Posted: 8/24/2007 7:19:04 AM EDT
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HI All, I revamped my website, and need feedback. Please visit my new website: www.LMIInc.com and let me know your experiences with the loading, and browsing of the site, and it's pages. If you could, also please let me know what browser you are using, if possible. Thanks for the help.. [email protected] |
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It loads slowly, even though I'm behind a caching server. That tells me that the designer is trying to be very clever and show the whole world how clever s/he is with bizarre coding. There is no need for anything other than straight, static HTML for your site. As simple as it is (and that isn't a dig... simple is good), it should load nearly instantly. |
Must be a java/ie thing that Firefox is saving you from. |
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The links for http://bladerigger.com, and http://newyorkpacking.com don't work. The first one is dead, the second takes you somewhere that is not about NYC gun laws. While you are at it, have them make the links that do work open in a new tab. Also, maybe add some pics of the facility/ranges? You may want to think about adding your address in the contact information. |
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It looks good (Firefox on Ubuntu Linux). The background images are really slowing the site down. Each one (I see two at a quick glance) is like 74k, and it makes the site less "snappy". A static page like that should load up MUCH faster. Knock those image sizes down. Way down. If you're not married to the idea of a gradient, you could lose the images entirely. Also for code readability, you might want to consider using a linked stylesheet. Reference the class from the stylesheet there, instead of cluttering up the code. It'll make facelifts to the site 10 times easier, too. Kudos to you for using CSS to place images, instead of tables. I like that, and it makes using a templating engine easier to implement someday, should you decide to use a server side scripting language like PHP. Tables are for tabular data, not positioning. The world has changed a little bit since 1996 and I'm glad you noticed. 
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It *is* static HTML, and he's adhering to a standard that's been adopted for several years now. EDIT: It's not strict adherence, but it's close enough. |
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Run it through these two and post an update, my firefox plugins were complaining about bits being invalid. validator.w3.org/ -- HTML validator. 7 Errors. jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/ -- CSS validator. If you decide to start using it (CSS); which you probably will, as you remove invalid HTML and find the only valid way to achieve the given effect is with CSS. 
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Which page? His home page checks out. |
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Visually looks good. Problem: The website is made up of all graphic files and no real text. The search engines won't be able to crawl the pages because of this. It's actually a huge issue. The alt tags alone, will not solve this issue. Your using iWeb 1.1, you should be able to change the graphic text to real text. Just a suggestion, if you want the search engines to pick up your website. |
The default start page.. here's the link: validator.w3.org/check?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.LMIInc.com&charset=%28detect+automatically%29&doctype=Inline&group=0 And the results:
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Holy shit, I didn't even notice that. The main page text is a graphic (and a 90kb one at that!). No wonder it's loading so slow. |
Ahhh the validator doesn't do the "javascript refresh break the back button" dance. It's that page that's breaking it, not the page that it sends you to; LMIinc_Marksmanship.html. |
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Regarding the validator.. the page the initial one refreshes you to, www.lmiinc.com/LMIinc_Marksmanship.html gets: 20 errors and 2 warnings on the CSS validator. No errors or warnings on the HTML validator -- since as already discovered, there basically is none. 
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Oh, that's weird. I checked http://www.lmiinc.com/LMIinc_Marksmanship.html and it validated.  validator.w3.org/check?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.lmiinc.com%2FLMIinc_Marksmanship.html |
Aha! He ought to just name the home page index.html (or whatever the default is for his server's DocRoot). I don't see the point in doing the redirect. |
Not much use troubleshooting this one, it's created with iweb 1.1 an Apple program. Unless this is a redo and the new developer is using another program now. |
Well if he's reading this, I'm more than willing to fix that, and redo every one of these pages as text rather than with the big images, over the course of a couple of days, if he's interested. You still here, Ron? |
You can fix it for sure, but if the developer is going to still update the site with Apple iweb, then your fix will be overwritten every time they re-upload any minor site changes. |
Oh, no shit? No wonder he's not commenting on the HTML. I missed the generator meta tag. