site review please

Redhousepainter,

I know you made your own template( great job mate! )but have you seen anything (FREE OR CHEAP)around that may do a similar job for me?

Anyone, I installed the photoblog theme but it behaves differently in different browsers, and there is a box with “written on art by Bob that has appeared out of nowhere ( have a look) which I would like to edit, I opened every folder in the theme and couldnt find it, any idea where it may be??
I feel I really need a sidebar and widgets so I think I will keep looking for something like phaushow,redhousepainters site which does it all!I know I said I want to sell my art and indeed that is primary but I would also like a chance to explain the process and the journey .PS I love the “bad painting competition”, sure I could walk away with a prize in that one LOL!

Hi Lee,

A few things…

There are a tone of free templates around. On Phauxshow I uses Mimbo and on another site I have, I used Barecity as I needed something clean and simple. I felt that Phauxshow was getting so involved that I needed something easy on the side.

Before I used Mimbo I used Seashore, which I still love. In fact, anything by Sadish is great.

I just looked at your site again and it really looks good! I love the header and background.

One plugin I would recommend is Sociable. Have a look here to see it in action. I have it set so that the icons only appear if you click on the post – that way you don’t clutter the front page with share/save buttons – as no one will want to save anything that haven’t ready or seen fully.

LOL!you have solved a puzzle for me, yesterday I went thru to my site and the photoblog theme looked awful but today it looks fine, but yesterday I went in on firefox and today on IExplorer is it possible that this is why it looked all jumbled up??

I’m having trouble understanding exactly what you’re saying… but I think you are saying that you were wondering why the site looked screwed up when you happened to look at it in IE and Firefox.

What browser are you normally viewing the site in?

Regardless, if you changing a theme or developing your own, you MUST test it in the big three (actually four — you should test for IE6 as well, because it is still in wide use) browsers I mentioned above. Even in this era of “web standards,” browsers have individual quirks and will render CSS differently. Sometimes the differences are small enough to ignore, but sometimes they completely mess up the look of your site.

I’m guessing that you are a Mac user, and probably use Safari, but you should remember that Safari is still a fairly small percentage of the browser market. Most people are using IE7, and an awful lot are using IE6 (which is very buggy, and usually presents the most difficulties). Firefox has the next largest share (roughly 15%), followed by Safari and then other browsers.

If you don’t design for users of IE, you are cutting out the bulk of your visitors.

Strange,
So sorry to confuse you, what I was saying is I use IE and it looks fine but I recently downloaded and installed firefox and when I looked at it using firefox the pages intruded into the header template and some of my images were all squashed up.
No I am not using Mac.
Is it possible to test a theme without downloading and installing all four browsers?
Lee

Redhousepainter,
Thanks for taking the time to go back through to the site and thanks also for the link to Sociable, I thought those save boxes were awfully messy myself but didnt know how to get rid of them,now I do. I went through to the links you provided and see you are a absolute goldmine of information so I have linked myself your site so I can go back and have a good look around for other bits of useful tidbits.
I should have known I would put too much in my wedsite, I put too much in my garden, too much in my paintings and you should try my stew,LOL! I should be on the look out for that particular character quirk constantly.
Problem is I just dont see it until someone points it out to me.
Thanks again!

Is it possible to test a theme without downloading and installing all four browsers?

There are some services on the web where they post an image of how your site renders in various browsers.

But since (it seems) you are using a PC, I advise downloading and testing in all 4 browsers I mention. You can get them all for free — Safari is now available for PC. If you have IE7 and you are looking for IE6, google for “standalone IE6” or variations of that. There are standalone versions of IE6 that people use specifically for testing. And as I said above, IE6 is most likely to have problems and quirks.

Design your pages for Firefox. It is mostly standard compliant, and if it works well in Firefox, it will probably work well in Safari and IE7, or at least have only minor tweaks you’ll have to make.

When it works well in those 3, test in IE6. You’ll have to address any problems you find without messing up how the site renders in the first 3.

This is the life of a web designer. More man-hours are put in making sure things work in all three browsers than virtually any other activity.

Now you know why web designers are so fanatical about consistent standards across browsers…

Hello People,
Me again!
I have completely changed it all , including removing the “photoblog” theme, that I loved, because it wouldnt show properly in firefox, and I have opened it up to comments. If you think I have crowded it up again and taken the focus OFF the paintings please be straight with me, I would appreciate feeback.
Lee

Redhouse painter,
I have Zenphoto all up and working, just need help to integrate it with my wp. Which plugins do I need I see there are a couple and do I have to change any php’s.
Lee
Please answer as if I were a 3yr old because I know nothing about this stuff LOL!
Thanks so much for all your time and advice!

Hey Lee,

Sorry about the late reply! Regarding zenphoto – you don’t need to integrate the databases at all. All you need a link to it from your main site. I created a page for myself and linked to it that way…

If you tell me where the zenphoto folder is in your directory and what it is called I’ll tell you what to do. You can email me if you like.

If you put the zenphoto folder inside your wordpress folder you might want to try creating a page on your site with the title of your wordpress folder.

Okay, never mind I found it. Just create a page called ‘zenphoto’. If it doesn’t work you will most likely have to change your permalinks structure. Try it first and let me know.

P

Everything looks fine, its just not everything suits everything else.

I have read a lot of design books and the one I keep going back to is by Robin Williams, the non designers design book. Its a great book to focus ideas. Don’t let the title fool you, it hits on all the concepts really well. Very short and easy to read. Thats where I would start.

Also, great way to get people to visit your site, post it here ??

The black, the background,very overwhelming. Sorry.

Hi…
My two cents is that I like your overall look, but I believe you would be much better served with only one sidebar. With your main content in the middle and a sidebar on each side, you don’t have enough width anywhere. When I tried to read the content on the right side, it hurt my brain to see the huge spacing and few words on a line. One sentence can take 4 or 5 inches to display. If you dropped one sidebar and used more width for your content, I think the look would be much more pleasing…

Not sure if this is a live thread – have not read all comments (sorry!)… But I did have a quick look at site…

I basically agree with Bob Horn largely to try to summarise:-

– lose the “about the artist” Cluttering the right side and anyone wanting it goes to the About link

– lose the left hand links bar – you have drop downs at the top and they can cover it.

– Tidy up your banner and the drop downs

These are the main things I think anyone would notice. More generally if your focus is art then you need to SERIOUSLY declutter to make that the focus…. the fiddly stuff can be elsewhere.

If site TRAFFIC is your main concern that is a whole other subject and totally irrelevant here.