Site Layout Design?

[PandaMoOo]

One of the things I like to do most is be as democratic as possible. Democracy always leads to the best for the most people, when people care enough to vote! So please please, drop your opinon, vote and give your two cents! Without you, my website is a dictatorship and will fail.

Anyhow! I am a programmer, not a website designer; What do you think of the layout of gradecalpoly.com? Would you like something changed? Would you like me to revert to the previous skeleton of goodbadtenured.com and put the new layouts of my pages in it? Well! Here are the pictures of the previous site, and the current site. Be sure to voice your opinon!

[Admin]

I've voted for the 2nd option.

[PandaMoOo]

Alright Alright, I think my website, similiar to the angels, has been statistically elimated before 6 games.

Anyhow, I'll be working on a new layout design over at beta.gradecalpoly.co m, drop by and leave what you like/dislike over here.

I currently plan to:
-Format the front page more
-Remove all tables from the other pages
-Reformat those so they're left aligned, and easy to use.
-Remove/Change the pencil header.
-Get a new banner that is easier to match with the site.
-Get the ads on the far right.
-Reinstate all the counters/information displayed.... somewhere.

Estimated completion: By Monday. So drop by, and let me know what you think of how it comes. Be specific, because I may change something and not know what you liked/disliked.

[Admin]

Originally Posted by PandaMoOo

Anyhow, I'll be working on a new layout design over at beta.gradecalpoly.co m, drop by and leave what you like/dislike over here.

I currently plan to:
-Format the front page more
-Remove all tables from the other pages
-Reformat those so they're left aligned, and easy to use.
-Remove/Change the pencil header.
-Get a new banner that is easier to match with the site.
-Get the ads on the far right.
-Reinstate all the counters/information displayed.... somewhere.

I really like the look so far. The grade.asp and grades.asp can be reduced in height to remove the blank space on the bottom. So far so good.

[Mike]

Looks like the upgrade is complete.

[PandaMoOo]

It's coming along actually.

I did do the upgrade as planned, the green clashes quite badly with the paper in the background, so i'm working on changing it back to the original blue. But in the process is also a new header/pencil graphic.

So new graphics are coming soon, but the color scheme is pretty locked now.

But now that it's done, what do you think?

[Sinister]

My thought. I looked over the source of the site. I advise two things.. ( iwork in web design and currently plaing to make it a living) use <IFRAME> Tags. (post if you have no idea how to use these) and also use <DIV> tags as well. This will help changeing font to the banner. (thus you'll just need a blank banner with no text) and use a (personal thought) more of a DHTML w/ JavaScript Menu (NO flash or any fancy programe required). Basicly it would be like the one on the main page of the Cal Poly Pomona site and for your design (To make this easier to change the style in the future) use CSS. This way you can link into your scripit, the design you want to use. Insteed of having to use .php or CGI to change scripts. (CSS helps with quick and fast loading of the page) and also use a preload script (this is great for images. Page will in over all load alot faster then what it is currently)

This is great help tips I'm offering. To help you witht he site and just make it a tad better. You may thinking "Why are you trying to help me?" as I say "You don't need a reason to help someone" but I'm also not trying to put down your work. Well done but I'm helping ya out with the scripting of the site. Design is based on what you feel fits best. I do designs and graphics as well but its your site and I have no right to offer my services (unless you asked for it in a post).

My over all thought.
Well done. The theme fits. Thats all that matters in the end.

Yours Truly
Sinister

[PandaMoOo]

Originally Posted by Sinister

My thought. I looked over the source of the site. I advise two things.. ( iwork in web design and currently plaing to make it a living) use <IFRAME> Tags. (post if you have no idea how to use these) and also use <DIV> tags as well. This will help changeing font to the banner. (thus you'll just need a blank banner with no text) and use a (personal thought) more of a DHTML w/ JavaScript Menu (NO flash or any fancy programe required). Basicly it would be like the one on the main page of the Cal Poly Pomona site and for your design (To make this easier to change the style in the future) use CSS. This way you can link into your scripit, the design you want to use. Insteed of having to use .php or CGI to change scripts. (CSS helps with quick and fast loading of the page) and also use a preload script (this is great for images. Page will in over all load alot faster then what it is currently)

Thanks for the advice;
-Why the use for IFRAME? to make customizing and updating my website rather quickly I assume? (no reason was given so I'm only guessing.) I already use a built in ASP command called include, which automatically includes my template into the page so i update template, and changes happen on all pages. Almost identical function iframe, but the server handles it so i don't have to worry about compatibility with browsers. (Was there a reason I am missing?)
-I definately need to get more familiar with CSS, it would help make everything easier to change, and give me more control over the site. I'll look into that this week.
-I could easily setup a nice DHTML banner, but I only have 5 pages on my website. With so few of pages, I don't know how the banner would help users access my page. For aestheic reasons I may make buttons, instead of raw links.. but not yet.
-Load up script to load the images? For all 3 or 4 images it will help you say? I'll look into that this week as well. Thanks.

