Website critique

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I've just finished (very quickly) a website for my wife. Could you check it out and let me know what you think, good points, bad points, possible improvements.......anything.

One problem I seem to be having is with the visitor counter. It turns over every time I click on a link to a new page. I would appreciate any advice as to how I can fix this (although it does look good).


www.artbyfranziska.com

 

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Looks good Nugg. One thing that occours to me is when you click on an image where there is more than one you could have navigation to the next image of that product rather than having to close that window and click on the next images link,

 

Looking good Nugget, a few things that I noticed.

To solve the hit counter problem, simple get rid of the hit counter.

You have no meta data for keywords or description.

On the earing page there is a thin white line above the left_corner.png image that isn't on the other pages.

There is no contact info for if I was interested in any of the items.

How about the product images opening in a window that has no tool bars and that is a fixed size with as Phil pointed out a next and previous link. If you need any help with removing the tool bars etc just ask.

Finally are you hoping to get the site indexed and cataloged in search engines? If so you need more text content on your pages.

Hope I've not been too much of a critique, Si

 

Thanks Phil, thanks Si.

I did this basically in 2 days really quickly after trying for some time to sort out some problems. It's not quite finished yet (is it ever) but I know I have a lot more to do.

The reason I used a counter is I wanted a quick and easy way to see the hits. Maybe one reason it works like it does is that I have it on every page. I'll try removing it from all but one, although the hit count does look good (I might need a bigger counter).

The metadata is on the to do list.

I know I had a problem with this but it was confined to IE. I thought I had solved this overall as I tested on Firefox and IE (at home) and it was gone and now Mozilla at work and I still don't see it, but I'll check it out. Thanks.

The contact info is on the to do list too as well as some descriptions of the products.

I would really like the images to open in a small window w/o the bs surrounding them but I don't quite know how to do this (yet) and being able to go from one image to the next would also be nice. Help would be very appreciated.

As with indexing and cataloguing, I think that will take care of itself as this progresses.

No way Si, it's just what I asked for, thanks.

Other things to do are to learn a bit of CSS so I can apply some styles and not leave it set at the default font setting. This seems to throw things off a bit. A couple of new sections sets, events (upcoming and past), workshop or tutorials, maybe a newsletter, feedback form etc. Maybe also using text based links for the menu instead of graphics. Also the whole thing translated into German.

Thanks again

 

For the images to open in a window with no tool bars use this for the link:

HTML:

<a href="imagename.jpg" onclick="window.open('imagename.jpg','newWindow','menubar=no,toolbar=no,status=no,location=no,width=400,height=300');return false">Your Link Name</a>

This is a standard way of doing it there are better but more complicated ways of doing this. As it links straight to the image and you will notice the title bar is the name of the image. If you use this method but link to a HTML page with the image in it then you can add a page title and also the next and previous links.

Obviously you can change the size of the window by editing the width and height in the above code.

HTH, Si

 

Thanks Si.

I've fixed the problem with the white line as well as taken out the counter links on the other pages. Seems to have worked and slowed down the hit count but it still turns over when you go to the home page though.

 

What do you want the hit counter for? I'm not a fan of hit counters (can you tell?)

 

I just wanted a shortcut way of telling if anyone has visited instead of having to log in the long way and look at the statistics.

 

That was my next question, if you had stats with your webspace or not.

There are ways to get the number of unique hits to your webpages but the only ones I've seen so far are using PHP or perl pages.

 

Well.....the most easiest way to know whether u r getting ne genuine hits or not is to look at how much bizness u r getting. Unless offcourse u have other ways of advertising ur products, 1 of which is word-of-mouth publicity.
Secondly u'll need hitcounters only if u want to show it to ppl so that u can boast of those many number of clicks or views for their advertisements which will generate some revenue for u in return. For that the best way is to use Google Adsense. It'll look after its own ads and pay u when users click the links provided by them on ur page.
Another thing that i wanted to suggest was to use Macromedia Dreamweaver as its quite easy to use. Secondly u can design your whole site in flash.
goto www.oxyura.com, designed it in 18hrs flat. all at once with some short breaks in between to refresh the mind.

 

Thanks Bull, but I would like to stay away from google ads if I can. I also use Dreamweaver but not Flash, but as with anything there is a learning curve. It's a nice site that you pointed to but I would hate to see it over a dial-up connection.

 

Si, thanks for the code but I can't get it to work right.

When I click on the image/thumbnail I get the properties for the image etc. I then insert the code into the Target box (previously _Blank). The result is that the thumbnail has no link but the link is inserted above the image with the following:

Your Link Name">

I realise that I put a name here like Pic 1 etc but I wanted to get it working first. I also insert the path for the link here: <a href="imagename.jpg" but no matter what I change it still comes up with the above text/link.

BTW, when I click on the link it works as advertised.

 

I'm not sure what your doing here, is this in dreamweaver?

Maybe I was unclear of what to actuality do with the code. The above code is the whole link in HTML, you will need to replace the code in the HTML view.

EG,

this is the current code for the first image in the armbands page:

HTML:

<td height="52"><div align="center"><a href="armbands/CIMG0787.JPG" target="_blank"><img src="armbands/tn_CIMG0787.JPG" width="100" height="75" border="0"></a></div></td>

change it as follows:

HTML:

<td height="52"><div align="center"><a href="armbands/CIMG0787.JPG" onclick="window.open('imagename.jpg','newWindow','menubar=no,toolbar=  no,status=no,location=no,width=400,height=300');return false"><img src="armbands/tn_CIMG0787.JPG" width="100" height="75" border="0"></a></div></td>

Basically you are replacing the target="_blank"

with

onclick="window.open('imagename.jpg','newWindow','menubar=no,toolbar= no,status=no,location=no,width=400,height=300');return false"

so you may be able to do that the way you were previously rather than edit the HTML, just remember to change the imagename .

 

Thanks Si, it worked a treat.

Yes I am using Dreamweaver.



I was inserting the code here in the Target input box. When you wrote that I was replacing target= it all clicked. What I had been doing was inserting the code into target=.

You ripper. Thanks mate.

Ice Cold VB coming your way *toss*

 

*catch* psssh *burp*

Glad I could help in some way.

 

Now onto the next thing. Is there any easy way to do as Phil suggested and have the images open in a minimised window with a next and previous link, or would this entail making a new page for every picture?

Thanks again for the help.

 

well really, even without using something clever like PHP, you would just to the page once, and go and change the image link and next/previous links, re save, and change again, so your only looking at editing a few lines once you have done the initial template

 

That's what I thought I'd do Phoenix, but the thought of doing 100+ links individually doesn't really appeal to me.

OTOH, if it's the only way ..............

 

well it could be done far easier with php or perl, but im not sure how much of that you know
or if your server supports either

 

well, i agree with phoenix. its very simple if u do it using php or perl provided that u've little knowledge of php or perl or both n that ur server supports it.
or else theres another way of doing it, just design a single page n try 2 hide/unhide the images after 1 clicks on the next n previous buttons. it shud b even more simple if u r using dreamweaver as u can use its ready code along with layers unless u don't know the concept of layers.