mmi — Wed, 19 Dec 2001 16:29:59 +0000

hey Kitten - I agree you might consider changing the background somehow - perhaps a different color or else maybe try to "break it up" somehow - that might help with the "drab" look - for instance, in yer table on the left containing fun, chat, etc., you might want to create some kind of "box effect" with a border that has a different color - I'd say the images themselves are doin' a good job creating a lttle variety as things are now - but that may be at a price, as mentioned above - it looks good, but there may be some way to make it better

SSIs are a relatively simple concept that can be a little tricky to implement - someone mentioned you had a framed page - SSIs work along the same lines: pages within pages - with frames, you create a frameset and write the code for each frame - for SSIs, you create a page like dogs.shtml and then other pages like nav.html or banner.html or footer.html that you display "inside" dogs.shtml with something like'with this setup, if you wanted to alter footer.html somehow, you'd change just that one page - if you had written code for a series of pages containing the "footer info," you'd need to change every one of them - I'm not sure how you could break up yer front page to benefit from this, but maybe the other pages could use it

if you ever come across a little coonhound puppy that needs a friend, lemme know

Kitten — Wed, 19 Dec 2001 14:50:08 +0000

Hi again,
I don't know a thing about Server Side Includes..... well go to Webmonkey now!!
God, this is becoming a nightmare!! This is going to take me weeks to complete!

Megan — Wed, 19 Dec 2001 14:42:27 +0000

Yes, I think it would be a good idea to use a different colour for each section - would contribute to the fun atmosphere of the site.

I also wanted to suggest that you look into using server side includes for your common page elements - it will just make future updates a whole lot easier to implement.

The Webmistress — Wed, 19 Dec 2001 09:29:06 +0000

I agree that you could in this sites case use different colours to represent each section but keeping the general layout the same will keep some uniformity to it. I actually like the blue as I think white would actually make the buttons stand out too much, oh now I'm rambling!!

disaster-master — Wed, 19 Dec 2001 08:56:59 +0000

Hmmm....I would be inclined to say have a different theme for each button and carry that theme to the corresponding page. That will make it fun for the kids in my opinion to have something different on each page. Kids like variety and it takes that to hold their attention. I know that consistency is a good thing in web design but this may be the exception. You could have each page different but still have something that is the same if that makes sense. AHHH...am I rambling?

I was looking at your site earlier and noticed that one of the pages had frames on it. Can't remember which one. I don't think I would use frames.

You most definatly have a lot of work if you have that many pages to edit. I don't envy you.

Also, just a thought here but the more I look at the blue background color the more it looks drab or something. Not sure exactly. Don't get me wrong it isn't bad at all. Just something about it doesn't compliment the colors in the buttons. Have you thought of using a white background since you have so many colors in the buttons?? Might be easier to work with.

Good luck!!! When you are finished i will let my 10 yr. old critique it.

Kitten — Wed, 19 Dec 2001 08:37:39 +0000

Thanks for all your comments.
Mairving, I have only redesigned the home page of the site so far, I haven't started changing all the pages within it yet, because there are literally thousands, it's going to be a nightmare! I guess I should make a start on that before it goes live then - aaaaah. I don't want it to look like a site with hundreds of links to other sites, so I appreciate your opinion. Cheers.
So, do you lot suggest a blue background to all the subpage to create the consistency OR creating the same theme on each subpage as the relevant button. E.g. for the Fun page = have a pink background like the button and the same font used on the button. And so on??
Oh decisions decisions !!!

doggone nice!

mmi — Wed, 19 Dec 2001 06:32:00 +0000

hey Kitten - great site - esp. putting dogs in front of cats!!

the hyperlink form has one more error - you misspelled "value" in the first option tag

the "rules" around the text across the top of the page don't display in Netscape - I'm guessing these boys are doing it

<tr bgcolor="#FBFBBD"> <td colspan="3" height="1"></td>
</tr>
 <tr bgcolor="#FBFBBD"> <td colspan="3" height="1"></td>
</tr>

'try placing a non-breaking space in the TD

arcmax — Wed, 19 Dec 2001 05:40:07 +0000

Nice Site...relaly colorful andattractive. and it download pretty fast. I think this is what i would call an ideal kid site cute grphics givingthta really warm and fuzzy feeling.

Who has done this design?

Apoorva

mairving — Wed, 19 Dec 2001 02:32:16 +0000

Hmmm, funny I didn't really care all that much for the graphics. I think that they look okay but I also think that they there are too many on the page. It makes the page a little busy. The other problem that it presents when you have a home page design like this one is that it is hard to replicate the look on other pages. When I clicked on the link, I thought at first that I was on a different site. I would definitely try to brand my site better by having a consistent look to all the pages. You should have:

A Logo and a navbar on every page.
Better designed pages. I would suggest to take away some of the extreme visual overload of some of the graphics on the home page. I would also suggest to improve/add graphics to the other pages.
Text - Lose that 'hairy' text. It looks bad and is hard to read.

Busy — Tue, 18 Dec 2001 20:25:02 +0000

Loading time with 56k modem isnt to bad, since the buttons are all different its kinda fun to see what is going to display next, if they were all the same I'd say different

your search form at the bottom doesnt work on Netscape4.7, instead of any form all it has is: "Search : Web Audio MP3 News Pictures Video" in text. Looking at your code you dont have any tags, also dont have any thing for it to do, so it wont work in IE either.

the sub directory lines should maybe start with a capital, or listed as a list, at first it looked like one long sentence that was badly aligned, but closer inspection realise its the sections contents.

The font on your "fun page" is hard to read, maybe put a single line font inside the letters to stand out more.

some of your links, like articles should be higher on your list of links.