[spatterson]

I am looking for some input on a new interface I am creating for my webpage. The large white portion will hold the contents of the website. The menu is java based and will animate upon mouse over. If you could just spare a little time and help this young graphic designer out, then that would be greatly appreciate. Thanks,

Scott

http://www.scottpatterson.com/v10prev.htm

[James L]

Hey,

It is pretty big! I am currently on a monitor with 1024 x 768 resolution, with the browser window almost completely open, and I had to scroll side to side to view the page.

Imagine what it would be like for the people online who are still in 800 x 600! According to many tracking sites approximately 40 - 45% of web viewers are still in this res.

With regards to the Javascript rollovers for the drop down menus, be sure to include some alternate type of navigation too. Again, many tracking sites have shown that almost 13% of web viewers have disabled scripting in their browsers, for one reason or another. This means that if your site is entirely dependant on scripting for the navigation they will never be able to get past your home page.

Apart from that it looks pretty good!

[axlepin]

I agree with James L.

Don't know how that 'panel' is constructed, but one thought would be to build it with tables, using both % and Pixel values in the horizontal cells such that if a person opens their browser window wider, the panel and its contents accomodate by also getting wider. For example, let's say you build a table 3 cols wide. the outer colums' width would be fixed at, say 50 pix, and the center column would be 100% and would expand and contract as browser width is changed. You might have to play with it, but this gets at the essence of what I mean.

that way you can build for 800x600, but still have it look cool on larger monitors. The MacWorld site does a good job of what I'm talking about..if you play with that page in your browser by making your browser window wider or narrower, you can see what I mean about the contents accomodating browser width. Especially the way their top bar expands and contracts.

axle

[spatterson]

First, thanks for the great comments!

Originally posted by James L:
It is pretty big! I am currently on a monitor with 1024 x 768 resolution, with the browser window almost completely open, and I had to scroll side to side to view the page.

Very good point I forgot to mention that there will be three different resolutions to choose from on the new site...

800X600
1024X768
1024X680 - the one you saw

Originally posted by axlepin:
Don't know how that 'panel' is constructed, but one thought would be to build it with tables, using both % and Pixel values in the horizontal cells such that if a person opens their browser window wider, the panel and its contents accomodate by also getting wider.

I really like that idea however I don't know how the steel pattern would react with the stretching of that particular cell...

About the navmenu... I didn't even think about that. Looks like I can make a small text nav menu at the bottom... I think that would work.

[godzookie2k]

no offense, but I can't get behind the brushed metal, the interface looks like Yet Another hack and slashed apple rip.™


heres a tip to all heavily influnced by apple software design.


Just because apple makes good software, their website blows and the aqua/brushed look is now almost officially exclusively theirs. Find your own look.

[quietjim]

First, the right hand navigation is way too far to the right. I opened it with Safari with a browser almost full width on a 1024 screen and didn't see it all.

My main thought about this is...why are you doing it in such a limited way? You've created a presentation style page that is so limited you indicate you are going to do three different versions (and sniff for browsers? screens? have the user choose?). That will be a nightmare to maintain.

Everything you are doing here including the navigation could be done with CSS and straight HTML. Check out A List Apart if you need help figuring out how. With a CSS site, you could have a page that automaticaly resizes.

[naphtali]

Originally posted by spatterson:
I am looking for some input on a new interface I am creating for my webpage. The large white portion will hold the contents of the website. The menu is java based and will animate upon mouse over. If you could just spare a little time and help this young graphic designer out, then that would be greatly appreciate. Thanks,

Scott

http://www.scottpatterson.com/v10prev.htm

I hope you meant Javascript menus and not Java ones, because the latter ones are absolutely annoying dogs.

Looks pretty nice on the whole, though metal is getting rather tired. Still, it depends on what your site is all about, since you shouldn't have metal just for the heck of it.

[- - e r i k - -]

Originally posted by spatterson:
I really like that idea however I don't know how the steel pattern would react with the stretching of that particular cell...

I made a metal site in 1999 that were based on that exact technique. It worked well.

Metal is tired and CSS is where it's at baby

[chris v]

You need to visually seperate the menu items from one another, somehow. It looks like one long sentence right now:

news all about me stuff gallery

You need to somehow give a little break between each, defining the individual buttons a bit more:

news | all about me | stuff | gallery

CV

[spatterson]

With the comments and suggestions I have decided to ditch the interface and move to a CSS style web site... This will be new and difficult move. But I think that CSS is the way to go and load times, ease of use, and flexibility. CSS will help a lot. Thanks for the link to "A List Apart". Hopefully that site will help me make an easy transition to CSS. I have only used CSS for text. So it’s off to the drawing board again... Good stuff... I like to learn new things. Hopefully I can get the hang of it before the new year.

About spacing for the menu… Thanks! I will defiantly make each menu option separate.

Well I guess I’m off to tutorial sites… and hopefully I will learn how to implement CSS. If you have any suggestions or know of any good tutorial sites please share… Thanks

[- - e r i k - -]

Originally posted by spatterson:
Well I guess I’m off to tutorial sites… and hopefully I will learn how to implement CSS. If you have any suggestions or know of any good tutorial sites please share… Thanks

I found this to be the best place to start:

http://glish.com/css/