# another website review



## Tarnishedwisdom (Mar 8, 2002)

hey everybody. i have just finished with this site for my lawn care company...nothing much, but i wanted it to look at least semi-professional. i made it all using notepad, so some of my code might be a little rough, but o well. please tell me what you think and any ideas on how to make it look better/things you didnt like.

http://thelawnwranglers.netfirms.com

thanks a lot ya'll...


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## GoJoAGoGo (Dec 26, 2002)

Hi:

I looked over your website and could only find one area that could be adjusted to make it look more attractive. The area I'm talking about is the gallery. There is too much white space in the gallery. The pictures aren't laid down straight and even. I believe if you lay down the pictures side by side in a horizontal position with equal space, you will eliminate the unnecessary white space and it will look more appealing.

Just my thoughts in an area that I'm framiliar with. I worked for a few different newspapers over a 10 year period and photo lay out is a key factor in the newspaper/magazine business. 

Everything else looks great. Good luck with your website.


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## Shadow2531 (Apr 30, 2001)

I personally don't care for the color scheme (mainly the background), but that's just my opinion. Besides that, I would say it's pretty good.


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## NameTooLong (Dec 26, 2002)

Ads=Bad... Other than that, the colors don't work well together and I agree with GoJoAGoGo about the gallery having too much whitespace.


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## Tarnishedwisdom (Mar 8, 2002)

ok ya'll thanks for the replies...i will definately work on the gallery. as far as the color scheme, what colors would you recomend to make it look better? should I go with a solid color like a HEX code...or with the type of background i have now?


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## Guest (Mar 12, 2003)

Hi tarnished!
I just spent a bit of time at your site
*- well done - *
The colour scheme is a personal thing, but I am not crazy about the orange on purple either ... tiring on the eyes
this is a neat reference page for colour combos http://entries.the5k.org/171/visualizer.html 
I have read some helpful advice on this site ... http://www.webwhirlers.com/colors/

I find the light blue on the contacts page hard to read ... again strain on the eyes

... in your Gallery - what if you added some descriptive text in the 'alternative text' field to describe the pic, so you can toot your horn?

... could you mention, somewhere obvious, where you are located? I found out by skimming to the bottom of the Home page, but would suggest it is at least on your Contact page

Also, I took at peek at your source - you need Meta Tags!

al in all ........ very well done








and *good luck in the biz!*

MDM
(I use NetFirms as well - Great host! ... always there! I am a paid subscriber, but have heard nothing but good on these guys, free or otherwise ... and such a non-intrusive ad  )


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## deuce868 (Nov 2, 2000)

I might suggest having some sort of end at the bottom of the page. On the bottom of the prices page there appears to be some sort of bar, but on the home page I do not get any bottom. 

I would also suggest going darker on the links...that light blue is rather pale for a while background. 

On the gallery I would also think about linking the pics to larger images to get a better look. 

I'll echo the color scheme as a bit difficult, but like already mentioned...it is more a personal thing. What really matters is what clients think. I would make sure you have a method for users to provide website feedback.


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## GoJoAGoGo (Dec 26, 2002)

Perhaps you could enlarge your photos in the gallery to replace the extra white space. But something should be done in the gallery. I like MadDogMugsy idea about putting text under each photo. That would help eliminate the extra white space.


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## suzi (Dec 27, 2002)

I think you did a great job! Only a few comments - I'm not crazy about the orange either, but I like the blue-purple color. The font is a bit small on my 1024 x 768 monitor, that's with the text size set to medium. Then again, it might be the new progressive lenses  The light blue is a bit hard to see also. 

The bottom of the pages stops abruptly, expecially the home page like someone else said. The gallery could use some text, or make the pics larger. Or do clickable thumbnails that enlarge, then you could put more pics on. The Lawn Wranglers is a great name!


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## Tarnishedwisdom (Mar 8, 2002)

thanks for all of the feedback ya'll. i definately have a lot of things to fix. thanks again...your comments were very helpful.


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## Tarnishedwisdom (Mar 8, 2002)

um...my sense of color is not very good. can you take a look one more time and see how these colors look? i only changed the homepage colors...all the other pages have the old colors. is it an improvement? should i keep on trying other colors? ok, hope that's not too much stuff to ask.


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## Shadow2531 (Apr 30, 2001)

I would change the orange text and orange bullets to a different color.

as for the green for your menu up top and on bottom, I wouldn't use a pic and instead just use bgcolor and set the color to gray.

and a tip for others that want to help.



view Tarnishedwisdom's web page in Internet Explorer. save it as a mht file.

Then view the mht file with internet explorer of course.

Then in IE, view source with notepad and save the source as a htm file. Then you will have a fully functional page with absolute links. That way you can tweak the settings yourself to how you think they should be, then present the full modified page to Tarnishedwisdom. Then Tarnishedwisdom can use that example to change the current page if desireable


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## NameTooLong (Dec 26, 2002)

I run my display at 1152x864 and this is how the page shows on my screen...










