Looking For Ways To Improve

Sphere11 · 12:18 AM

Please take a second and peruse through my company's website. All comments and suggestions into making the website better are welcome.

Hurricane Productions

Shadow2531 · 02:38 AM

Looks alright and works.

A few concerns (using your home.html as an example)

First, it's nice that you offer dialup and brodband versions, but once you choose, having another page where you have to click enter just to get to the main page is annoying.

The marquee is very annoying.

I don't care for the menu colors.

Those are little things.

More serious things that might give you trouble down the road that you can worry about when you have time and the knowledge.

1.) You do not have a doctype specified in your code. The lack of one causes browsers to use quirks mode (non-standards mode). Not having a doctype could cause your site to look differently across browsers. If that happens, you'll be kicking yourself trying to make things look the same across browsers because each browsers quirks mode is different.

doctypes that you can use

Once you pick a doctype, you need to make sure you conform to that doctype. Check your page at http://validator.w3.org

Your document looks closest to html 4.01 transitional, bur html is getting old and XHTML 1.0 strict would be more modern.

Also, you'll need to use css to style your document. Search google for learning css.

simple templates

2.) You do not explicitly set the body's margin and padding. Not all browsers have the same default margin and padding for the body, so you need to set them both to what you want, so the margins are the same across browsers.

3.) The object tag is incomplete and incorrect.

The codebase attribute for the object tag is for setting a base URI that is used for resolving relative URIs in the data and classid attributes. It is *not* for specifying flash versions so IE knows when to download a new version of flash.

The type attribute is missing. type="application/x-shockwave-flash". Only IE uses the activeX value in the classid attribute to know that it is flash.

The data attribute is missing. Opera and IE use the src/movie param to know what file to load. Opera can also use the data attribute. Firefox needs the data attribute to load the file for the object tag.

Be careful when using the wmode param. It can cause display problems. If you don't actually need to do anything with transperency, don't use it.

You should give each object tag its own id. That way, if there is a problem with the loading of the flash and visitors can't get anyone to fix it, they can fix it theirselves.

Use alternate content to show how to get the flash plugin.

The way you have things now, you cause Firefox and Opera to ignore the object tag and use the embed tag instead.

4.) The embed tag is not defined in any standard doctype and should be avoided whenever possible. If you use the object tag properly, you don't need the embed tag. (Myspace.com does this and purposely puts a different value in the embed src so things don't work in Opera)

Here's an example of how to get things working across browsers with the object tag.

HTML Code:

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en-us" xml:lang="en-us" id="www-hurricaneproductions-net-home-html"> <head> <title>example</title> <meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html;charset=utf-8" /> <style type="text/css">
            html {
                color: #000;
                background-color: #fff;
                font-size: 1em;
            }
            body {
                margin: 0;
                padding: 8px;
            }
        </style> </head> <body> <div> <object id="hp-banner" data="http://www.hurricaneproductions.net/HP-Scroll-Nav-blackback3.swf" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="700px" height="200px"> <param name="src" value="http://www.hurricaneproductions.net/HP-Scroll-Nav-blackback3.swf" valuetype="ref" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" /> <param name="menu" value="false" /> <param name="quality" value="high" /> <param name="bgcolor" value="#000000" /> <div><strong>Error:</strong> Embedding <a href="http://www.hurricaneproductions.net/HP-Scroll-Nav-blakback3.swf">HP-Scroll-Nav-blakback3.swf</a> with the <a href="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer/">Macromedia Flash Plugin</a> failed.</div> </object> <object id="hp-menu" data="http://www.hurricaneproductions.net/HP-NewNavigation.swf" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="140px" height="470px"> <param name="src" value="http://www.hurricaneproductions.net/HP-NewNavigation.swf" valuetype="ref" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" /> <param name="menu" value="false" /> <param name="quality" value="high" /> <param name="bgcolor" value="#000000" /> <param name="bgcolor" value="#4E5353" /> <param name="_cx" value="18521" /> <param name="_cy" value="5292" /> <param name="FlashVars" value="" /> <param name="Play" value="0" /> <param name="Loop" value="-1" /> <param name="SAlign" value="" /> <param name="Base" value="" /> <param name="AllowScriptAccess" value="always" /> <param name="Scale" value="ShowAll" /> <param name="DeviceFont" value="0" /> <param name="EmbedMovie" value="0" /> <param name="SWRemote" value="" /> <param name="MovieData" value="" /> <param name="SeamlessTabbing" value="1" /> <div><strong>Error:</strong> Embedding <a href="http://www.hurricaneproductions.net/HP-NewNavigation.swf">HP-Scroll-Nav-blakback3.swf</a> with the <a href="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer/">Macromedia Flash Plugin</a> failed.</div> </object> </div> </body> </html>

5.) There is no css-signature on the body tag (and the html tag if using xhtml 1.0 strict). The id attribute for the html tag in the example above will give you an idea of how you set one up. This allows people to use user stylesheets to tweak the page to their liking and also fix problems that may arise. For example, the font-size might be too small for someone or the background is too dark etc.

