Boston Hope

[Jpec07]

Alright, I was just paid $50 to make this site for my old pastor, and basically it's all done. What do you guys think?
Boston Hope

 

[skip0110]

👍 Lookin' good. Might want to make the background for the text a little more whiteish though. (To ease reading.)

 

[Matrixhasu77]

Well for one, I'd move your CSS from each individual page to a separate CSS file and use an external stylesheet along with simplifying the CSS a little.

Why on earth do you have everything in a table? That's a hideous way of aligning things and also bad page design, IMO. It really could all be done through CSS.

The menu at the top and the left seem to contain many of the same links. You might want to change that.

It does look nice, I'll give you that. But the code needs some work.

My 2 Cents...

 

[Jpec07]

Well for one, I'd move your CSS from each individual page to a separate CSS file and use an external stylesheet along with simplifying the CSS a little.

Why on earth do you have everything in a table? That's a hideous way of aligning things and also bad page design, IMO. It really could all be done through CSS.

The menu at the top and the left seem to contain many of the same links. You might want to change that.

It does look nice, I'll give you that. But the code needs some work.

My 2 Cents...

It doesn't seem to me like CSS is all that popular in web design these days. Granted this is coming from a person whose only knowledge of CSS is the formatting of the page at the beginning. I get what you're saying about moving it to its individual file. I have no idea why I didn't do that, and will probably get around to correcting it sometime tomorrow. Only one link is duplicated between the top and the left if memory serves me correctly. As for the tables; this site you're currently reading this on uses tables. Their use in the creation of webpages is very practical (although CSS may be easier once learned, it seems to me that most pages on the net, and all of the successful ones I go to that aren't flash-based, use tables for their layouts). There are some redundant tables in the coding, I'll say that much, but I'm too lazy to go in and take them out. Thanks for the $.02.

Also, how's the load time for everyone?

 

[Matrixhasu77]

It doesn't seem to me like CSS is all that popular in web design these days. Granted this is coming from a person whose only knowledge of CSS is the formatting of the page at the beginning. I get what you're saying about moving it to its individual file. I have no idea why I didn't do that, and will probably get around to correcting it sometime tomorrow. Only one link is duplicated between the top and the left if memory serves me correctly. As for the tables; this site you're currently reading this on uses tables. Their use in the creation of webpages is very practical (although CSS may be easier once learned, it seems to me that most pages on the net, and all of the successful ones I go to that aren't flash-based, use tables for their layouts). There are some redundant tables in the coding, I'll say that much, but I'm too lazy to go in and take them out. Thanks for the $.02.

Also, how's the load time for everyone?

I wasn't trying to say it's completely bad. I was just saying it needs a little work, that's all. I looked at it from an XHTML langauge standpoint and not HTML 4.0 which you are using for your DTD.

Granted, CSS is a powerful language and it has more uses than just changing a few fonts(even I don't know of all of its uses since Sage is the one who got me interested in it only about a year ago).

Personally, I can't stand tables for page layout because it creates massive amounts of code and headaches if one tiny little cell or row is wrong. That's why I avoid using them unless I feel my design calls for it. It's all a matter of preference.

As for the load time... it loads very fast.

 

[Shannon]

It doesn't seem to me like CSS is all that popular in web design these days. Granted this is coming from a person whose only knowledge of CSS is the formatting of the page at the beginning. I get what you're saying about moving it to its individual file. I have no idea why I didn't do that, and will probably get around to correcting it sometime tomorrow. Only one link is duplicated between the top and the left if memory serves me correctly. As for the tables; this site you're currently reading this on uses tables. Their use in the creation of webpages is very practical (although CSS may be easier once learned, it seems to me that most pages on the net, and all of the successful ones I go to that aren't flash-based, use tables for their layouts). There are some redundant tables in the coding, I'll say that much, but I'm too lazy to go in and take them out. Thanks for the $.02.

Also, how's the load time for everyone?

Not popular?! Not popular?! Not popular?! CSS layouts are everywhere. In fact, any decent web design company will most likely be using web standard (CSS) layouts on their website.

