#1 (permalink)

Hey everyone. I just finished the basic layout for a new site--it's my first foray into PHP and dynamic pages.

The idea of the site is to take a geographic location, then sift through all of the media that's floating around on the internet (videos, pictures, webcams, articles, panoramas, satelite photos, etc.) and combine all the media related to that location into one page, immersing the visitor with enough information that they can effectively explore the location without leaving their chair.

Here is an example page which tests the concept--the location is Six Flags Great Adventure in Jackson NJ.
http://www.totalmediaimmersion.com/?...greatadventure



Aside from the basics, here are a few specific questions I have (Feel free to skip over these if you just want to quickly throw in your 2 cents):

1. How can I better integrate the Google search box? As per their TOS, I can't make major changes to the font etc, so I'm kinda stuck. Is there anything I can legally change? If not, should I leave it as is, or just remove it?

2. The font in the lefthand menu is supposed to be the same as the Pictures, Videos, etc font, but it doesn't show up that way on different computers. Is there any way to embed the font file? If not, should I redo the menu in Flash or with pics, or should I find another font? Any suggestions?

3. The navigation stuff at the top, right underneath the main banner...good/bad? Thoughts?

4. For better or worse I designed this for 1024x768, but are there any issues with other browsers? I used a lot of layers--does everything line up?

5. For the scrolling Flash map (eventually the rides will be clickable, loading seperate pages about each ride), is it intuitative enough, or should I add a "drag to scroll" kind of message? What about the zoom function?

6. Independent of the fact that the links don't yet work, the "Go There" box is kind of ugly. Any ideas for making it more visually appealing? For that matter, same goes for Other Media and Satelite.

7. What the heck should I put in the remaining green box at the left of the page?



Also, a technical Q:

8. Google doesn't appear to be reading the dynamic content--will I have to make text versions and use a robots file, or is there an easier way around that?


Whew, that's a big post
Sorry for being so long winded, but I've spent a lot of time laying this out and there's a bunch of questions I haven't yet been able to answer.

Thanks in advance for any reviews,
Tom

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#2 (permalink)

You did that whole site in DW right ?? I can tell.. all those "layer#" and "style#" .. bad, bad, bad. Name your DIVs something that MAKE SENSE, same goes for your styles. Making EVERYTHING position:absolute is horrible and it will cause you pain.

I think it's ok the way it is. Google doesn't give you much choice so you'll have to work around it.
It is better to stick with the standard fonts that 99% of all users will have on their machines. I happen to see it as you intended because I have thousands of fonts and happen to have Glasgow on my machine. Most people won't. Don't resort to Flash as a menu. Users w/o Flash won't be able to navigate your site. A better menu would be an unordered list.

Good, breadcrumbs are easily recognized and usable.

Yeah.. you use a lot of layers.. all absolutely positioned and .. all NOT necessary.
1024x768 is risky. People do not want to scroll horizontally and design-wise it's still a bad idea. Even though higher resolutions are more common, not everyone leaves all their windows full-screen.

In Firefox your thumbnails under the map are a mess, too big with big ugly blue borders around them. Clearly you have not eradicated those borders with css as you should. If I increase the text size in FF, the text gets lost behind all your absolutely positioned 'layers' .. bad for readability for anyone with impaired vision.
Not intuitive at all. Untill I read this I didn't even know you could drag it !
Zoom works, but your graphic pixelates pretty badly at higher levels.

Change the color ? Pale gray is just blaahh.

Sorry, my crystal ball is in the shop . If you don't know what to do with it. eliminate it, it's dead space.

Your page is suffering from DIV-itis. Too many and absolutely positioned on top of that. Bad coding, sorry, and mostly unnecessary. Learn how to use the document flow, source order and floats, margins and padding and you'll save yourself a LOT of headaches. Right now it's a nightmare.

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#3 (permalink)

Hehe, yes I used Dreamweaver

I guess I'm not really sure what to do with the layers aside from absolute positioning, and I'm assuming that's more of a coding question and beyond the scope of this thread. Any suggestions for a good tutorial/useful post in another forum?

For the menu, what's the downside to using gifs with good alt tags to maintain that font?

I'll definiately make a few changes to the Flash map to make it intuititive, though based on the resolution of the original image and filesize constraints, the pixelation might remain an issue.

I want to have a thin border around the thumbnail images, but I guess firefox isn't displaying it as I wanted. This is the css for that section:

#flickr {
width:570px;
height:90px;
margin-top:2px;
right;
margin-left:20px;
}
}
#flickr img {
float:left;
margin:0 0px 8px 8px;
background:#3f4e4e;
padding:2px;
width:35px;
height:35px;
border:0;
}

The border is set to zero--any idea why it's still messed up in FF?

For the green box, yes I will get rid of it unless I or someone else can think of a good feature to put there. I might resurrect it later for ads in any event.

Thanks for the useful and detailed feedback
Tom

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#4 (permalink)

That style block has to be in the <head> section or put it all in-line.
If you want to get rid of the image borders you're going to have to do it
this way:

#Layer5 img{
border: none;
}
You asked for a review of your site. The site is nothing without the coding you built
it on and is, IMO, inclusive.

If you want to learn how to build tabless layouts, get a copy of the book
"HTML Utopia: Designing without Tables using CSS" from Sitepoint.com
You might also cruise thru CSSZengarden.com.

You might also read this: http://www.barelyfitz.com/screencast...s/positioning/

__________________
Web Goddess & Web Standards Evangelist :) - Tables Be Gone !!
"Using or working with IE is like having to wear a 1970's polyester suit with pantyhose and a girdle, to work everyday"
Carolina Corvette Club

#5 (permalink)

I'm still a bit confused--if absolutely positioned layers are a big problem, what is the alternative?

Layers with relative positioning? Percentages instead of pixels? Something entirely unrelated to layers?

Do the absolutely positioned layers lead to compatability errors, or are they just an issue when visitors try to enlarge text? You said my layout has too many div tags--if I'm not going to use divs to set up layers on the site, what else would I use (I wouldn't dream of mentioning tables )?

Sorry, I'm still rather new to CSS and I'm still not even sure what I'm aiming to change.

Thanks
Tom

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