Please Critique my Photo Webpage

[Over Achiever]

Hey everyone,

Just seeing if my integration of a photo viewer (Simple Viewer) into an iWeb template turns out ok, and comments on the overall look of the page. Is there problems with loading the page? Loading pictures? Misaligned objects? Unreadable fonts? If so, please comment below with your browser and OS.

Feel free to comment on the overall look of the page (links are broken as this is just a test page), and photos if you so wish. I want your comments!

Test Page:
http://umn.edu/~pham0106/temp/Tent City/Test.html
(flash gallery updated to remove dead space and adding right-click option)

Original Website (if you want to look at it, hasn't been updated in months):
http://umn.edu/~pham0106

Thanks!
OA

 

[mnkeybsness]

Greetings fellow UofMer... well, not really since I graduated...

As for the gallery, there seems to be a lot of white space above and below the photo, which I don't really like. Other than that, I don't think I'll get into my contempt for flash-based photo galleries. Looks good though!

 

[Over Achiever]

Greetings fellow UofMer... well, not really since I graduated...

Hello, I am also a Gopher alumni =) I was there from 97-06, so there's a good chance I bumped into you at some point.

I was trying something new with the flash based gallery, as I really didn't like how the iWeb photo pages were set up. The space above and below the picture bothers me as well, but is apparently due to the vertical pictures. I don't know how to adjust it so that the vertical pictures are a little shorter so the space goes away.

Just curious, what are your complaints on flash-based galleries? Just so I have a feel for what people will dislike about it. I didn't know of any other quick ways to have a row of scrollable thumbnails and one large picture.

Cheers,
OA

 

[ozontheroad]

Hi OverA

just checked out your page and it looks nice. (works just fine)

However I agree with mnkeybsness on the empty space issue at the top and bottom of the photos.

The original page works fine.

The tabbed links on the test page do not work.

10.4.8 - Safari

 

[gekko513]

I like it. It loads well, and it works as I'd expect. It's functional and not too complicated, and doesn't get in your face with the technology. The look is ok in my opinion. I didn't get much from the pictures, but that's probably since I don't have any involvment at all with the case.

The empty space is there to allow for the "standing pictures" to be viewed at the same size, right?

 

[mnkeybsness]

Just curious, what are your complaints on flash-based galleries? Just so I have a feel for what people will dislike about it. I didn't know of any other quick ways to have a row of scrollable thumbnails and one large picture.

Well my main complaint is that it is in no way search engine optimized, one will never be able to find the images through a search.

For an example of scrollable thumbnails and a large picture, I did exactly that for my portfolio just recently (/shameless plug).

 

[Over Achiever]

The empty space is there to allow for the "standing pictures" to be viewed at the same size, right?

Right, I'm still trying to figure out how to adjust the standing pictures so that the vertical the same, that way the spaces will be adjusted accordingly. I'll had to ask around on the simple viewer forums.

Well my main complaint is that it is in no way search engine optimized, one will never be able to find the images through a search.

For an example of scrollable thumbnails and a large picture, I did exactly that for my portfolio just recently (/shameless plug).

That's a good point. I suppose I'm not too worried about search engines as I'm just "presenting" the photos.

I like what you've done, I'll have to figure out how to do that now. So you designed webpages for Coffman/The Whole? Very nice =)

 

[Over Achiever]

I've been able to remove the dead space above and below the pictures and enabled right-click to view original images. I think it looks a bit better now =) Thanks for all the comments so far!

 

[needlnerdz]

image browser loaded well for me.. my only frustration was that if i decided that I didnt want to view any of the current thumbnails in frame and scrolled on.. i i would have to wait for it to catch up to where i went to load those thumbnails.. - though you can click on the image and it quickly tries to load just that image, it would be most awesome if it would stop what its doing.. and start cache'ing or downloading the thumbnails currently visible (so if you click to scroll to the right, it stops loading what it was doing.. and starts where you are now.. this may hve just been really redundent, but thought i'd reclarify)- though it sounds like this was a flash template.. so im not sure how comfortable you are with actionscript to try making something like that- but it would be most awesome if it worked. - i myself cant do it.. so its much easier to stand back and say 'oh yeah.. it should be like that...'

on a side note - a habit that you HAVE to end .. right.. now.. is having any spaces in your file names or directories... "Tent%20City/" - if you want to tell someone 'hey check out my websites pictures.. its just blahblah.com slash (uppercase T) in tent %20 (uppercase C) in city dot html..." - since files and directories are both case sensative and space sensitive.. you must stop what yourdoing and follow the following rules.. you will thankyourself sooo much down the line in strange issues and time for coding links and such:

-NEVER use spaces.. rather use an underscore_to_seperate_words
-NEVER use uppercase for filenames or dir's, again.. because of the case sensative thing

and thats the end of my rant.. dont mean to preach, just from personal experience and slowly learning the ways.. its a practice you need to adopt.

cheers

 

[Over Achiever]

-NEVER use spaces.. rather use an underscore_to_seperate_words
-NEVER use uppercase for filenames or dir's, again.. because of the case sensative thing
cheers

Hey there,

Those are very good rules, and I am definitely going to make sure I follow them. The Tent%20City was because I directly uploaded the folder from my computer and I didn't really give it much of a second thought. (It's a temporary page) When the page gets integrated with the site I will definitely change it to tentcity06 or use underscores. As for the current site directory, the pages were templated in iWeb, which breaks those rules. I'll go through and change it all.

As for the image browser, yes it is a template, so it does have it's limitations. I did not realize how it was loading the thumbnails, thank you for bringing that to my attention.

Thanks for the comments!
OA