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Author Topic: Anyone care to give some feedback...  (Read 915 times)
absolutezero3424
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« on: March 15, 2006, 06:55:19 AM »

check out my website at:
www.apostolicsoftaylor.com

and look at the 2 pages under "Contact Us", namely "E-mail Addresses" and
"Addresses, Phone, and Fax" and tell me what you think about the load time.
I used a combination of DW & FW with Javascript rollovers and it seems like I could get it to load faster somehow, it just seems like the images are not "preloading" and I specifically checked the "preload images" box....

When I rollover the images, especially on the E-mail page, it seems like it processes the image loading then as opposed to preloading them like I requested....any ideas? 
Other feedback is welcomed also!  I'm a beginner, tell me what you think....this is the first site I've ever done.
thanks guys!
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« Reply #1 on: March 15, 2006, 08:28:22 AM »

check out my website at:
www.apostolicsoftaylor.com

and look at the 2 pages under "Contact Us", namely "E-mail Addresses" and
"Addresses, Phone, and Fax" and tell me what you think about the load time.
I used a combination of DW & FW with Javascript rollovers and it seems like I could get it to load faster somehow, it just seems like the images are not "preloading" and I specifically checked the "preload images" box....

When I rollover the images, especially on the E-mail page, it seems like it processes the image loading then as opposed to preloading them like I requested....any ideas?
Other feedback is welcomed also! I'm a beginner, tell me what you think....this is the first site I've ever done.
thanks guys!

First, I have to say that is a great looking site.  Thumbs Up You've done yourself proud there absolutezero3424.

Second, I checked it in both IE and FF and all pages and links seemed to load just fine for me. No hesitation or anything. Preloads worked correctly too.  Cool
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AKdan
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« Reply #2 on: March 15, 2006, 11:47:02 AM »

I have to second that, the site looks great!
I also had no hesitation loading on any pages of your site.

Dan
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absolutezero3424
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« Reply #3 on: March 15, 2006, 02:37:03 PM »

I really appreciate your comments, one day I would like to get into web design at a professional level....that site is a volunteer project for my church.  It helps me get invaluable experience also.  I have my degree in Computer Science but I would love to make the jump out of Software Engineering into Web Design, but the field seems so saturated...am I wrong in thinking this?

anyway, sorry to get off topic, but thanks again for your comments and for anyone else looking in, I still welcome your comments/critiques for:
www.apostolicsoftaylor.com

btw, this is still largely a work in progress, that's what the next couple of weeks of my time will be going toward!
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4thDDev
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« Reply #4 on: March 15, 2006, 03:13:20 PM »

The site looks great and I also have no problems with the preloads.  To speed load times my suggestion on the e-mail page is to use CSS instead of the image roll-overs.  Using CSS you can specify the ocean image as a background and use simple HTML text and links on top of the image.  Then you're only loading a single background image instead of a roll-over image plus a background image.

An example would be to place this code between your header tags:

/*Create 200pixel X 300px box with a background image and a
white border 1px wide. */
#emailArea
{
background #ffffff url(images/background.gif) no-repeat;
width: 200px;
height: 300px;
border 1px solid #ffffff
}

Within the main cell for the <table> tag place"

<div id="emailArea">
Sue Dunlap <a href="mailto:sdunlap@apostolicsoftaylor.com">sdunlap@apostolicsoftaylor.com</a><br/>
etc....
</div>

The size is the size of the image you want to display.  If you leave out the height the box will size itself to the content within.

I know this may seem to be a bit of a bother right now but you'll love CSS once you get the hang of it.  Dreamweaver provides some great CSS tools and you can search for CSS tutorials with Dreamweaver in the Developer Center at www.macromedia.com.  Use Dreamweaver's built in CSS code reference for clues on what each tag does.

I hope this helps!
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4th Dimension Development
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absolutezero3424
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« Reply #5 on: March 16, 2006, 06:12:45 AM »

again, I appreciate your comments!  I've worked only very little with CSS in the past and I'm just wondering, are there any DESIGN capabilities that CSS offers that Javascript events cannot provide or are not already built into DW HTML capability?
I know alot of people are ga-ga over CSS and I'm wondering if the only reason for that is because it offers you design creativity while still preserving straight HTML for faster load times? 

Specifically, are there design features that I can't accomplish w/o CSS, or is it all about speed/load-time?
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4thDDev
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« Reply #6 on: March 16, 2006, 08:41:15 AM »

There are many benefits and advantages to using CSS over straight HTML, images, or JavaScript.  You're right that many design characteristics of CSS can be duplicated in JavaScript.  The major weakness of JavaScript is that it is easily broken, doesn't fit with web accessibility standards, and tends to create cluttered code when used as a design tool.  Some other CSS advantages are:

1.) Many HTML style specific tags like <font> are deprecated and so run the risk of being unsupported by browsers in the future.

2.)  CSS makes your HTML much more accessible to people with vision impairment.  Remember, the audible readers for the blind read your code and not how a human sees the page.  This means that JavaScript, VBScript, and images are unreadable.

3.)  Audible readers aren't the only tools that read your code.  Search engine spiders also read your code.  Scripts and images are useless for SEO.  With images you can use alt tags but being able to use a header tag is much more effective for page rank.

4.) Many effects that were only achievable through images can now be achieved with CSS, even rollovers.  This can open up your headers and navigation to the search engines.

5) You will have cross-browser issues with CSS, however they are minor compared to JavaScript browser issues.  I love JavaScript and use the language when needed, but I will always use CSS instead if I can.  Cross-browser adoption for CSS is much closer and getting better all the time.

6) JavaScript is easily turned off and many people mistakenly turn it off for security and privacy reasons.  CSS is rarely turned off so your design is less likely to fall apart.

7) Even if your CSS doesn't load you can make your page readable without it.  This is only possible in JavaScript if you double your work and code noscript areas.

Gleam I can't stress enough how much easier it is to edit CSS generated designs over JavaScript

9) If you use a linked-in stylesheet file, any images you use for backgrounds get cached once for the site. The images don't get loaded for each page as they do in standard HTML.  For example, if you have a 50K background image on every page of a 6 page site, with CSS the total download for the site is 50K, with HTML it's 300K! Plus in a year if you get sick of your image/font/etc. you can make a change in one file instead of 6.

For more advantages of the XHTML/CSS combo: http://www.khmerang.com/index.php?p=106

Most importantly it will make your life easier to use CSS in the long run.  Cleaner code is easier to maintain down the road and is less likely to have bugs.  I wish CSS was around when I started out, I would have fewer grey hairs now.  Confused Depending on the version of DW you're using it can be easier to implement a CSS layout. 

I hope this is helpful.  If you do a search or look under my other postings you'll find links to useful CSS/design sites.
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4th Dimension Development
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RAT
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« Reply #7 on: March 16, 2006, 09:59:16 AM »

Nice work, I like it. CSS rules, and yes saturated is the word, everyone and their brother is in the biz of webdesign.

Hope this answers your questions !!  Thanks for sharing !

RAT
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charlig69
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« Reply #8 on: January 11, 2007, 07:33:37 AM »

Yeah it is a nice website. I just have one suggestion and thats only my own personal opinion. The site is a lil bit too dark. Keep browsing and u will only c dark colors. And the entire website is like that. I just think that some brightness like some backgrounds and the dhtml pop-menu might look better of ur site is not too dark.

But again it is just me. And since ur site deals with Religious beliefs, I thikn the dark colors might not the best for ur site. I used Firefox and IE to check if the colors might vary from browser to browser and they do, but not too much.


 Friend It is just my opinion
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