The Webmistress — Sun, 01 Jul 2001 14:34:08 +0000

The only thing about using the free tracker is that everyone gets to see your stats if they click on the logo!

This forum is sooooo helpful!

KarenArt — Sun, 01 Jul 2001 14:26:05 +0000

Thank you so much everyone for all the extremely helpful critiques!!!

I finally have the show finished and posted.
(the final version is at:
http://gallery.passion4art.com/members/yahoogroup/newestindex.html
if you're interested)

There are still many mistakes.
I know I haven't gotten rid of that darn scroll bar and I ran out of time to redo the front graphic, so the white background dog is still on the top.
I also didn't get the gallery pictures moved closer together.
I hope it doesn't look too bad on a larger monitor.
I decided to go with a free tracker from extreme tracking.
It has a graphic, but it doesn't flash at least.

Thank you again for all the advice.
I hope to have a little more time in creating the next site, so I can get EVERYTHING right.

Enjoy
Karen

Brooke — Mon, 25 Jun 2001 15:23:49 +0000

Just one thing that I have been noticing. The dog picture that has the white background - send that picture to back - it just doesn't look right with it having a white background.

Good job!

Brooke
:snow:

The Webmistress — Sat, 23 Jun 2001 07:33:55 +0000

Colour is the correct spelling, no doubt about it!

KarenArt — Fri, 22 Jun 2001 19:47:47 +0000

Thank you so much m0dulus!

I am still trying to figure out why there is a scroll bar on the first page. (I have a very tiny monitor and EVERY site has scroll bars for me)
There is no reason for this site to do that, so I must have an extra break in the code somwhere. I just have to track it down.

The Pictures will eventually link to larger versions (the individual pages will have contact info for that artist on them) I'm just waiting for confirmation from a couple artists on thier info.

Thanks again for all the great suggestions.
I'm trying to create sites for professional artists, so they HAVE to look good and work flawlessly.

btw: All the European artists I work with (and most of the Canadian ones) use u in color also.
I actually take the ed of the end of "colored" on my sites and spell it Color Pencils. (always have to be different)

Karen

Coloured Pencils

m0dulus — Fri, 22 Jun 2001 19:09:39 +0000

I spell colour with a 'u' because I'm Canadian (and proud of it too!)

I'm picky about small things so don't let this bother you. Okay here goes:

I notice there is a scroll bar - and it only moves down 1 or 2 pixels. could you possible change your design so you can remove the scroll bar, as it entices me to scroll down, but there is nothing there.

Your site navigation is flawless, in my opinion.. good job on that.

What would be nice, though, is if you fit the pictures closer together in the galleries, and link them into a larger picture.

Keep up the good work.

Brooke — Tue, 19 Jun 2001 14:44:56 +0000

Regarding site trackers: did you ask your hosting company if they provide any site stats? If they do then it is usually accessed through the web and not a button you place in your page. Just a thought.

Regarding adding an extra link to your page: just make those links a little smaller. I wouldn't worry about them being too small.

That's all. I keep checking back and it's getting better every time!

Brooke
:snow:

Thanks again!

KarenArt — Tue, 19 Jun 2001 01:49:54 +0000

Thanks so much Todd!
I would have responded sooner, but I've spent the last 4 days having all the artists confirm the information on their individual pages.
The show will definately be ready to go "live" on July 1st.

I have been looking around for site trackers, but I completely hate every one I've tried out on my test page.
I think I'll keep looking around for an free invisible tracker that way I can have the stats sent to the groups email address, so only the people interested in the numbers have to look at them.
Well... the search continues.

I've also convinced the group's moderator to write a short "About our group" page covering the group's history, goals, etc. I think I'll put the "Join our group" link there instead of on the links page. I'll be filling the page up with a couple webrings and my Color Pencil banner exchange, so there will be enough on that page.

I know that that will add another link to the home page and I've been trying to find a good way to add another link without making the page look crowded, or making the links look too small.
(I always have to change something just when I get it right)

The only other thing that I know needs to be done is the meta keywords, but I've been putting that off, because I don't want the site to actually be listed in the search engines yet.

Well... I'm off to finish the site (and try to find a July lesson for my Challenge site... yikes)

Thanks again.
This forum is the best!
Karen

PS: I'll put the art in the galleries so you can have a sneak peak, but the only artist page I can link in right now will be my own.

Bravo

tmuncy — Fri, 15 Jun 2001 13:59:36 +0000

Nice, very nice! Has a great look in every resolution I test from 800 wide to 1280 wide. Good choice to be consistent with Yahoo name (regardless of our mutual opinion of the takeover). Home page is very pretty. Let us know when the art content fills in, We'd like to see it.

Since the site is so centered on your Yahoo Group, you might consider adding "join our group" to the primary navigation on each page, rather than only put it on the links page. Speaking of the links page, you use a very similar style to mine of having a small graphic shot on the left and an abstract on the right. I find this much more interesting for the audience than a boring laundry list of text hyperlinks. You may want to add a note to this page encouraging people to email you more colored pencil links they may have found to be included.

Hit counters are not considered very cool, but I understand the group would want one. If you do a search for hit counters, I'm pretty sure you'll find plenty that will do the job. My advice would be to make it very small, possibly low contrast, on the right margin, a couple lines below the rest of the page's bottom border.

I do this on all the pages of my getcleaned.com site, but in the case it's the last rev date of the page instead of a hit counter. It's info I want, but I don't want it obvious that it hasn't been updated in a long time. No one but me even notices that it's there.

You seem to have had the same positive experience designing with forum help that I did. My site evolved quite a distance during the discourse and I ended up with a much improved result, by judiciously incorporating many of the suggestions I received. Great job.

KarenArt — Thu, 14 Jun 2001 11:24:49 +0000

Thanks so much Webmistress!

I realize I need to go through and fix some of the alts (and keywords).
For me that takes the longest time, and I usually save it for last.

I was worried about the look of the text on the home page.
It's incorporated into one picture with the artwork, so I saved the picture as a jpg instead of a gif.
I thought it would be better to have the text slightly off than loose the colors in the artwork.

I'm still not sure if the text will stay or go.

Thanks again. This forum is so helpful.

PS: I have one problem I'm going to have to solve with this site...
Most of the people at the group want some form of tracker(counter) for the site.

I'm on a free server and don't have CGI capability.
(If it doesn't end in .html forget it)
Is there anything out there that I can put on the site that will track stats for free without putting some hideous counter or ad on the page?

I pay for extreme tracking on my pages, but I'm not going to pay to track the group's site.

I do need something that will allow any of the members to check the stats whenever they want.

I appreciate any advice!