So I just redesigned my site (How does it look?) http://prime.programming-designs.com/ and I need people to link to, any recommendations? Or anyone just want their site linked to?
Sure, but what are you expecting in return?
Maybe. Not for mine but for another I’m currently building. It would depend on how many visitors do you currently get on your site.
- favicon missing
- doc is gzipped, css isn’t (why?)
- main.png is usless, just use white
- remove those two buttons at the bottom - they aren’t worth 2 DNS lookups
I really second this one. You should use CSS for building such simple backgrounds and borders. It’s also an ideological issue because your applying an image across the whole page to visually divide up the content, rather then using the contents structure + styling to do this.
I’d also advise adding a few pixels of a margin to the bottom as the text is flush with the bottom of the window for me in Chrome. You should also move the two validation icons at the bottom so they are next to each other (maybe on the right or at the bottom of your sidebar?). With the way they are currently they don’t seem like they have been laid out properly.
Although personally I think the logos look a bit cheap and I’d ask if it’s really that important to state your site validates. What do I gain by knowing this?
However I don’t think it’s such an issue linking to the images directly (as long as your allowed to). Otherwise just host the images yourself.
Umm, maybe a link back?
How do I unzip my doc?
[quote]- main.png is usless, just use white
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No it’s not. you ever hear of a faux column? http://www.alistapart.com/articles/fauxcolumns/ (PS, the left is a slightly darker white than the right)
[quote]- remove those two buttons at the bottom - they aren’t worth 2 DNS lookups
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I disagree. They show that I know enough to validate my html and css.
can you take a screenshot?
Well it’s also a portfolio site for my work, so it shows that I can do my work properly.
How do I unzip my doc?
Eh what? You should gzip your CSS, too.
faux column[s]
I know what they are. Didn’t notice that blue line there.
They show that I know enough to validate my html and css.
If a user wants to validate your site they can use their regular shortcuts or menu entries. If they don’t have these things, they aren’t interested in this stuff and therefore don’t care.
[quote]If a user wants to validate your site they can use their regular shortcuts or menu entries. If they don’t have these things, they aren’t interested in this stuff and therefore don’t care.
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I also agree with this. A user doesn’t care about its code, only if it works.
The theme itself might be a little to light for my taste but it isn’t bad.
I might be weird with this, but I like to have those buttons just to show that I have got my stuff as it’s supposed to. :persecutioncomplex:
Even if people don’t care… 
As far as the validation buttons go, I’m not a big fan, not necessarily anti… but what looks really bad is when they appear on invalid pages. This is not all that rare! I imagine everyone intends to be conscientious and keep validating any changes they make… just beware.
I also agree about the bottom margin on Chrome. You asked for a screenshot; don’t you see this too? Just removing the line “margin-bottom: -10px” is an adequate improvement I think. In fact, I’d be inclined to do the same for the top too. The default Chrome stylesheet 8px margin on body looks ok to me.
As for that faux column stuff; pfft, just use tables 
Seriously, though; looks pretty clean. Good luck with it.
NOOOOOOOOO! Use divs!
table are good
div are great for many cases but table are just the best when needing “table like” presentation
you can look at that code too
Heathen!
I was only partly joking to begin with. I think many of people’s objections to tables are because they’re caught up in all the orthodox religious fervor, rather than any actually thinking through what matters. For example, separating content and presentation is indeed a good thing… but with a dynamic site the html markup generation is generally separate from the content authoring anyway, so it seems a rather moot point.
I won’t say CyanPrime should have used tables, but I bet he’d have had less hassle if he did, without needing funny spacer images, or implicit constraints between the width of #sidebar and the left margin of #content… CSS is intensely irritating in many ways, while tables would indeed have expressed the same thing in a way that was clearer to anyone reading the code, easier to edit, etc.
Not really a criticism of CyanPrime; you’re following ‘best practices’ apparently.
@Topic… maybe if I get my site in a slightly less neglected state then I’ll want people to link to it
The main problem with tables is that if you redesign the site then you generally have to throw away all the code and start again from the ground up. Where as with divs it is possible (on a well marked up site) to simply make CSS changes.
Another problem is that any modern site will componetise the bits on a page into seperate HTML pages. This allows you to re-use those components easily on different sections of your site. If those components use a table, then they will always have a table layout. If they use divs then the same HTML code can have different layouts on different pages solely through CSS. Also there are times that you want the outside of a table (the table tag itself) in one html file and it’s contents (the tr’s and td’s) in another. This makes far more sense if it’s just all divs.
Whilst coding it also makes your page more fluid, giving you more to work with whilst experimenting with different ideas.
I used to believe ‘just use tables’ as it’s easier, but after having worked on sites that get more then a handful of users I’ve been bitten many times by the issues with tables. Divs can feel a bit quirky and awkward to work with at first (like Swing layout managers), but in time you get used to it and they can end up being much faster then using tables.
first, yes table are not always the best choice for all cases (but they can be)
[quote]The main problem with tables is that if you redesign the site then you generally have to throw away all the code and start again from the ground up. Where as with divs it is possible (on a well marked up site) to simply make CSS changes.
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but sometime making a new CSS is harder then making a new HTML, is there a big difference in throwing the HTML and start again against throwing the CSS and start again, redesigneing CSS can be as hard then redoing HTML. also CSS cannot handle everything so if you redesgin your site you will probaly have to redesign your whole CSS too and also a bit of JS too ( and PHP/JSP or other script) .
this is a probleme that appear in different area of computing, people always want a method being able to handle everything (cf: 3d file format, video file format, etc… pfff…), but that’s not possible.
anyway I use extensive CSS and like to use them, but they are definitly IMO not always the best solution
I suppose it depends on what you mean by ‘redesign’. If it’s changing how the site works structurally, then I entirely agree. But if it’s just visual changes; slightly changing the layout and adding some polish, then I’d still argue divs make this easier then tables. It is naive to think that you will need no HTML changes as that’s just pretty rare. Even on minor alterations you often need to change the hierarchy of nodes (like moving a child div to become a sibling) and alting classes/id’s (or mostly adding them). But this is still more trivial then throwing away a table and re-doing it.
Also on JS heavy sites altering CSS is much safer then atlering the HTML.
It doesn’t solve all problems, but IMHO if you can do it via CSS then you should always use the CSS option.