JPF Home Page Forums General Messages General Message Forum Comments on my new website - I think It's Done lol

Hi Friends.

I just finished doing mine & Helen's new look website. First time I have used iframes and I hope that it works for others ok.

If you get a moment please have a look and let me know if there are any blips. different browsers etc, also different resolutions.Leaking frames etc.

http://www.royandhelen.com/

I have done it as a third party and tried to consolidate everything onto one functional page.

thoughts and comments welcome

God Bless Roy and Helen

ROY--

A NICE PLACE TO VISIT--SOME GREAT SONGS AND IDEAS AND LINKS--NOW ONE OF MY BOOKMARKS!

Mackie

Hi there-
Don't know much about the frames, blips, etc..
but looks like u have room to enlargen your
Welcome etc.. & all that stuff along the top...
also the left feature bar.
That small text may be difficult to read for some viewers.

Nice start.

~C~

It occupies the left half of my monitor Roy. The right half is blank. The lettering is pretty small.

Thanks Mackie. pleased you like it

God Bless Roy and Helen

Hi Cal thanks for having a look. Will see what I can do

God Bless Roy and Helen

good call Colin. Thanks

will improve on it

God Bless Roy and Helen

ps do you know your resolution and browser

Roy:

Anything you do... sitewise, will be a great place to visit. You have some great songs listed. I did not have time to play the video. Like the others, I believe the body of text is on the ragged edge of being too small. I did not check the links to the other two sites, World Demo Radio and Country Demo Radio... but I've listened to them before and enjoyed them a great deal.

My very best to you and Helen.

Dave

I am using a 1600 x 900 monitor and Firefox.

Terribly busy Roy. I also have the issue with the site not filling the page and concur about the type size.

I'm viewing it on an iMac with the monitor at 2560 x 1440, and the main text is pretty small. Also, at this resolution, the main 'Welcome...' title is hard to read due to the drop shadow and gradient fill. I wonder if there's too much on one page. Maybe better to create links and have text bigger on separate pages.

Just a thought!

Andy

Thanks to everyone who had a look and some good comments...

am working on it as I type lol

God Bless Roy and Helen

Yes - came up quickly - easy to navigate - clean layout - tells upfront who you are - very good

Tom

Hey Roy and Helen...

First off let me say I really appreciate you guys taking the makeup off and really showing your true selves...lol.

I also want to comend you on the fact that none of your frames seem to leak....I hate when that happens.

Larry

Heya Roy!

I agree with some others that the print is kinda small, but that's why I have reading glasses. It does seem a litle busy, but it's very easy to navigate and I was able to take a gander at nearly everything in only a few minutes' time. I like that!

The only thing that I would change would be to edit this line:

"Both Helen & Roy are lyricists and collaborate with composers or sometimes pay a studio to write the music to their songs."

I would drop the "pay a studio to write the music" part...I dunno, it just doesn't seem like something a "professional" would admit to:-)

But Dude, I love the way you just keep on churning out new ideas and energy!

Midnite

Thanks for the thumbs up Tom.

Larry. you gotta excuse the make-up. We had just woke up in the morning lol.

Thanks for not finding any leaks.

Midnite
Thanks for having a look and for giving it a good testing. We are pleased that you like the way its done.

I hoped that visitors will always spot something of interest without have to search around.

Good call, by the way, on the paying for music. ITS GONE..lol

I have increased the type size and added another line of videos that I have made for others to the right of the window.

It seems that centering lots of iframes to the screen center and keeping them right in relationship to each other is real hard to do. Am still looking though


My screen is at 1280 by 1240 and it looks fine. was a tad small before.

I hope others will check the print size now and let me know if its improved. Its difficult to cater for those on low res - 800x600 and those on high res as well... at least for me it is, not being a programmer.

God Bless to all Roy and Helen

Took another look Roy. The font is now much larger and easily read. On my screen, the page is still on the left side and extends about 2/3 of the way across.

The layout is more like reading a newspaper than a modern web page.....for better or worse!

Thanks Colin for having another look. glad its readable now.
Still working on the screen location.

I agree that it does look like a 'newspaper', good or bad, I don't know, but it does what I wanted.
For me, being able to watch and listen to a video and still move around the site was the priority. I thinks that what I have achieved.

God Bless Roy and Helen

The site also still leaves a blank space to the right.
A couple of ideas:
Set your parameters to center the whole page. That will leave blank space on both sides but will present better visually.

Or, set your parameters to auto size. The issue there may be that some with very large monitors do not use their browsers at full resolution. You may be able to limit the auto size feature to a stop at some reasonable resolution.

Thanks Dal

will have a go.

God Bless Roy and Helen

Much better look on my laptop now Roy.
However I do still lose some text. For example in the top box statement;
With a combined age of over 130 years Helen and Roy
have been writing superb songs for over half a century.
Most of the R and oy in Roy is cut off. I haven't had a chance to look more. In any case, good progress.

FF 9.something and 1280x800 Resolution if I remember right. I'll double check that.

Roy, I don't think the page is user-friendly. Too much information squeezed into too little space and too many items. It all assaults my eyes and mind. It's like you're trying to squeeze 50 pages of information onto a postage stamp - though I slightly exaggerate.