Tables are for tabular data and tabular data only. Graphs, spreadsheets, etc. Not for layouts. That's what CSS and div layers were invented for. Why not to use table layouts:

• The formatting in each cell has to be reloaded each time the page is rendered. So, the end user has to wait for the browser to apply your bold, 12pt Tahoma #00000 text each time the page is loaded.
• Screen readers die in the arse with table layouts. Using table layouts makes your website instantly inaccessible (I remember reading something about making it a law to cater for disabled people using screen readers too).
• They double your text:code ratio, meaning you have more junk source code than actual content, thus further increasing page render time.
• Tables can "break" in some older browsers and kill your layout completely. Although, this is probably more of a problem with CSS. Honestly though, the chances of getting a Netscape 4x user hitting your site are?
• If you want to increase the width of your table, you have to go through countless pages editing the table whereas with CSS layouts, a simple edit in the CSS will fix it across all pages.

 

[Pupik]

Actually it's not bad....I'm in the midst of a website that uses both an external stylesheet (a must for tweaking your site or making easy style changes later), and uses tables.

I use tables for layout becuase I'm a lousy (but my no means sloppy nor lazy)programmer. HTML is the only programming language a human can interpret easily, that's why it works for me. Tables are imperfect, but then again, web design is not an exact science, since everyone's using something different to view the page you're making.

I'm trying to use the Blue Robot-style to completely do away with tables from my site, but I'm having a hard time changing easily between two and three columns. Also, I like the fact I've completely designed all my other sites, so stealing of source code is a little unusal for me.

Also, never, never, nerver make a page that's going to have "coming soon" or "under construction" on it. Even though I understand it's still in development, someone did pay you to have content on the page. Even if it's just one page, content is king, and the lack of it shows a bit of unprofessionalism. When I get more than one page that says "under construction, come back later" on a site/domain, I avoid returning, and look elsewhere. Under construction means the webmaster basically gave up on thier site.

Anyways, I'm not a nit-picker for picture-perfect design, since perfection doesn't exist. So I think it looks good overall. Nice work, Jpec!

 

[Jpec07]

Not popular?! Not popular?! Not popular?! CSS layouts are everywhere. In fact, any decent web design company will most likely be using web standard (CSS) layouts on their website.

Meh, I have yet to see one. Would you point one out for me?

Tables are for tabular data and tabular data only. Graphs, spreadsheets, etc. Not for layouts. That's what CSS and div layers were invented for. Why not to use table layouts:

But CSS and div layers seem so old fashioned (and they're a headache; when I started learning web developement I tried going through div layers and wound up not coming back to web programing for a month). I think I'll stick with the more common (I mean, just as long as it looks good, right?).

[*]The formatting in each cell has to be reloaded each time the page is rendered. So, the end user has to wait for the browser to apply your bold, 12pt Tahoma #00000 text each time the page is loaded.

That's why I've made the background images and everything very straightforward and small; to bring loadtime to a bare minimum.

[*]Screen readers die in the arse with table layouts. Using table layouts makes your website instantly inaccessible (I remember reading something about making it a law to cater for disabled people using screen readers too).

Ok, and how many blind people do you know personally who browse the internet on a daily basis?

[*]They double your text:code ratio, meaning you have more junk source code than actual content, thus further increasing page render time.

Well, if you keep the coding straightforward and cut redundancy to a bare minimum then you're set (most people nowadays have a computer with at least a P2 Processor of 700Mhz or greater (which is what my dad has), and the render time is just fine over there.

[*]Tables can "break" in some older browsers and kill your layout completely. Although, this is probably more of a problem with CSS. Honestly though, the chances of getting a Netscape 4x user hitting your site are?

You said my arguement for me. How many older browsers are there out there?

[*]If you want to increase the width of your table, you have to go through countless pages editing the table whereas with CSS layouts, a simple edit in the CSS will fix it across all pages.

This is where PHP comes in. Set the table widths all to inter-dependant variables, that way you can go into the master PHP file and change one variable in order to modify the site's size.

Personally I'm still learning PHP. I just got a book on the stuff and am currently drowning my brain in it. I would love it if I could instantly use the information I'm picking up, but it takes time.

I also see what you're saying about the "coming soon" page, pupik. What's funny about that is that the guy who's paying me actually asked me to put those pages up until he gets an email address to send to (still paid me too).

(and just to throw stuff in: all the sites I've made use original code; only one page has had the code done for me, and even that I adapted).