I don't think that's what you were going for. Also, it did this before you changed the color I just forgot to mention it in my original post.


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## NameTooLong (Dec 26, 2002)

I just viewed your source to see what was causing it and I saw why... your code is a mess. You used a generator didn't you? It is nearly impossible to follow your tables. You need a lot more help than what colors to use, my friend.


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## Shadow2531 (Apr 30, 2001)

NameTooLong is correct unfortunately, but we can all help.

There are some errors in your css file for one and some improper methods are used also.

As for the actual code. Lose the Iframes and just stick to the script and no script part for display the ads, if you must have ads

Also, about 95% of your attrubtes should be defined in css.


Get rid of the tbody tags

use lowercase characters for tags and attributes.

there are a lot more things. I'll set up an example soon.


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## Shadow2531 (Apr 30, 2001)

Major Edit ! (since I messed up)

Here is an Example using the ad banners, to show you how to properly set up things. (If you choose. Not saying your method is wrong)

Here is the CSS file that goes along with it.

and the Script file that goes along with it also.

The reason for the script file is to fix a problem with netscape when javascript is disabled. (Just used for this example)

Since the contents inside a noscript tag have to be encased in a p tag, the images don't line up height wise in netscape when javascript is disabled. So to fix it, I used a script and then noscript for the second pick also. (so they match, and netscape is happy)

remember, this is just an example showing you proper css and XHTML Code.

here is the

css validation of the page.

and here is the XHTML validation of the page.

That should help you a bit.

When I get a chance, I will make another page that shows you how to properly code your page.

I'll leave the example up for a while also.

Also, as you will see in the example, For Netscape and Opera, you have to use css to set auto left and right margins to center tables.

To center tables in IE you have to use css to set up a div class with a text align center and then call the class with the div tags.

Using both methods, tables will be centered in all Legitimate browsers and still conform to specs.

 (There, that should make more sense)


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## NameTooLong (Dec 26, 2002)

I like ripping/rewriting HTML so I was going to rewrite your HTML for you but I got lost in the tables. So I decided to make an example of one of the things you need to fix:

Your code

```
[I]THE[/I]

[I]LAWN[/I]

[I]WRANGLERS[/I]
```
My code

```
T
HE
L
AWN
W
RANGLERS
```
You can leave it like this or stick it in the CSS. I also noticed that some of your hex code has 8 characters... it only needs 6, take it easy on the key taps there.

You should check out W3Schools


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## NameTooLong (Dec 26, 2002)

What the... I posted and I specifically looked at shadow's post. It was my post, his post, then my post. Then I get an e-mail saying someone replied and I was still in the thread so I hit refresh and what does it do, it pushes my post down and inserts his. It says he posted earlier though I had already been in there editing my post that got pushed down and I kept double checking the posts. Wierd stuff.

YAY - MY ONE HUNDREDTH POST


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## Shadow2531 (Apr 30, 2001)

lol same thing happened to me  only vice versa.


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## Tarnishedwisdom (Mar 8, 2002)

wow...i came back to the forums and there were a bunch of replies! first of all, i don't quite understand what you were saying about the ad banner thing shadow...as far as i know, i don't have any control over how it appears...it is put on automatically. as for the neatness...no, i did not use a generator...thus the bad code. i know how i want the page to look in my head and on paper, but when i get it to look the same on the comp, i use whatever means necesary; whether it be proper or not. i tried to show an example of how i keep my table tags in order, but it didnt work, so i will have to describe it by just typing. if you look at my code, every new table tag is on the same column as the preceeding td tag. so for ex: i have a table tag, then i hit enter, then i hit tab and put a tr tag, then enter again, tab twice and put a td tag, then enter, indent twice, and then the /td tag, then enter, tab once and put the /tr tag, then enter and put the /table tag. if i have a table within a table, i do the same thing, only everything is moved over by two tabs (to align the preceeding td tag with the new table tag). wow, that sounds confusing, but that's how i do it. is this what ya'll are saying is messy code? can you give me an example table-within a-table code, and i can see how you are "supposed" to do it? thanks again for all of your help...it's been very helpful.


