Upgrades to the CargoShip

[Menard]

I can just hear the cheers now:




Uh...that wasn't exactly what I meant.


I started a new thread to get some feedback on the updates rather than keep resurrecting the old thread.


The CargoShip is now up and running at http://starhatch.com

I had already mentioned in the other thread about finally fixing the menu on mouse overs.

I have now changed the links section, on the left hand side, to a features section which contains snippets of text form articles and reviews. I'm using the same mouse overs for those as well. Is it a bit too much having the mouse overs on both sides of the template?

One of the things I am wanting to do with the template is to get it to stretch to fit vertically. I already have that horizontally, and that works fine, but stretching it vertically seems to be more susceptible to browser differences, plus the iframe collapses if I set it as a percentage in height, rather than fixed. I would eventually like to fit the template to the browser window; which means the links and award at the bottom will go away.

Any suggestions?

[Menard]

I have been tweaking some things to see how they look.

If you click on the reviews tab in the menu, you'll see that I have changed the gray background to a blue background; just for this one page to see how it looks.

Too much blue?

I'm trying to move away from the gray background and defaulting to times new roman fonts on so many pages. I'm going to be changing the font to verdana as it just looks less dated. I have done this with two new reviews I have added to the site tonight; which are Too Late The Hero and Vanishing Point.

I am also putting in 'no robots' tags and text to close backdoors to the site via search engines.

[Andy]

I think the Shout Box is good but the rest of the home page sections need to be redesigned IMO.

For example, it looks like a spreadsheet with bad contrast between background and text. Plus you don't have any good-looking images to blend in with the site such as smiley people or buildings/nature etc. To complement the Cargo Ship concept, I think you should at least incorporate an ocean-going cargo ship or space craft into the theme. Actually, I have some photos of cargo ships that I took whilst fishing that you may be interested to use!

[Queen Bee]

If you made the following adjustments, I think your site would look a whole lot better:

- Reduce the amount of colours in your theme to 3-5. At the moment you have more than 10. Concerning your topic question, there is not too much blue-- just too many different types of blue. The shoutbox has the most attractive colours in my opinion.

- Replace the logo/header graphic with a higher quality image and move the "wormhole" redirect to another area of the site (perhaps on the top left side where the bright blue checkers are located).

I will comment more later... I have to go to work.

[Menard]

I have cleaned up the front page a bit.

The scrollbars, in IE, now match across the page; keep in mind, that's only when the homepage is loaded as I'll have to replace the css in each page for the main window scrollbar.

I need to get a new graphic for the top and bottom bar. That is actually a graphic, but it just looks gray.

The wormhole is fine where it is. The checkerboard is just a placeholder I have yet to replace. I was trying to find something that looked like a small star chart, like a display for a starship, to put there.

I'm planning, so far, to remove everything from the rocket boosters and below and trying to get the site to stretch to fit a browser window, width and height.

I have also changed the text color in the text box in the upper right corner. I was originally trying to make it less obvious; it's just a hugely overextended paragraph to which I add keywords as I add content to the site.

I have not used a logo on the site since the first prototype; it was the most hated part of the site among those who originally reviewed the site. Since then, I just decided not to use a logo.

You can see it in the original prototype: http://starhatch.com/originalprototype.html

Just for curiosity, you can see the evolution of this website:

The template with which you all are probably most familiar: http://starhatch.com/templateold2.html

When is was originally just a web portal hosted as a sub-domain: http://starhatch.com/originalportal.html

Yes, as ugly as it is now, it has been even uglier before, and well deserving of its ugliest website award.

[Queen Bee]

The front page definitely looks better, especially with the dark blue for the main content frame.

I imagine it will be difficult to properly fit the frames vertically due to (as you mentioned earlier) browser differences. When I had a framed website I remember setting the top and bottom frames to a relative height, while keeping the middle frame fixed. I'm not familiar with iframes, however... it may be an entirely different scenario.

Have you considered a tableless xhtml/css layout?
If you set the entire design through stylesheets, you can modify colour schemes and layouts instantly. You will still be able to keep your website inside a "block", and even simulate "iframes" by creating a fixed div area and setting the overflow to auto. Ex: http://www.domedia.org/oveklykken/css-div-scroll.php

[Menard]

The front page definitely looks better, especially with the dark blue for the main content frame.

I imagine it will be difficult to properly fit the frames vertically due to (as you mentioned earlier) browser differences. When I had a framed website I remember setting the top and bottom frames to a relative height, while keeping the middle frame fixed. I'm not familiar with iframes, however... it may be an entirely different scenario.

Have you considered a tableless xhtml/css layout?
If you set the entire design through stylesheets, you can modify colour schemes and layouts instantly. You will still be able to keep your website inside a "block", and even simulate "iframes" by creating a fixed div area and setting the overflow to auto. Ex: http://www.domedia.org/oveklykken/css-div-scroll.php

Trying to redesign the entire site in xhtml/css, though in the back of my mind, is too much work for right now as I have other pressing site projects. I'm basically trying to clean this up a bit for, after working on other sites for a while, it was basically a little embarrassing to show that to someone. The clean will take some effort, but not near as much as a redesign of the site. There's been enough jokes about the CargoShip bantered around that it would be a shame to take away the cause of many of those jokes; its wanton use of the f-word (I mean frames).

Somebody want to design me another award logo? Maybe for 'dumbest domain name'?

I've used divs before, and that is certainly a possibility for a project site of mine where the objective is to try to keep the template solely within the browser window and allow navigation by scrolling within the template.

The iframes do have a tendency to collapse if either the iframe or the table in which it resides is not set to a fixed height. It does fine on width, just not height.

I could try setting the table to a fixed height that would be the minimum for an 800x600 browser window, and set the iframe as a percentage, without overflow; the premise being that the iframe, table contents, would still push the table to fit, though the fixed height would prevent it from collapsing (theoretically...I may be completely off course in practice).