DolanHost — Thu, 11 Oct 2001 17:42:06 +0000

Well what could go in place of the i frame?

Megan — Thu, 11 Oct 2001 17:39:39 +0000

Eeek. I tend to think that this is worse than the old one although I don't completely remember what that one was like. You need to be more consistent with your use of colours first of all. Just take the orange from the logo at the top - right now there's three different shades on here and that's a problem (oops - this has already been pointed out). I also think that the font is rather inappropriate - it looks kind of halloweeen-ish, especially combined with the orange and black colour scheme.

You also still need some sort of photo on the front page of a player or game scene to make it obvious what the site is about, and the layout is still a problem as well. Too many ads at the bottom and that i-frame really isn't working well.

DolanHost — Thu, 11 Oct 2001 17:30:02 +0000

The banners are traffic exchanges and I am narrowing them down to one.

I am looking for a free host with minimal ads as ad free hosts tend to go out of buisness.

What I have saw is ad free hosting if I have a domain, so i am going to purchase a domain and move there. No ads except the occasional banner on my site.

I will tidy up the oranges so that they are the same.

As for the news I need to keep the frame as it is a remotely hosted script and it cannot be embeded into my page.

The scrolling text will be removed.

Plus the directory is dmoz but you can cuztomize it to look like your pages and that is to be moved from the main page to the links section very soon.

Frames? could someone care to explain, i thougt a frames were different pages then put together to make one page.

I have one I-Frame for the news and the rest is all tables. Am I missing something.

The Webmistress — Thu, 11 Oct 2001 16:49:11 +0000

Well first thing is you definitely need to change hosts! I don't use free ones so can't help you with that one.

The site :

I get a horizontal scroll bar at 800*600

Do you really need all those banners??? They really cheapen the site I think. Don't keep them unless they make you lots of money!

The font you have chosen for the graphics is very hard to read, especially the top logo part & the badge looks awful - all jaggedy. I'd rethink that complete top part as it just doesn't do anything for me with the orange on white then on a black background!!

The middle frame bit with the news bugs me - too much scrolling required. I would just have the days top headlines as links to the full stories opening on separate pages and an archieve of previous days stories.

The two oranges (graphics & heading backgrounds) should be the same and they should be the same colour as the orange in the badge. I'm not overly struck on the colours but I understand that you are stuck with them!

I also don't like the scrolling text, very tacky.

The 'Search Our Directory' is very misleading as it isn't part of this site and looks to be DMOZ??? As everything open up within your frame set (why are you using frames???) you don't even get to see the address in the browser address bar!

Keep going

DolanHost — Thu, 11 Oct 2001 16:28:12 +0000

Right i would again like to thank the people that have cared to reply to this post.

I have now made some more changes.

I have toned down the tangerine a little bit.

As for the name that is what the site is known as and that is not going to change. This is the nickname of the club. But to improve that the page title is now Arabs Online- Dundee United On The Net.

Please take a look and tell me what you think.

dufc.cjb.net

Also could someone please suggest a reliable ad free (or minimal) web host. As the host that I am with has been experimenting with pop up and i dont know what he is going to stay with.

MarcD — Thu, 11 Oct 2001 06:56:04 +0000

pop on page load, =(

and then when i left it opened a gator.com page that i couldnt close or resize tried to set a ton of cookies and then opened a do you want to install this program

id definetaly get rid of that or if its the host look at a diff host that doesnt do that.

Annette35 — Thu, 11 Oct 2001 00:45:07 +0000

For a graphics program try the free trial CompactDraw or Real-DRAW Pro at http://www.mediachance.com/. I haven't tried the other programs at MediaChance but there is a photo editing one too.

Or Paint Shop Pro as already recommended. The free version 3 program is hard to find these days. If anyone has a working link can you please post it?

Cheers,

Annette

DolanHost — Fri, 05 Oct 2001 14:20:21 +0000

Okay thanks very much for alll the help everyone.

The colours I suppose could be toned down a little bit and a better name added.

I will do this soon.

Megan — Mon, 01 Oct 2001 17:45:08 +0000

ALright, now for an actual site review! The first thing I'm confused about is your site title. "Arabs Online" - yet this is a site about the Dundee United Football Club? I'm confused. The site title could be very misleading to people so you should rethink that.

I'm finding the red/orange colour here to be a little on the bright side. Try to tone it down just a little. In a lot of these pictures the uniforms look more orange... okay, if you go to their offficial site the logo is there. Grab the colour from that crest. This will be easy once you get a graphics program.

I would also suggest putting a photo of a player or a game scene on the front page - maybe instead of the crowd photo at the top left. This do more to make the site topic readily obvious to visitors.

I agree that the logo needs to be improved. Try printing the site title in a more unique font, maybe overlapping the photo a little bit if you can. I can think of some cool photoshop effects with layers and masks that would look really cool but I guess you have to stick to with the tools you have to work with.

The left sidebar also needs help. Put some padding in that table cell so the text isn't butting right up against the left edge. There are also too many options on that menu. Try breaking them up into related chunks. YOu may wish to separate it into static content (photo galleries, statistics, history etc.), interactive content (mobile madness, poll, downloads, travel info, guestbook), and site info (contact us etc. which is already separated). That might make it easier to use. Also move your 'latest news' right to the front page - there's really not a whole lot of interesting info on the front page as it is, and I imagine most of your regular visitors will be looking for the news right away. And get rid of the i-frame on the news page while you're at it.

Another problem with that left sidebar is the e-mail boxes down at the bottom. Regular visitors who come to check their e-mail are going to be annoyed about having to scroll to find the login form. Move that up to the empty red area in the top right corner.

Why is this site breaking my back button? That's really annoying. Get rid of the frames... I can't even see them anyway so I'm wondering why you've used them.

Another graphics package you might want to check out is Macromedia's Fireworks. It doesn't have the fancy photo altering capabilities that PSP and Photoshop have, but it was created for making web graphics. Try downloading trial versions to see which one you like best.

If you're wondering where the discussion between Busy and myself about PS vs. PSP went it will reappear in the graphics & design forum soon.

TheGizmoid — Mon, 01 Oct 2001 06:58:43 +0000

http://www.irfanview.com/