rcorlew Posted May 6, 2007 Share Posted May 6, 2007 Let me start off by saying this is basically just a template as it is now, but the content will be added shortly after the template is finished. Second, I feel that a brief description of the site's purpose would also be nice. The site is a place where people with cololrectal disorders will come to share their experiences with others. We will also have people in the c-r field like doctors and nurses write articles as well as people in the research field to share information. The users will have the ability to create personal pages and stories to share with other users. There will also be a forum and private messaging system. All of these items will only be available to registered users, while the forum will be able to be browsed by anybody as well as most of the content minus the user pages and messaging systems. So the look I am going for is a clean and professional look as well as being straight forward to easily be able to retrieve information there. So without further a due, here is the link. http://www.mycrdisorder.org Comments appreciated. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
suttercain Posted May 6, 2007 Share Posted May 6, 2007 Is this a template you built? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rcorlew Posted May 6, 2007 Author Share Posted May 6, 2007 Yes built it myself. Why pay for something you have to chop up and redo to suit your needs anyway. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
benjaminbeazy Posted May 6, 2007 Share Posted May 6, 2007 the links don't work, haha just kiddin' looks nice. privacy policy is misspelled at the bottum Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
igor berger Posted May 6, 2007 Share Posted May 6, 2007 Why are you building your own template, when your host has tons of templates? 1&1 WebsiteBuilder https://websitebuilder.1and1.com/xml/webfix/?__sendingauthdata=1&login.techauftrag=demo Also you should configure your 404 Error file properly. IT should not be used for advertising - sedoparking.com Unless you are on free host account. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
redbullmarky Posted May 6, 2007 Share Posted May 6, 2007 Why are you building your own template, when your host has tons of templates? maybe because he doesn't want his site to look like thousands of others??? IMO using other people's templates all the time is a copout and a nice way to show unoriginality.... Anyway I actually quite like it, though I always have reservations about big fonts with big line heights. I had a little play with firebug - I took out the line-height from the CSS, set the font-size to 12px and the main font as Verdana and it just looked less "spaced" and more interesting. Give it a try yourself and see what you think. Also, I'm thinking that you may have the wrong typeface for the main logo. It looks more like the logo for a scary film or metal band than something that fits in with the cause here. Otherwise, overall it looks pretty good Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
igor berger Posted May 6, 2007 Share Posted May 6, 2007 maybe because he doesn't want his site to look like thousands of others??? IMO using other people's templates all the time is a copout and a nice way to show unoriginality.... Excellent point! Building your own template in PHP, that is what it is all about. You are making original work, and at the end of the day you will be proud of it. Also doing you own template will allow you scale up and redesign with great flexibility, especially if you going to have many pages. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rcorlew Posted May 6, 2007 Author Share Posted May 6, 2007 I actually quite like it, though I always have reservations about big fonts with big line heights. I had a little play with firebug - I took out the line-height from the CSS, set the font-size to 12px and the main font as Verdana and it just looked less "spaced" and more interesting. Give it a try yourself and see what you think. Also, I'm thinking that you may have the wrong typeface for the main logo. It looks more like the logo for a scary film or metal band than something that fits in with the cause here. Otherwise, overall it looks pretty good I think I may have made some adjustments you may like. Have a lookey now. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
redbullmarky Posted May 6, 2007 Share Posted May 6, 2007 the font is still too big @ 15px IMO - try 12 or 13px. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rcorlew Posted May 6, 2007 Author Share Posted May 6, 2007 Ok I changed that. My only concern with smallish font sizes is one with accessibility and how it will look when it is printed. I am trying to keep all visitors in mine, given the targeted audience will vary greatly. I am also going to have different language versions hopefully in the future. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
suttercain Posted May 6, 2007 Share Posted May 6, 2007 Yes built it myself. Why pay for something you have to chop up and redo to suit your needs anyway. The reason I asked is because it looks REALLY GOOD! Nice site. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
redbullmarky Posted May 6, 2007 Share Posted May 6, 2007 much better. i used to be a fan of 10/11px, but 12px is a nice balance and providing the site is layed out well, the font can be resized by the user anyway for when accessibility is needed. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rcorlew Posted May 6, 2007 Author Share Posted May 6, 2007 Thank you for all the replies, as always I try to incorporate all the suggestions, why else would someone ask for critique. I am going to press forward with the project now that the template is done, as usual, small tweaks will be made as the need arises after all the functions are in place. I also appreciate compliments, after looking at some of the sites we are asked to judge/comment on, I tried to make sure that the template was as finished as it could be before asking. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
igor berger Posted May 7, 2007 Share Posted May 7, 2007 You need to configure your robots.txt file to disallow all robots until you have finished it! You do not want to get penalized for work in progress and dead links! etc. You may want to set up a test dir where you will have a mirror website, and do your work there and once out looks good move it to live! But you do not need to do test dir unstill you go live! So do disallow in live finish live, make a back up to test, disallow test, then allow live and disallow test. The template looks good! One advise is to put your includes in server root dir while main stuff goes into public dir! Or you can disallow your includes in public dir, but you will still need do a test of a $test=parent, if test=parent include okay. You do not want people playing with your includes and causing problems. This is way I put all my includes in server root dir. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
steviewdr Posted May 8, 2007 Share Posted May 8, 2007 You'll need to spellcheck the website. You have Environmental spelled incorrectly in the drop down menu. Also: "Resistered members" You have the forum nicely integrated - so kudos. I would like to see a little better explaination on what C|R|Disorder is about etc. The gradients are also a little severe. I would prefer going from a light brown to a dark, instead of white to brown. Anyways, looks good. Needs more content and in-text features such as lists, <h2's> and maybe a graphic etc. on some pages. -steve Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rcorlew Posted May 9, 2007 Author Share Posted May 9, 2007 As for the graphics including gradients, working on them now, thanks for the spell check heads up. I am currently only 60-70% done with the site, so much more to come. The site is going to be a cross between webmd styled medical and a myspace styled community site. It is by far the most ambitious undertaking I have done yet to date, and I am doing it for myself as well as the people who suffer from various colorectal disorders. I am trying to build a collaboration between patients and doctors as well as with those who have gone through such things. Not trying to change the subject, but the scope of those disorders if life altering in so many ways, it is a personal crusade of mine so to speak. Thanks for the compliments, this is my first attempt at making a serious site instead of a fun site, I hope the design works well with the content, which I am working on tweaks to do just that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
igor berger Posted May 9, 2007 Share Posted May 9, 2007 Good luck! To build something real takes time, hard work, and patience. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rcorlew Posted June 30, 2007 Author Share Posted June 30, 2007 I think that this site is pretty much done now, take a look and let me know what you all think. I have changed the address a little bit to make the site more unique, a small bit of programming nirvana that took a week to iron all the bugs out of. So here is the new link, the old one will still work, but you will end up here anyway. http://www.mycrdisorder.org/index.crd I think the file extension conversion is pretty cool myself if nobody else notices. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LiamProductions Posted June 30, 2007 Share Posted June 30, 2007 Quite neat. How did you make a new File extension? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rcorlew Posted June 30, 2007 Author Share Posted June 30, 2007 The file extension depends on the type of server you are using. It was just an idea I had after reading about how Yahoo and Google use a similar scheme to help hide the script type they are using. Thanks for the feedback. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
carefree Posted July 4, 2007 Share Posted July 4, 2007 Great site! But place you google ad in between your text not way down the bottom, this will ensure your site recieves good revenue. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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