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Need Some Opinions

landbeforetimelover

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While I was sick I made and am now hosting a new Silverline Productions website.  The problem?  I can't decide which design I like best!  I think I'm just going a little crazy with this so I'd like an unbiased opinion on this matter.  Honestly, what design looks better?

Design 1

Design 2

I tried to make the thing using nothing but HTML but alas, it's been so long I can no longer make advanced websites without the assistance of the dreaded CSS. :(


EDIT:  I have done some MAJOR design changes so if you looked before, look again and tell me what you think of the new design:

Click Here To View The Website


Malte279

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I would prefer Design 1 with the script background that differs more distinctly from the general background; but perhaps it is just my general liking for the color green ;)


Noname

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They are almost the same... but the second one looks very marginally better than the first one, in my humble opinion.


landbeforetimelover

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Well it was supposed to look sort of mid-evil like but it ended up looking like a cross between mid-evil/modern/natural/new age/mystical.  Things NEVER work out the way I expect them to when I build a website from scratch. :(  I think it has something to do with the way I see colors or something.  I think a website I made is terrible and others really like it.  Building a website is like creating a piece of art and I'm never really proud of my web designing abilities.


Malte279

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Maybe you can find a background that looks like parchment? Some script lines that look like it was written with a feather and some seal in a corner? All this might contribute to a medieval look.


Manny Cav

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The second design looks like it's missing a background in the main section, just using the main background floating around. The first design has a decent background. The first design looks more complete to me, so that's where I'm casting my [theoretical] vote.

And as far as CSS goes--it's a lifesaver, at least for me. I'll use my website at http://www.chexquest.org/chexquestgallery/ as an example. I made the CSS and HTML myself. I used a CSS stylesheet to style all pages. Now, if I didn't use a stylesheet, but just tried to shoe in everything, do you know what would happen if I, say, wanted to change the text from green to yellow, or the font from Arial Black to, say, Impact? Yeah, I'd have to go through every single page and alter a bunch of stuff in every page. The work would be even worse for a larger website. But with CSS, I can alter a single line of text in only one file, and BAM, all text cross my website can be transformed by that single line. Trust me, CSS is the best thing since the HyperText Markup Language was created. ;)


Serris

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Yeah CSS is a pain to deal with initially but once you get used to it or use Dreamweaver...it's very useful.

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landbeforetimelover

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Sorry but life was great before CSS.  You could do almost anything with just straight HTML.  CSS is great for small crap sites with nothing to them, but if you want to build something big it's best to use a minimal amount of CSS.  CSS was perfect for this small website because it's not on a large scale....but if I were to remake the LBT Funsite it would be almost entirely in HTML.  Sure you have to edit more when you use just HTML, but it's foolproof to all browsers and you don't have to worry about having your code spread across several documents for a single page.

Adam coded the LBT Archive in straight HTML.  No CSS is included in there.  It looks pretty darn good doesn't it?  Now just imagine how good of a website a pro can make (no offense Petrie.  You and I just aren't pro material.).

Once CSS3 is supported in all browsers things will be different.  CSS will be able to do things that HTML just can't do.  But until then, HTML is still king on the turf. :p


Manny Cav

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I honestly don't know of any web browsers that don't support CSS in the fist place (unless they're some small phone browsers or whatever), but whatever. I guess we view the web through two very different set of eyes. I'd rather not have to edit a bunch of files for one small thing, while you'd rather not have two files make up one page. It's only one additional file for an entire website in my case, but meh. :p


Petrie.

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#2 has colors that work together better than number 1's.

Quote
Adam coded the LBT Archive in straight HTML. No CSS is included in there. It looks pretty darn good doesn't it? Now just imagine how good of a website a pro can make (no offense Petrie. You and I just aren't pro material.).

Hardly offended at all.  Older versions of my LBT site were created from scratch with no funky programs to help out. :o  I had help with what you see there, but I can't do anything but HTML.


landbeforetimelover

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Quote
I honestly don't know of any web browsers that don't support CSS in the fist place

No.  CSS3.  CSS and CSS2 are fully supported by today's browsers, but CSS3 isn't planned to be fully supported until 2011 and even then it's sketchy.  CSS3 has some great stuff such as border image backgrounds and the ability to stretch a background to fit the screen depending on the users screen resolution (god that'd help here :p )  I personally can't wait.