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## NameTooLong (Dec 26, 2002)

On my contact page I have tables within tables and I do about the same thing but with spaces... comes out much cleaner.


```
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC '-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN' 'http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/strict.dtd'>

    DRIVEL: Contact

    [TABLE]

      [TR]
        [TD]
          [TABLE]
            [TR]
              [TD]
                Nick:
              [/TD]
            [/TR]
          [/TABLE]
        [/TD]
        [TD]
          eternalDRIVEL
        [/TD]
        [TD]
          [IMG alt="Contact Info"]images\title\title_contactinfo.gif[/IMG]
        [/TD]
      [/TR]

      [TR]
        [TD]
          [TABLE]
            [TR]
              [TD]
                Sex:
              [/TD]
            [/TR]
          [/TABLE]
        [/TD]
        [TD]
          Male
        [/TD]
      [/TR]

      [TR]
        [TD]
          [TABLE]
            [TR]
              [TD]
                D.O.B.:
              [/TD]
            [/TR]
          [/TABLE]
        [/TD]
        [TD]
          September 27, 1985
        [/TD]
      [/TR]

      [TR]
        [TD]
          [TABLE]
            [TR]
              [TD]
                Title:
              [/TD]
            [/TR]
          [/TABLE]
        [/TD]
        [TD]
          Webmaster/Founder of drivel.cjb.net
        [/TD]
      [/TR]

      [TR]
        [TD]
          [TABLE]
            [TR]
              [TD]
                E-mail:
              [/TD]
            [/TR]
          [/TABLE]
        [/TD]
        [TD]
          [[email protected]][email protected][/EMAIL]
        [/TD]
      [/TR]

      [TR]
        [TD]
          [TABLE]
            [TR]
              [TD]
                State:
              [/TD]
            [/TR]
          [/TABLE]
        [/TD]
        [TD]
          California
        [/TD]
      [/TR]

      [TR]
        [TD]
          [TABLE]
            [TR]
              [TD]
                Country:
              [/TD]
            [/TR]
          [/TABLE]
        [/TD]
        [TD]
          USA
        [/TD]
      [/TR]

    [/TABLE]

    [TABLE]
      [TR]
        [TD]
          All content/layout Copyright © 2003 eternalDRIVEL.
          Site created March/06/2003, online since MM/DD/YY.
        [/TD]
      [/TR]
    [/TABLE]
```


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## NameTooLong (Dec 26, 2002)

I use Araneae to write HTML. It's small like notepad but it uses color coded tags which makes things easier. Their official site is down and I couldn't find a mirror so I uploaded it to my server. It's freeware and has no spyware.

My Link - If my server blocks the direct download I'll make a page with a link. Here is the official site link in case they come back online.

EDIT: My server blocked it so go to this link instead.


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## Shadow2531 (Apr 30, 2001)

lol. sorry about the ad mix up part. That's what happens when you are doing a million things at once. That totally didn't dawn on me at the time about the ad deal. Even if you have no control over the ad part, I will leave the example, so you can use it as a reference, for how to do things properly.

Again sorry about that. ( I edited that post to make sense )

Now on to the messy code part.

I myself thought the code was messy because it wasn't proper standard-wise (in my opinion).

However I believe NameTooLong meant that the code was messy because the code wasn't beautified so to speak. That doesn't bother me personally, but it would be a good idea to take NameTooLong's suggestion. Just to keep things neat. (easier to edit, and easier for others to help you)

We'll still get you going.

I myself use html kit, if I want to beautify my tags. Otherwise, I just use Rogsoft Notepad Plus.

A Table inside a table is easy. Just make 2 separate tables, then cut the entire table code of one and paste it in between the desired td open and close tags of the other. Baically, you just put the table in a cell.


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## NameTooLong (Dec 26, 2002)

Actually I meant it both ways. The layout of the code is important for other people to help you and also when you go back to edit it. Also there are things that should be/can be added to the stylesheet so that he doesn't have to type/keep track of so much on all the pages. Some of the cells have their widths set larger than the table is. He used center tags inside of cells which could be done with the align attribute in the cells itself. Many different things.


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## Shadow2531 (Apr 30, 2001)

Understood.


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## Tarnishedwisdom (Mar 8, 2002)

hi ya'll. great news!! i actually got some business. i passed out flyers and knocked on doors and got several customers (about as many as i can handle right now)...and they want us to come back. one lady said she didnt want it mowed but then she went to the website and saw how cheap it was...and called us back. so already, the site has proven to be very helpful. thanks for all of your help


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## Shadow2531 (Apr 30, 2001)

Congratulations. That's great.

I had a little time to work on the properly coded example of your page.

That example, uses old school css. (style attributes) and is just partly finished at this time. When finished, the page will look virtually the same as yours, but it will be properly coded (and beautified) and function properly in all browsers, resolutions etc.

Then I'll put up another example using REAL css.

Just check the example, now and then, to see if it is updated. View the source to see how I am doing things.

I'll post any significant updates.

Note: This is not to pressure you into reworking your page. I am just providing a proper way to code your page and it is up to you if you want to use it. I just consider it practice!

No need to worry, your page displays good enough not to restrict your business!


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## GoJoAGoGo (Dec 26, 2002)

Hi Tarnishedwisdom:

I'm glad to hear your business is developing. I hope it continues to increase. 

Good Luck....


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## GoJoAGoGo (Dec 26, 2002)

Hi Tarnishedwisdom:

Hope your business is still picking up. Sorry to see that you haven't finished your website yet.


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