Website Help

[Sean Troy]

Hello all, I just finished enough of my new website to get it online. Still loads of stuff to do but was wondering when you get a chance, could you to go there and let me know if it loads OK in your browser. I use IE 8 and Google Chrome and see no problems but someone else said it was loading slow. Let me know what browser and version you check it in please. Thank you for the help, Sean

[Jason Beam]

Loads fine on firefox. Looks pretty good, too.

Your biggest problem is that it's too wide for a 1024 window. You should keep it around 960px wide total so that users don't have to scroll horizontally. This is especially important with a site like yours that has the main navigation on the right side which gets cut off.

[Sean Troy]

It should auto fit your screen. I've tested on three different screen sizes and it worked perfectly. My laptop is 1024 and I don't have to scroll. I wonder if it's a Firefox thing? Anyone know? Thanks, Sean

[Paul Atkins]

Looks good on my 24" Mac with Safari and 1920 x 1200 res. Loads pretty fast too. Makes me want a nice site too.

[mickey cassiba]

Sean, it loaded fine on the work computer, FF3.5. Let you know tonite how the IE8 does. BTW On the initial opening it did leak off the right side, but probably due to the fact that I keep my browser slightly magnified(ctrl+scroll^) to compensate for my vision.
Mickey

[Jason Beam]

It should auto fit your screen. I've tested on three different screen sizes and it worked perfectly. My laptop is 1024 and I don't have to scroll. I wonder if it's a Firefox thing? Anyone know? Thanks, Sean

Doesn't seem to be a firefox thing - it's also the same width on IE 6 and IE 7. The problem looks to be that your minimum width on the content column is too high. It looks about 75-100 pixels too wide. Sometimes these things are where you least expect them - the contents of that column may be pushing things wide - like a horizontal rule, spacer image, or a combination of a couple images that just won't wrap - also, text that refuses to wrap (long email addresses and urls are notorious for that, but sometimes it's not so obvious).

It took a good couple seconds to come up at first but it was initial and not mid-page or anything, so i think that has to do with DNS and not so much about your site's speed. You don't have anything big on there that would make me suspect it was a page weight problem. It might be a little sluggish on dialup, but it isn't a nightmare, really. Hitting reload comes up fast, which tells me you probably don't have a performance problem. As a developer, I don't use any browser cache so that isn't giving me a false speed impression.


How do you like Joomla? I had casually checked it out for my ww club's site but ended up going with one I was more familiar with.

[David Duke]

Sean,
Same thing is happening to me as Jason and Mickey described, I opened in both FireFox and IE and the page was pushed off the right, my resolution is at 1024. I know absolutely nothing about web design so I'll leave the recommendations to others but I will say that your site looks pretty good to me although I didn't do a whole lot of looking around.

[phil harold]

1024x768 ie8
need to scroll

just some info if you want:


average screen size is 1024x768 then minus the size of boarders, scrool bars and tool bars also factor in if browser window is 100% open (mine never are)

Screen Res stats
800 * 600 6%
1024 * 768 54%
1024+ 40%

Window Opened 100% = 29%
Window Opened less than 100% = 71%

viewable area in screen browser w x h:
Mean 881 x 539
Median 918 x 579
Mode 1,004 x 602

this all translates to having a screen width of 900 pixels if you want to your layout to be viewed without scrolling on most of computers

how was working with joomla?

[Sean Troy]

Doesn't seem to be a firefox thing - it's also the same width on IE 6 and IE 7. The problem looks to be that your minimum width on the content column is too high. It looks about 75-100 pixels too wide. Sometimes these things are where you least expect them - the contents of that column may be pushing things wide - like a horizontal rule, spacer image, or a combination of a couple images that just won't wrap - also, text that refuses to wrap (long email addresses and urls are notorious for that, but sometimes it's not so obvious).

It took a good couple seconds to come up at first but it was initial and not mid-page or anything, so i think that has to do with DNS and not so much about your site's speed. You don't have anything big on there that would make me suspect it was a page weight problem. It might be a little sluggish on dialup, but it isn't a nightmare, really. Hitting reload comes up fast, which tells me you probably don't have a performance problem. As a developer, I don't use any browser cache so that isn't giving me a false speed impression.


How do you like Joomla? I had casually checked it out for my ww club's site but ended up going with one I was more familiar with.

There is a learning curve with Joomla but not to bad. Now that I have some knowledge about it, I really like it. What I've found out about the resolution is I can set the site to Fluid-100% 0r 1024 -Fixed. I went to our local library and checked the look there on several computers and browswers with no problems and then checked computer screens at the school where my wife teaches, still no resolution problems. All the computers I checked had the screen resolution set higher than 1024. Now I'm not sure what to set the site to. Just to help me learn, is your screen set to the higest res.? If not, why do you choose the setting it's on? I thought making the site was going to be the ard part, not the sizing :)

[Jason Beam]

I run way higher than 1024, but like Phil mentioned - most of the internet is at 1024. It's a default setting for some operating systems, but it's slowly getting higher - when i started my job, the web ran at 640 - it cycles about every 3-4 years, depending on current technology. The 1024's been the leader for a couple years, now and also, note that most folks don't run maximized, either, so it's wiser to go for smaller rather than larger.

