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Web development is art!
No manifesto here. I am redesigning my website from scratch in order to make my future life easier. I am going to use xml as a means of laying out the site map. I am also trying to find a way of making a really dynamic menu, one that slides open horizontally to reveal each sub category and item.
I'm still working on that.
Anywhoo, I did manage to make this: http://matthewseremet.com/index2.php.
Points of interest:
I'm still working on that.
Anywhoo, I did manage to make this: http://matthewseremet.com/index2.php.
Points of interest:
- The color scheme (or lack thereof)
- Expanding menu
- Live inclusion of content
Comments
I forgot to ask. Anyone have experience with javascript, client-side inclusion of web pages?
I'm a big fan of CMS, especially TextPattern. They make things a lot easier. Also, for colour scheming, sites like this are a big help.
For reference (not just shameless promotion), my site.
If you're going to use XML, also use XHTML instead of the ancient HTML 4.01 Transitional. Go and transition that step up, k?
Your colour scheme is shit. Text is unreadable. If you have to hover over a menu item to see what the fuck it says, you're doing it wrong. A hover effect should only confirm to the user what they're selecting NOT tell them what is written on the thing.
Your stylesheet is a big wall of text in your HTML cluttering both. Put the CSS in its own file, this will also allow for caching of the stylesheet, resulting in less bandwidth used. Side-note: Your comments start and end sporadically. Better to insert newline for both. That way you'll spot them faster. Get into that habit so that you won't have to search for comments after you chose to hit the hay for the night before.
EDIT:You're being fucking retarded. Having two files open will not kill you, and in a proper editor that'll still be a single window. ENDEDIT
The same goes for your style blocks, put closing parenthesis on a new line and start the first declaration on a new line, always, even if you only have a single declaration for that selector at the moment. It's maybe a dozen characters more in your filesize, but will read much easier.
You have defined 'Helvetica' and the generic sans-serif font-family for your body text. The majority of people that will ever visit your site will NOT have Helvetica installed, let alone would they notice it not being Arial. Don't be a tool by just stupidly nodding to whatever typography whores say. Helvetica may be the greatest typeface EVER in the opinion of some people, but that means shit to you and everybody you know. Stick at least one very common typeface in that list. I'd suggest Arial since you want to use Helvetica for the few who have it installed. Note: The generic typeface can be NOT AT ALL what you expect. Example, my Firefox uses the same typeface for generic sans-serif and serif (I've never touched it, ironically the typeface is just called 'sans-serif', Dumbuntu, you so silly) so if you were to define the generic serif font for an element, I wouldn't see your genius design choice (note: mixing serif with sans-serif if most often RETARDED).
Your classes are SHIT. e? ee? el? ew? eer? abc? abd? Fix that shit, nobody will kill you for using longer, more descriptive names for classes and IDs. Instead you'll kill yourself when you return to it at a later date. Also, a style definition for a quadruply nested unordered list with an element of the class 'e' in it? What are you smoking? You won't get that deep without losing your sanity and that of your visitors. Triple-nested unordered list menus on websits are already shit most of the time. It looks worse than installing too much shit in Windows and having submenus spit out semi-randomly between left and right of the current submenu. Also, changing the location of other root-menu items is REALLY ANNOYING. … yeah, I hate javascript menus like I hate javascript hyperlinks. They're a USELESS WASTE OF TIME, BANDWIDTH AND RESOURCES. You can make nifty enough menus with just CSS anyways.
Don't define sizes in pixels. Use (fractions of) em or percentages. AND BE CONSISTENT. I'd say stick to one or the other, but sometimes, sometimes one is better suited than the other, but keep using the same unit for the same declaration (e.g. em for height declarations). Percentages are basically ems anyways.
Define font-size only once in points. For the body element. Or choose to use '100%' to let the visitor's browser's default font-size rule (usually 16 points, sometimes larger for the hard of seeing, not adviced).
Your 'Google Movies' menu item has two hyperlinks embedded in it, one normal anchor and a fucking javascript one in the surrounding div (of class 'e') resulting in both getting opened when clicked on. The anchor in a new tab, the div in the current tab. Also, it's stupidly wordy for menu items.
Same goes for som of your other menu items. It feels like they would be better suited as a list on their own page, styled, with image previews and shit allowing for non-maddening expansion later on compared to a ridiculously long sub-menu.
Tidbits: Put spaces after your colons, newlines after your semi-colons. Consistently indent your declarations and don't spray piss all over the fucking place. Be consistent, clear and non-retarded in your file and folder names (index2.php, Procrastinate.xml, ARTPAGES vs Documentaries, Untitled-3.png vs gradback1.crop1.gif, also spaces and random shit). Either use only hex representation or only named colours, shorten your colours to 3 characters if you're just going to repeat one number 6 times. Don't just declare a generic font-family and nothing more, always defne at least one common typeface (it's the one good thing Microsoft gave webdevelopers,
That's it for now, good luck. Oh, go invert those colours.
http://matthewseremet.com/
http://matthewseremet.com/
Don't use Javascript to make an anchor, it's stupid, annoying and causes problems.
"I'm enjoying this background color." BTW reads like "Click here to see the other color BG I like and hopefully won't singe your corneas"