6.) Although there is a contact email address, for a company site like that, a specific webmaster email address would help. (One where someone will actually respond)

7.) I didn't see any alternate text specified for images for when you have images turned off in your browser or they don't load. (alt="alternate text")

Sphere11 · 12:51 PM

Thanks for the reply shadow.

I will make some revisions and look more into making the website easier to read on a broader range of browsers.

I changed the flash coding on the homepage, let me know if it's done correctly.

namenotfound · 07-Jun-2005, 04:09 PM #4

I find that the Flash intro on this page: http://www.hurricaneproductions.net/high-speed-home.htm to be most annoying indeed.
And as a general rule, any webpage that forces music to come out of the users' speakers without warning will be considered annoying my most people.

iOXeR · 07-Jun-2005, 09:58 PM #5

Like Shadow2531 said, I would recommend using css more, especially for the navigation on the side. I believe that is entirely possible with css; correct me if I'm wrong. My number one suggestion would be to stay away from flash unless you absolutely need it for something. The files are usually large and can be replaced by smaller things. That's just my opinion though.

Shadow2531 · 07-Jun-2005, 11:27 PM #6

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sphere11

Thanks for the reply shadow.

I will make some revisions and look more into making the website easier to read on a broader range of browsers.

I changed the flash coding on the homepage, let me know if it's done correctly.

It's loading great Win32 versions of Firefox and other gecko-based browsers, Opera and IE. Someone needs to check it in safari, konqueror, Omniweb, and mac/linux/freebsd versions of gecko-based browsers and Opera.

Sphere11 · 08-Jun-2005, 12:05 AM #7

Quote:

Originally Posted by iOXeR

Like Shadow2531 said, I would recommend using css more, especially for the navigation on the side. I believe that is entirely possible with css; correct me if I'm wrong. My number one suggestion would be to stay away from flash unless you absolutely need it for something. The files are usually large and can be replaced by smaller things. That's just my opinion though.

Well I can make a 200x500 flash app and have it in vivid, smooth color and it be under 10 kb. Its just when you start adding music and pictures do the file sizes get larger.

If I can find a CSS script the allows me to slide a sub-menu down or even pop-down, I will definitely implement it into my site, I would rather not use flash for the navi. Thanks for all your inputs.

Shadow2531 · 12:58 AM

There are css only menus that you can use/make, but they will only work in modern browsers. They won't work in IE6 for example.

You can use javascript menus so things also work in IE.

It is better to make your own as test along the way, but if you use some else's menu script, make sure it works in all modern browsers. For example, many menu scripts use browser detection incorrectly, which causes things not to work in some browsers.

For example, you can find menus at www.dynamicdrive.com . If it doesn't say it works in Opera, then you definitely don't want to use it, but if it does, you definitely need to test it first. Each menu has a demo.

However, keep the flash menu if you want and have a regular html menu to fallback on if the flash ojbect doesn't load or the person has flash turned of.

Sequal7 · 08-Jun-2005, 01:04 AM #9

Hey

I like the site, and I disagree with the flash comments posted earlier.
Flash is a highly effective media, if used correctly. If you use actionscrpting the files load quickly, also you can call outside elements such as mp3's and jpegs to make the movie load faster.

I think your buttons need work however, they have no correlation to your sites content or design, they dont look like they belong.

Heres a good example of flash, check out this movie, it will amaze you if you actually follow it.

http://www.sithsense.com/flash.htm

Sphere11 · 08-Jun-2005, 11:30 AM **#10**

I appreciate the flash support

I love flash.

How could I make the buttons more fitting to the site? They follow the same color scheme.. Not like I have a black and white site with a rainbow set of buttons

Rockn · 08-Jun-2005, 01:30 PM **#11**

Not sure how green buttons fir into the "color scheme" of your web site since there is mostly different shades of grey on it. I aggree the navigation buttons are a distraction. A flash nav bar would be better looking and wouldn't add a whole lot to download times if you pre-load them. The Lionel Ritchie song has to go!!

Sphere11 · 08-Jun-2005, 02:33 PM **#12**

Green ey... damnit - curse this color blindness. Certain shades of green look grey to me.

I've had good and bad feedback on that intro.

Sequal7 · 09-Jun-2005, 12:16 AM **#13**

Perhaps the buttons could more reflect the black or gray on mouseover instead of the layered white, or the tops of the buttons could fade from green to black then mouseover opposite?

They just look too carribean to me. True, they may be the same color as your site mostly, but their mosueover effect looks out of place due to the white and broken image tops. I agree that flash navigation would ick on your site, and also that Lionel has to go too....

Rockn · 09-Jun-2005, 10:41 AM **#14**

SQL...you realize this is Jersey we are talking about here? They still have sweet 16 parties for girls and the guys still wear the polyester leasiure suits and shrts with the butterfly collars. Stayin' alive baby!!

Sequal7 · 09-Jun-2005, 06:18 PM **#15**

LOL, no actually I didnt realize the Jersey connection was so strong.

Kinda like the mosh pits in Seattle I guess with Nirvana.

Cheers!

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