First Site - Advice and Help (Dreamweaver)

[Demosthenes X]

Hi folks,

I've been working on a website for a film I'm producing this summer. It hasn't gone live yet, and before it does I want to get it looking just right. I'm not experienced in web design, and I've been slogging through Dreamweaver and CSS to build this thing. I'm fairly happy with it, but I'm sure my opinion is biased and I'm looking for more objective advice.

The site can be found here.

There are a couple things I know I need to change before it goes live, such as optimizing some of the graphics for the web. Most are in .png right now because then I can edit them in FireWorks and see the results in DW right away - really nice. But for the final version I'll export and compress them so things load more quickly.

I have not been able to figure out why my image links seem to "jump" when I click them. It doesn't happen on the index page, so I'm thinking it must be in the CSS of the template page somewhere, but I'm lost.

As to hosting - I was considering www.nearlyfreespeech.net. Anyone have any experience with them or suggestions for cheap hosting?

Otherwise, thoughts/comments/critiques?

 

[åidån]

Not bad. Just my personal opinion, you should add some more padding-top to the main text container, the text just seems to high in that div. Total semantics though, and personal opinion.

 

[MacDawg]

First glance... your main text is bleeding over into your navigation bar in all of your selections

Safari 4

Woof, Woof - Dawg

 

[åidån]

First glance... your main text is bleeding over into your navigation bar in all of your selections

Safari 4



Woof, Woof - Dawg

Ah the joy of web development. I don't get the overflow, Safari 4

 

[MacDawg]

Ah the joy of web development. I don't get the overflow, Safari 4

Ha, Ha... that's why I took the screen shot, in case there was a question
Strange and unexpected things can happen

I get the same thing in Firefox 3.0.10

Woof, Woof - Dawg

 

[åidån]

Sooo stupid.

Safari 4

Firefox 3.5b4

 

[splashnader]

Are you using a external style sheet css that you are linking every html page to or are you using internal style sheet above the closing head tag of every single page. If you are using the later option I might suggest using an external style sheet and making sure all of your style markups, like

body {
}

h1 {
}

p1 {
}

(adding class to your sidebars main content, etc)
.sidebar {
}

etc all have the proper padding, margin, position, etc. After you fix one page (or your external styles page), all the rest of your pages should follow suit perfectly.

Sorry if you have already done this.

 

[Demosthenes X]

Not bad. Just my personal opinion, you should add some more padding-top to the main text container, the text just seems to high in that div. Total semantics though, and personal opinion.

Thanks. I'll play with the padding and see what I get. I do agree that it needs something - I can't put my finger on it exactly, but the text seems a little unpleasant for some reason - maybe that'll fix it up.

Ha, Ha... that's why I took the screen shot, in case there was a question
Strange and unexpected things can happen

I get the same thing in Firefox 3.0.10

Woof, Woof - Dawg

I tested in Safari 4 and FireFox and didn't get that. Bizarre...

Are you using a external style sheet css that you are linking every html page to or are you using internal style sheet above the closing head tag of every single page. If you are using the later option I might suggest using an external style sheet and making sure all of your style markups, like

body {
}

h1 {
}

p1 {
}

(adding class to your sidebars main content, etc)
.sidebar {
}

etc all have the proper padding, margin, position, etc. After you fix one page (or your external styles page), all the rest of your pages should follow suit perfectly.

Sorry if you have already done this.

I want to say yes? I'm building the site in Dreamweaver, and using a template function that defines all the CSS for the page, and then adding in the main text content individually. So when I change something in the template, it changes on all pages. That sounds roughly like what you're describing? I'll check the source code and see what it looks like - thanks!



Any ideas on the image links moving, or is it just my crazy browsers?

 

[åidån]

Hmm, I would've thought Dreamweaver templates would be using external style sheets, however (unless Safari source view is combining things) you appear to be using inline styles. I reckon that would be messy as to fix up, doable however.

External sheets are far less time consuming, and far more universal across your pages. Next time you build a site, use external sheets, or convert the template to external early on in the piece.

It's easily searched, but it's done by creating a .css file and between your head tags inserting "<link REL=StyleSheet HREF="path to .css" TYPE="text/css" MEDIA=screen>"

Good luck with your site!