Critique Please

[AV1611]

I took two sites and merged them. 

 

Please feel free to post your worst!!!

 

the site contains a sub-site... be sure and hit the "Bible" and "Forum" button to bring them up.  I tried to make the site very cosmetically appealing.  There is a LOT of material there.  Thanks.

 

Also, can someone tell me how to pay to have the site noticed? like on google or whatever?

 

thanks

 

restoringthetruth.org

[LiamProductions]

http://restoringthetruth.org/indexb.php

 

The layout is kind of messed up, or if it is suppose to be like that it needs work on

[AV1611]

http://restoringthetruth.org/indexb.php

 

The layout is kind of messed up, or if it is suppose to be like that it needs work on

 

Um... what's messed up?  What Browser?  I don't understand what you are seeing?

 

//EDIT:

 

NEVERMIND THE CRITIQUE... Seems the last round of edits broke IE as well... It only seems to be OK in Firefox...  I take it IE and FF have MAJOR differences on how they implement IFRAME... which is the part where the mangle is...

[AV1611]

Hmmmm...

 

Well, I just opened the site with SAFARI beta3 for windows... and it mangles the site quite badly...

 

It does seem to be good in IE6, FF 2, and Opera...

 

If anyone else has a browser related, could you let me know?

 

DO I NEED TO BE CONCERNED ABOUT BETA3 Safari for windows... I mean is it ME or is it the BROWSER???

 

Thanks.

[AV1611]

OK

 

I got my act together...

 

I just didn't pay attention my last set of updates...

Lesson Learned:  Check Every Browser, Every Time NO MATTER HOW MINOR A CHANGE!

 

OK, Bring on the Critiques!

 

www.restoringthetruth.org

[AV1611]

BUMP

 

Read for critiques!

 

http://restoringthetruth.org

 

[john010117]

I looked at it with FF2, and I must say, the layout's very smooth and clean. The color scheme is great. But the major downside is iframes. Search engines hate 'em. But other than that, the "contact us" link at the top points to index.php (which shouldn't), and some of the links to the right all point to index.php.

[ober]

A few points:

 

1) The hover effect in the menu doesn't look right.  Flipping the background image isn't the best idea especially when you have a gradient. 

2) The effect in the header has a mid-90ish feel too it.

3) I will never understand the site in a site look or the idea of putting scrollbars inside of a site.  I just don't see the point.

[LiamProductions]

Its fixed now the indexb.php

[ss32]

to put it simply, it is bland, yet matches the material that you want to convey... it is heavenly.    what is wrong, though, is that it is monochromatic.  you may want to spice it up a bit; after a while i got kinda bored looking at it.  it also lacks images in the content area, which are essentially necessary to keep readers in there.  a wall o' text is about as interesting as high-school reading material.

 

your iframe use is cool, but poorly used.  the fact (on the bible page) that clicking a menu changes something on the bottom of the page is quite confusing.  you may want to think about redesigning the layout of that page

 

hmm... much of the site's content is not even there yet, just a repeat of the front page.

 

btw- nobody is going to heaven.  look carefully at what the bible instructs you to do in order to achieve that.

 

 

[nathanmaxsonadil]

You dont have any title in the title bar

[suttercain]

I athesist so I think... oh way, layout critique....

 

I think it has potential. The color scheme is good, maybe remove the green css border from around the image buttons.

 

Also, there is no need for two menus. You have all the same links on the top and on the left. We only need one. Use the left to put amazon ads or something.

 

Peace be with you....

[moberemk]

Hmm... The background is nice, and the colors are good, if a bit overusee across the page. More then just white and light blue would help! The header and the navigation are kinda bland and empty, and the navigation just seems overdone by now; and as it was said before, the left menu is redundant. Also, what's the point of the Home and Heaven sections? They're identical! Speaking of which, the colors of the default SMF skin on your forums and those of your site are kinda similar-just a coincidence?

[AV1611]

many good suggestions...

 

I will post back when I figure out what to do with them all...

 

There are 3 major problems that I know of that I could use help with.

 

1.  The css menu's in the Bible portion (iframe) don't seem to work in IE6 but do in FF ???

2.  I have no eye for art (Yes, the header looks 90'sish but hey, I'm old!!!)

3.  The site combines a Theology Blog with a Theology Reference site:  It's gonna Look bland!!! Personally, all that text looks like art to me LOL

 

You guys are great... I'll let you know when i'm ready for another round, but I could use help with the css menu thingy in ie6

 

Bill

 

[AV1611]

your iframe use is cool, but poorly used.  the fact (on the bible page) that clicking a menu changes something on the bottom of the page is quite confusing.  you may want to think about redesigning the layout of that page

 

I have struggled with that since the beginning. 

 

The problem is I have dynamic forms, so you first select a book, then a chapter, then a verse or whatever... how do I do it differently?  Move the bottom iframe to the top??? Then it loose the "front page" cometics??? I'm open to any suggestions... it's been that way since the old site, about 2 years now...