As for HTML it's stable, you don't have to worry about compatibility, you don't get confused when you try to do something and it doesn't work :bang , it's a heck of a lot cleaner, when you want to edit something you don't have to go scrolling around and looking for CSS elements, it loads faster than CSS, you don't need a server to host external style sheets, and almost anyone can edit it.  CSS just isn't there yet.  I look forward to 2011 when I can throw it all away and embrace CSS, but until then I'll have to stick with my good 'ol HTML.

It also might depend on how fast you can type HTML elements.  I've been making web pages since I was 7 years old so I have all the keys memorized and the commands are quickly in view.  When you want to center something in CSS, you have to create a DIV or associate the element with a class then go make tags in your freaking style sheet and finally choose one of six ways to center the darned thing.  In HTML all you do is make little <center></center> tags and you're done.  Sure if you're going to make all the pages virtually identical it's better to just use CSS, but if you're going to make a real website that's interesting and not a snore it's faster and more efficient to use straight HTML.

I for one don't use Dreamweaver or any other assistant program.  I coded this entire website from scratch in Notepad.  You can't rely on programs like that because one day you're not going to have them and you're going to be faced with an emergency.  What do you plan to do then?  It's best to learn how to do most of the computers work yourself and become proficient at it so when the time comes you can do it yourself.  Besides......if I need to code something in an emergency I can do it on ANY computer whether it be a PC or a Mac or even a Windows 95 computer.  

In my opinion, if you're using Dreamweaver or any other assistant program you've slapped the training wheels back on.  You're not always going to have those training wheels though and what are you going to do then when you need to get somewhere fast but you can't ride your bike 'cuz you don't know how to ride it without your training wheels?  Besides.....once you go learning it all by scratch you'll figure out that all that time you spent trying to cheat using assistant programs was just a waste.  With only a bit more effort you could have done the work yourself and not had to rely on any stupid program for what you need.


Serris

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Quote from: landbeforetimelover,Jun 8 2009 on  05:08 PM
In my opinion, if you're using Dreamweaver or any other assistant program you've slapped the training wheels back on.  You're not always going to have those training wheels though and what are you going to do then when you need to get somewhere fast but you can't ride your bike 'cuz you don't know how to ride it without your training wheels?  Besides.....once you go learning it all by scratch you'll figure out that all that time you spent trying to cheat using assistant programs was just a waste.  With only a bit more effort you could have done the work yourself and not had to rely on any stupid program for what you need.
I do in fact know how to do some HTML but Dreamweaver allows for much higher speed and I am fairly prone to making errors in coding and Dreamweaver allows me to correct said errors. Besides I am quite new to webdesign but Dreamweaver allows me to still turn out some very nice material (Photoshop, I mostly taught that to myself).

Oh and my Web Design course teacher, who did (and still does) web design for a living uses Dreamweaver heavily. He claims it is much faster than using Notepad.

But to each their own.

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landbeforetimelover

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Well I'm personally faster without any help.  When I was forced to take web design two years ago (it was a required course), my teacher made me use Dreamweaver.  Of course when he wasn't looking I just coded it all manually in Notepad.  I got done way before everyone else and passed the class with a 102%.  At the end of the year when I told him that I never actually used Dreamweaver to create any of my projects, he didn't believe me. :lol

It is true that most people can code faster using Dreamweaver and let the computer do 80% of the work for them, but that's not necessarily a good thing.  It's like copying off the smart kids homework.  That won't help you one bit on the test.  The world of computers isn't going to advance if the computers do all the thinking for us.  They're smart and quick, but they can't invent anything.


landbeforetimelover

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Back to the subject at hand, I've made some MAJOR design changes.  What do you guys think of the new look?

www.lbtserver.2myip.net/silverlineproductions/website



Malte279

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If a lot of text is to be read maybe the color contrast should be a bit sharper than it is now.


Petrie.

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landbeforetimelover

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The contrast eh Malte?  I really can't tell with these things because I don't own any......well I don't want to sound conceited or a brat but I don't buy "normal" quality things anymore (including monitors).  I don't even own any CRT's and all the monitors I do own are of such good quality I can't really know what stuff looks like on normal monitors.  And for those of you who don't think there's that much difference, there is.  I can't believe I used to buy monitors with an 800:1 contrast ratio.

Increasing the contrast of the text is an issue though.  You can't make subtle changes to the text in some cases because the color is a color "code".  I got the code from here.  What color would you suggest Malte?  There aren't many to choose from.....

http://www.computerhope.com/htmcolor.htm