Why wouldn't you use a standard webpage layout employing links to the main subject matter of the site, such as: About Roy - About Helen - The songs - The lyrics - The videos - Our friends' songs - contact us - etc. etc? You could include a photo or photos, perhaps a video on the main page. There's plenty of examples out there to choose from when you're making a website or homepage.

Anyway, good luck with it.

Thanks Dak. I will check out the name thing.

Dan, thanks for checking it out. You may well be right in all your comments, but being a stubborn old git, I have to try it and then if its not working, its easy to scratch and use all those elements in a different layout.

I am thinking about redoing it already and am doing some cleaning up lol.

God Bless Roy and Helen

Actually I agree with Dan. The site, as is, is too busy, as noted in my first reply.
That said Roy, what you've done has helped. However, it still looks like a news paper.

The website is pretty cool! I like the content more than the design itself. The text is quite small when looking at it on IE8.

I just took part in developing a website - perhaps it will give you some ideas! It is called Bandfinder .

I would be interested in hearing what you think about it? Also, it may give you some ideas as well!

Yep Dak.. I agree and am working on it... it's like doing a song re-write I guess. never finished till 'The Fat Lady Sings.

thanks, your thoughts are always appreciated.

God Bless Roy and helen

Love you site Bandfinder. would be nice if you had a name lol.

Will investigate and look around later.

still working on mine. I must admit yours looks better than mine.

dont see a cat for people or bands etc looking for songwriters lol

God Bless Roy and helen

My name is Michael, but I will be posting looking for support and opinions for my new website, Bandfinder! That is why I don't have a name! Glad to hear you like my website.

Good luck with yours! I understand that it can be a time consuming process, but once you get it right, there is no better feeling!

The goal of my website is helping local like-minded musicians find each other so they can create new music! I always found it difficult to find talented musicians to jam with in my area so I set out to make it easier for everyone! Hopefully in a few months I will be able to say that my hard work paid off!

Seems like a good idea for a site Michael, and I really do wish you luck with it. Allways hard work until its done and dusted lol

God Bless Roy and Helen

Thanks to all for the comments. I have listened and done more work on the site. I hope it's less like a newspaper now lol.

thoughts still welcome

God Bless Roy and Helen.

Hey Roy,

Nope, it's all too squished. Just space it out more, and it should be easier to read/view.

I wouldn't be worried about it looking like a newspaper. Those guys spend millions just to get the "look" right, and make it easy for the viewer.

If you copied the www.nytimes.com layout, you'd have a viewing experince which is easy on the eye, and easily navigatible. ( Is that a word ? )

cheers, niteshift

Roy

The video/song content is fine but the layout has a very low-budget feel about it; the sort of thing that occurs on a pop-up that most people would be inclined to close quickly and not want to explore. I suspect this may be due to your desire to fit everything on one page, which is a shame because you have some good things on there.

Presentation is everything in this game.

I would be tempted to re-write the Welcome page so it isn’t in third person, it comes over a little wooden the way it is.

Sorry if I appear to be too negative but I have seen how good your creative side is with your videos and such I know you would want something a little more appealing to the eye than this.

The good news is should be really easy to put a different wrapper on this and make it more fitting for the quality of work it is showcasing.

Nige

I agree. And, the layout is back to the left with a lot of empty space to the right.
It may well be as simple as adjusting your iframe widths and placements.

Thanks nite for having a good look and as always your thoughts are appreciated.

Wish I could copy the nytimes, but I'm sure they are protected lol

please look back when you can as I'm doing a re-write on the site..

God Bless Roy and Helen

I agree with you Nigel and am doing big changes...



You are right on that Nigel and I have done it as self party.



I know that Nigel and I agree. It looks crap to me, and when others tell me, then I do something about it, so thanks for giving me a shove.



Thats right Nigel, cause the hard work is done..

Please come back when you can and let me know if it improves

God Bless Roy and Helen

Thanks Dak. Yep I have an invisable iframe to the right, waiting for me to do the graphics, so it will be off a bit until thats sorted.

Please keep visiting it when you have time

God Bless Roy and Helen

Well of course I'm gonna like it.....I see my name...but serious, I do love what you have going.....

And do you really want the fat lady to sing???

Well ok....I'll get something together.....

glyn

HaHa Glynda.


Keep coming back.. it's changing all the time...lol lots of re-writes

God Bless from me and Helen

well folks and friends. I have done the best that I can and will stick with it now. thoughts are still welcome as I may do some more after a period of doing other things.

I will be adding a little extra to the site ASAP, that I think is totally original and I hope it is a way for songwriters to make a little bit of extra cash. I am the guinee-pig lol

I will make a new thread for that one.

God Bless Roy and Helen

Hi Roy, you asked me to take a look at your site and I did. It may be my computer but in the middle of the page I can see a big white space, and a slide bar but nothing there, and I have to move my slide bar below to see all the writing to the far right, other than that it looks ok. It is a tiny bit busy, but from what I have read you don't intend on changing that part..so I will leave it at that. Not sure what the deal is with the empty space, unless you are saving it for something else later?

Best of luck with it, thanks for including our video (mine and Colins) on it and thanks again for your help on my website.


HUGS

Kimberly

Thanks Kimberley. The space is where the player and lyrics will appear when a song/video is selected from the side menu.

I have added some text to explain that.

The slide bar to see the left is something I will work on. Its all down to screen size at the moment.

but thanks for looking.

God Bless Roy and Helen