[AV1611]

OK,

 

I changed the site as follows:

 

1.  I dropped the left side menu.  I don't want to do advertising at least for now.

2.  The main page content gives you a summary view of all blog articles.

 

Help Needed:

 

1.  Would a different color for the page background help by giving contrast?  What color?

2.  What would someone suggest for an alternate header theme?

3.  I still don't know why my Bible menu CSS doesn't work in IE...

4.  I'm open to ANY suggestions on how I could change the dynamic menus in the iframe on the Bible page...

 

Thanks.

[AV1611]

OK

 

1. I changed the way the menu works in the "Bible" section.  I moved the bottom IFrame to the top and made it smaller.

2. The Main blog page now shows a full article that automatically changes twice a day: Spurgeons Morning and Evening Devotional, after that it shows all blogs in summary, and also shows the menu of blogs on the right.

 

Guys, I know you are all getting bored with this but I really want everyone to know how much I appreciate you helping me.  This is a VERY content rich site, and it was technically hard for me to do all that I wanted, yet keep the site from "sprawling". 

 

The biggest problem I find with this type of site is that you get burried so deep in the site, you can't cross reference anything without 3 monitors

 

This site attempts to help with that.  You can read the Bible, read commentary, and look up greek on the same page.  That's why I use the "scrollbars/iframes" that someone had commented on. 

 

I am open to all suggestions, but want to keep the site "tight" not "sprawling".  Thanks.

[TheFilmGod]

I actually think it looks really good. There are a few pointers I would love to give.

 

IMO :

 

1) You need to validate your code. There are 150 errors. The first step in making sure it works in all browsers is to have valid code!!

 

  a) Didn't correctly end the <head> tag this is a major problem.

 

  b) Most errors result from a not properly nested element. Find one error and bingo! there goes 50 errors away...

 

2) I love your header. It is done well and has proper font usage. The quote is a bit long but that is the only critique I have for it.

 

3) Create an external file for the CSS unless this is specific to the page only. This defies what CSS is meant for.

 

4) For the blocks or sections on the page, see if you can use a bit less of top padding; it is anonnying to scroll so much while some of it can be eliminated.

 

5) The structure itself is done well and I like the end product. You may look into making the round curves a more flashy, but hey! I like it!

 

6) Bible section, have the bible readings stretch to the whole width. I don't like how it takes up half of it. Wastes the room and is MUCH harder to read!!

 

 

I hope my critique was good. Most of the time I was being a bit nitpicking, but you know, there wasn't much that was that bad or worthy of critique! 

[AV1611]

I actually think it looks really good. There are a few pointers I would love to give.

 

IMO :

 

1) You need to validate your code. There are 150 errors. The first step in making sure it works in all browsers is to have valid code!!

 

  a) Didn't correctly end the <head> tag this is a major problem.

 

  b) Most errors result from a not properly nested element. Find one error and bingo! there goes 50 errors away...

 

The page itself *used* to pass validator, but the problem is the blog stuff is from different sources and makes it fail.  I will rerun the validator with the blog set to display NO articles

 

2) I love your header. It is done well and has proper font usage. The quote is a bit long but that is the only critique I have for it.

 

3) Create an external file for the CSS unless this is specific to the page only. This defies what CSS is meant for.

 

herein is another problem I could use some instruction with:

You can but are not allowed to do a php include() that brings it's own set of css along with it.  the only way I could get validator to do it was to make the css static within each if clause.  that's why it's the way it is.  If there is a BETTER way, I'm all ears...

 

4) For the blocks or sections on the page, see if you can use a bit less of top padding; it is annoying to scroll so much while some of it can be eliminated.

 

Good suggestion

 

5) The structure itself is done well and I like the end product. You may look into making the round curves a more flashy, but hey! I like it!

 

I'm old school and still think tables are a perfectly valid way to layout a website.  (As long as you don't mind wasting too much time getting IE to do what it's told...)

I am NOT a graphics artist so those corners are about as flashy as I can get, but I like the suggestion and will see if I can con my daughter (who IS a graphics artist) into making me some new ones...

 

Good suggestion

6) Bible section, have the bible readings stretch to the whole width. I don't like how it takes up half of it. Wastes the room and is MUCH harder to read!!

 

 

I hope my critique was good. Most of the time I was being a bit nitpicking, but you know, there wasn't much that was that bad or worthy of critique! 

 

Thanks for the ideas!

[TheFilmGod]

herein is another problem I could use some instruction with:

You can but are not allowed to do a php include() that brings it's own set of css along with it.  the only way I could get validator to do it was to make the css static within each if clause.  that's why it's the way it is.  If there is a BETTER way, I'm all ears...

 

why don't you do this:

 

<link href="style.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css"><

 

then -->

 

This goes at the top of the html page

<?php

// Filepath to root directory
      $element = "../";

?>

<link href="<?php echo "$element"; ?>style.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css"><

 

There is an even better way to do and that is by extracting the full url path by php and use it find how far you are from the root and make php fill it in for you, but this works for me just fine.