A good way to see what the world is doing is to install Google Analytics on your site. They run stats on everyone who visits your site including a reading of resolution. Handy for getting a feel for the most common resolution your site sees (though there aren't very many wide sweeping trends for 99% of the sites out there)

[John Keeton]

Came up fine for me - and congratulations on a nice clean look!!

[Robert McGowen]

Hi,

I am on the latest version of Firefox and the right column is only partially visible. It loaded just fine.

You might want to go over the punctuation on the first page. (missing lots of commas) Reading that initial page is the first impression that people will get of you. You want it to be the best page possible.

Good luck with your site.

[mickey cassiba]

Sean: Opened fine on IE8 quicker than FF as a matter of fact. Stiil running off the right edge of screen though at 100% res, 1024x768. Both machines on XP SP3, Work is pro, home machine is XP home.
Hope this helps
Mickey
PS Later this year I'm going to try and set up a site for my wife's Jewelry endeavors. Any pointers will be apreciated
Mickey

[Sean Troy]

Hi,

I am on the latest version of Firefox and the right column is only partially visible. It loaded just fine.

You might want to go over the punctuation on the first page. (missing lots of commas) Reading that initial page is the first impression that people will get of you. You want it to be the best page possible.

Good luck with your site.
Thanks Robert, I just had my wife go over the home page for me. She is an English/Writing instructor and does a much better job than I can. I'll ask her to do the rest after I complete it. The reason I put the site up before it was actually done is it takes time for search engines to pick it up and also , they love to see changes/additions being done on a site on a regular basis.

[Sean Troy]

I run way higher than 1024, but like Phil mentioned - most of the internet is at 1024. It's a default setting for some operating systems, but it's slowly getting higher - when i started my job, the web ran at 640 - it cycles about every 3-4 years, depending on current technology. The 1024's been the leader for a couple years, now and also, note that most folks don't run maximized, either, so it's wiser to go for smaller rather than larger.

A good way to see what the world is doing is to install Google Analytics on your site. They run stats on everyone who visits your site including a reading of resolution. Handy for getting a feel for the most common resolution your site sees (though there aren't very many wide sweeping trends for 99% of the sites out there)
Could you all check and see if the new setting make a difference? I would appreciate it. thanks, Sean

[Jason Beam]

I'm afraid it's exactly the same in 1024 - it's still too wide. Only, it's a fixed width this time instead of constantly expanding.

Aha - it's only on your home page - which tells me the content is doing it. The sometimes frustrating thing with browsers is finding what's pushing something out of whack. That woodcentral image is pretty wide, plus I'll bet there are some width values somewhere that cause the 2nd content column to be a fixed width which is getting pushed by anything that's wider in the first column (like the woodcentral logo).

The subpages almost all look fine - there's a little jumping here and there, and that's something that irks me, but most people don't notice it.

The thing I'd try is start taking out one thing and refresh, another, refresh, etc, etc. It is tedius but it's really the only way to get it done. So you don't have to change your resolution to 1024, pick up the window sizer app that sets a window to a given size - lemme find the URL for the one I use..

Here we go... http://www.brianapps.net/sizer/

This sits in my system tray all day (because I use it constantly, you don't have to) and I just right click on a "resize" portion of any window and select a specific size. This is WAY easier than flipping your resolution around over and over.

[Sean Troy]

I'm afraid it's exactly the same in 1024 - it's still too wide. Only, it's a fixed width this time instead of constantly expanding.

Aha - it's only on your home page - which tells me the content is doing it. The sometimes frustrating thing with browsers is finding what's pushing something out of whack. That woodcentral image is pretty wide, plus I'll bet there are some width values somewhere that cause the 2nd content column to be a fixed width which is getting pushed by anything that's wider in the first column (like the woodcentral logo).

The subpages almost all look fine - there's a little jumping here and there, and that's something that irks me, but most people don't notice it.

The thing I'd try is start taking out one thing and refresh, another, refresh, etc, etc. It is tedius but it's really the only way to get it done. So you don't have to change your resolution to 1024, pick up the window sizer app that sets a window to a given size - lemme find the URL for the one I use..

Here we go... http://www.brianapps.net/sizer/

This sits in my system tray all day (because I use it constantly, you don't have to) and I just right click on a "resize" portion of any window and select a specific size. This is WAY easier than flipping your resolution around over and over.
Try it now, I didn't save the changes like a dope. Now it's truly in 1024, Thanks again and again, Sean

[Rob Russell]

It seems rather ironic to me that you're getting feedback about your site from SMC folks, but the forum link you have on your home page is to WoodCentral ... ;)

[Sean Troy]

It seems rather ironic to me that you're getting feedback about your site from SMC folks, but the forum link you have on your home page is to WoodCentral ... ;)
I have a SMC text link and the logo soon. Wouldn't be complete without it. Still lots of work to do and add ;)

[Jason Beam]

Sean,

sorry to say - it's the same on the home page - still too wide. That woodcentral image IS making the left column wider than the right - i can't immediately see anything in the right column doing the same but I'm not looking SUPER deeply at it as I don't have the time. It's certainly in your content and not some higher-level template setting, I'm afraid.

[Scott Hildenbrand]

Here's a resource you will find useful.

http://browsershots.org/

[Sean Troy]

Thank you Scott