Page load speed issues? Any particular pages you have an issue with? To make a long story short... my web server is quite bottlenecked on only 13KB/sec. So great effort is being put into keeping it low bandwidth, right now most of the transfer is in the HTML code because I have so few of images, and thats the way I like it if you have any more suggestions, feel free to let me know. I'll look into what you suggested.

[Admin]

The size of each pages are adequate and no need to reduce the size. The campus internet has fast connection so that helps.
Good job on the XHTML conversion.
Not sure if you care about spam in a gmail but it is not safe to post e-mail directly on the HTML.

[PandaMoOo]

Originally Posted by KayCee

The size of each pages are adequate and no need to reduce the size. The campus internet has fast connection so that helps.
Good job on the XHTML conversion.
Not sure if you care about spam in a gmail but it is not safe to post e-mail directly on the HTML.

Campus internet may be fast, but its only as fast as the slowest link in the chain, my server. I've done calculations and so far everything seems to be okay; the true testing will be when normal registration period comes around. In which case I got a buddy who offered to setup a very complex server cluster.

I know I may get hit with spam, gmail supposedly is pretty good at it... I might remove it someday, and implement a form type system like you have for the forums. But then again, once i get one spam message I get 1000... bah. Darn ASP and it's lack of good e-mail submitting forms!

[Sinister]

I'd stick with Form mail insteed of gmail. The hidden command within <form> tags. As for the IFRAME tags. It would be nice to have because of the content on the main page. useing IFrame.. for the main page would help making the content not only easy to read (Even it is now) but it would pervent the idea of having to scroll all the way back up to the top of the page to use the menu.

As for the menu. Why not use a DHTML script that makes a side menu (or a header menu) static and move with the screen? it can be as fancy. As for the idea of the banner. Banners on sites (normally) are used to return back to the 'home page' or 'main page'. I'm willing to help ya out and write up the scripts ya need. Just leave the credit in the Codeing of it. Then youc an see Once I create the menu, you can see how it was created and break it down from there for your own learning useage.

[Sinister]

One other note I forgot.. about e-mail. You can scramble your e-mail account when useing form codeing. even with it scrambled. the codeing will still ensure the mail gets to you. (due tot he script can only read the scramble codeing) and that to be done.. is a programe I have the gives the code after the task is done to put in the needed codeing into the HTML sheet

[PandaMoOo]

Hmm... interesting suggestion. Perhaps I will use DHTML to have the pencil menu scroll with the window so you can always navigate throughout the site. I'll add it to my to-do list. It's pretty low on the list though, considering it's more of a "fancy addition" because it won't help in navigation too much, there's not that much navigating on a small site like gradecalpoly.com.

[PandaMoOo]

RSS automatically updated feed from website setup. Updates every hour, which is the fastest it will update because the forum only updates its RSS stream that fast. Currently shows 2 News Articles, and last 5 forum posts. The program I made to run the background is very robust and dependable, so if you find it falling behind... we can easily change it to 15 minutes/5 minutes or whatever. It's pretty low on bandwidth consumption.

Still looking into CSSing the entire thing, prefetching images, viability of inline frames, and DHTML menu choices. Still waiting on new header graphics from graphic artist. Comments? Suggestions? Anyone have any layout suggestions? Anything too hard to use? Confusing?

Anyone use the schuduling system yet? I'm tracking users and only one in ten actually load the schedule page, and only half of those users even generate a schedule. I recommend using it to find out what classes to petition for with your current schedule!

[Sinister]

Originally Posted by PandaMoOo

Hmm... interesting suggestion. Perhaps I will use DHTML to have the pencil menu scroll with the window so you can always navigate throughout the site. I'll add it to my to-do list. It's pretty low on the list though, considering it's more of a "fancy addition" because it won't help in navigation too much, there's not that much navigating on a small site like gradecalpoly.com.

I can lend you a hand. use one of my messenger contacts to contact me. if you use my yahoo contact. Leave me an offline message so if I'm not online on yahoo messenger, you can leave me your e-mail addy to me as a offline message. Mainly if you want the script for a basic CSS layout (since I've noticed you use tables and a few <tr> tags. I have a suitable CSS file. Its basic and easy to understand. everything as its listed explaines its self and the tag for the CSS file.. to use it on any page would be <link="url.css"> to place the look of the features of it onto any page and change it all from one file.

As for the DHTML. It can be considered more like a "fancy Feature" but if you know HTML well wenough, and learn the same with DHTML, it becomes a basic.. under two mins to make (well for me anyway) but you get the idea once you've learned its basics. It does not seem like a fancy feature but more of a common feature. Anyway.. Feel free to contact me if you need any help in site scripting or design. I'm well knowlaged in CGI,PHP,XTML,DHTML,C SS 1 & 2, HTM & Perl, JavaScript (Also Normal Java as well), Flash.

So if you got any questions. Feel free to ask. Mainly working on site design or scripts is more of a hobby for me, insteed of a side business I normally make it out of. besides, I don't mind helping people whom want to learn (was the same way but I learned the hard way when i was first starting out).

Yous Truly
Sinister