Hey guys. I'm sure we're all bored with "How's my website" threads... but I beg your indulgence for a few minutes.
I have been working desperately on my website for the past 3 days. Practically everything has been rebuilt, painfully, by hand. I'm no coding master by any means so I need to know if there is anything I've missed. I think my eyes are too tired to proof myself at this point.
Please, have a look-see and let me know if you find errors, issues, ugliness, etc..
Overall it looks good Cindi. I like the colors and the simple feel... it compliments your photography really well. I'm not real sure if I'm a fan of the gallery browsing though. It feels a little awkward at first. Once you poke around, it's OK, but first impression (which is very important IMHO) feels clunky... I think it's the little dropdown to go to page # deal coupled with text previous and next buttons.
Looks very nice overall. Very clean and easy enough to navigate. You have plenty of great shots to showcase all of the different things you do. Here are a few things I noticed.
What is supposed to load on the main page (and also when you click on galleries)? I get a SmugMug logo in a big grey box, and it says 'initializing', but nothing loads and the entire page is slow scrolling, as if it's still trying to load something. (Using Firefox btw)
It seems as though there isn't really a seniors only gallery. Those photos are tucked into the main gallery? When I click slideshow, just the one photo shows up.
I'm not sure about the "rate the photo" thing. It feels a bit amateur for such a professional site, but I don't know if that can be changed at all.
The blog font is a bit small, especially since it's embedded in the page. Could you open the blog in a new page/tab or increase the font size with blogger? And the colors on the blog page don't seem to go with the color scheme of your page/logo.
Thanks Lee & Melanie. Those are precisely the kinds of things I'm looking for. I normally see my site from a logged-in position, so I haven't noticed some of those annoyances. It really helps to get fresh eyes on it.
Hi Cindi. It's a wonderful site. It was easy & quick to get around, and I really like the layout. Of course, your images are spectacular so that doesn't hurt! (off topic - I love the shoes & umbrella image the most)
I don't have any problem with the gallery browsing; it seemed intuitive to me but perhaps that's because I've spent a lot of time looking at photo galleries, or perhaps just because I've seen that type of browsing before. I agree with kteach in that I wanted to see more senior images. If I recall correctly you're just amped up in that area, so is it that you don't have more to show yet?
Nothing broke while I was poking around. I use IE, so that's probably not much help.
What is supposed to load on the main page (and also when you click on galleries)? I get a SmugMug logo in a big grey box, and it says 'initializing', but nothing loads and the entire page is slow scrolling, as if it's still trying to load something. (Using Firefox btw)
Yup, same here with Firefox, although looks nice with IE. Status bar at bottom of Firefox window says "waiting for api.smugmug.com" if that's any help. Maybe a Flash thing in Firefox.
Originally posted by kteach:
I'm not sure about the "rate the photo" thing. It feels a bit amateur for such a professional site, but I don't know if that can be changed at all.
My thoughts as well. The whole site looks great though! Nice job.
its looking good but the slideshow would not show for me in FireFox but ok in Safari..... I checked others smugmug sites including mine and the slideshow loaded.... on your website I see only the smugmug logo... Make sure you have external links turned on for the gallery that you are using for your slide show...... they have to be on for the Slideshow to work in all browsers
Also your header looks fine on you homepage but when I go to your portraits the header cuts off on the right hand side... its kind of hit or miss with the header problem on other galleries, some its fine others I it cuts off as I said before
Great Site Cindy. Works very well and has a good fresh feel. Just one thing, as Kteach and telehubbie said, I dont think on a site like this a 'rate it' button works..seems a bit 'wrong'. ;-)
Hmmmm did not know I should have external links turned on for the slideshow gallery! Thanks! Did that. Hope it speeds up firefox browsing now.
I'm trying to find the code to turn off the rating thing. Again, because I rarely browse not logged in, I hadn't noticed how annoying those things are.
I asked about the alignment issue last night and was told I probably have some open code somewhere, but I've searched 'till I'm about crazy and can't find any breaks. Will keep working on that one.
Oh yeah, as for the seniors gallery - you're right, there isn't one yet. I just put a blog entry in there to hold the place while I work on some gallery images. I want that page to be really different so might be a few more days.
SO MUCH BETTER than your previous site. What a difference!
There is an issue here for example as your title banner is not long enough to support larger screens, so the link to "The Studio Blog" falls off the right side of the the background.
One thing I'm noticing is that there's a gap in your background image above the words "Life. Camera. Action." -- at least there is in Firefox.
In totally unrelated news... my wife was joking the other day about our upcoming cruise next month. We almost always drive to Florida from Pittsburgh to catch cruises, and she was saying, "Who can we sponge off of for free lodging on the way?" And it just now occurred to me -- of course! Cindi lives in Jacksonville! Get that spare room ready! ;)
One thing I'm noticing is that there's a gap in your background image above the words "Life. Camera. Action." -- at least there is in Firefox.
In totally unrelated news... my wife was joking the other day about our upcoming cruise next month. We almost always drive to Florida from Pittsburgh to catch cruises, and she was saying, "Who can we sponge off of for free lodging on the way?" And it just now occurred to me -- of course! Cindi lives in Jacksonville! Get that spare room ready! ;)
Yahhoo! Just say when. Hope you don't mind the dogs! lol :D
Working on that gap. Its another of those stupid alignment issues. New decree!! From this moment on, everyone should use ONE browser and ONE monitor size! :D
Hey Cindi ... looks super to me ... good luck with it ... grats on a really really close to astounding website ... add more photos ... Let them see what you can do! I have seen better in your DPC portfolio than you are chucking out in your slideshow ... just my two cents ... but I think the format is super ... and not too slow a slide show as I hate with many other websites ...
The site isn't rendering properly on my end. Here's a screenshot of what I see:
Notice the broken link to an image at the top and the gap in the drop shadows along the sides. This renders the same on both FireFox 2.0 and IE6 on end.
