changed throughout, it was a bit glaring. I did notice one pic didn't work -- "Between Two Storms" -- and it was just a hyperlink. I think I'd rather see more with less scrolling than the reverse.

[deano_ue]

i went with the side scrolling for the traditional portfolio look, i agree the the subsections are a bit of a pain but i can't think of another way to separate the sections, anyone any ideas

i tried using the <centre> tags to centre the layout but that seemed to be causing the problems others were speaking of.

yeah sadly lytebox wont work until the page fully loads, i think it may be a java script issue

[Reepicheep]

I'm not fussed on the sidescrolling either. At best, the scrollbar takes away from the look you've got going on. If you have the know-how, could you try a pair of buttons that snaps the portfolio back and forth, so your viewers only need to click the images along instead of dragging them?

Prev is right, the varying image sizes show, as does the border color. If its not already on your todo list, I'd consider making them all either black or white.

I didn't find the subsections an issue, personally. Perhaps you could like them all up with the main section in the navigator, so pressing Graphic Art would look like:

Photography
Graphic Art  Covers  Digital Work  Illustration  ...
About the Artist
...

Also, you seem to have misplaced your One Ring in The Lost World.

[deano_ue]

not that well known in web design which is why i still use front page i'll look into the buttons, i'm tweeking the nav to have all the sections avalible from the start eg

photography: sport   studio    wildlife


and yeah it was either that or  world war Z, i was on a deadline and didn't have a bible lol

[Podmark]

Are you using CSS at all UE? The page can probably be centered very easily using divs.
I'm pretty sure Frontpage can work with CSS but I'm not sure how good it is. I could walk you through centered the page with a little html and css.

For the sub navigation you could change the colour or font size. Maybe a bit more division between the main nav and the sub sections.

[deano_ue]

i know very little of css or html, i usually do all the layouts in PS slice and then save images and html. i tried using the <centre> tags is that what you had in mind.

how's this for a nav compromise



all would be permanently there

[murs47]

I like that navigation more. I say create some heirarchy between your menus and sub-menus though.

[Podmark]

I like that new nav more. It's clearer.

The <center> tag was deprecated a while ago, so it may or may not work anymore. I'll try to help you with the centering thing in a day or two.

[Epimethee]

> i know very little of css or html, i usually do all the layouts in PS slice and then save images and html.
PS export is fine for quick prototyping and demos, but debugging and maintaining your site will be a chore. While truly mastering all the quirks of HTML, CSS and the various browsers' differing interpretations of the specs is a life work, you can learn enough to get by very quickly. Always handy.

The <center> tag was deprecated in 1998 with the introduction of HTML 4, IIRC.

> I'm pretty sure Frontpage can work with CSS but I'm not sure how good it is.
If your goal is to produce code which works in more browsers than Internet Explorer 5, stay away from the discontinued Frontpage. This app has been the industry's joke for a reason.

BTW, there a small typo in the legal note: "copyrighted".

[JeyNyce]

Go with the new layout, easy to read.

[Tomato]

 Speaking as someone who used Frontpage exclusively for a few years (and I'll still pull it out for simple HTML occasionally) it's not only outdated, but actually more difficult to use in the long haul. Programs like dreamweaver are a pain to learn, but certain tasks (like the creation of windows as opposed to frames, CSS styles for rapid altering of how your text is added, etc.) Are done more efficiently down the road.

[deano_ue]

i'd like to learn dreamweaver, it's just getting a copy. i know frontpage is extremely outdated i just need to get off my arse and move

[Ewzzy]

Looks good but it looks like you designed right up to 1024px width. The problem with doing that is on smaller screens and netbooks (what I'm not as I type this) the scrollbar takes up a bit of it so you have to have a horizontal scrollbar. You might tweak your design to lose some pixels at the edges to make it better viewable on smaller screens.

[Epimethee]

Good point, Ewzzy. If you're targeting 1024 x 768 resolution (and anything above that leaves out a good chunk of the audience), you should design to fit within 975 x 560.

[thalaw2]

The resolution argument is out date....we have widescreen editions of home movies so that people can view things they way they are meant to be seen.  UE has to focus on  the audience he wants to benefit from the website most.  Not everyone is meant to get certain kinds of art. 

[Epimethee]

The resolution issue is not out of date... it's just way more complicated than a few years ago. At least, that's the picture every study I've read paint; it's also corroborated by statistics from the sites of my company's clients.

> Not everyone is meant to get certain kinds of art. 
And how do you determine who your audience is before launching your site and analyzing the visitor stats? I'd certainly like to know the baseline to make an educated guess beforehand.

[Reepicheep]

Not everyone is meant to get certain kinds of art. 

I'm not sure that corresponds to how big your monitor is.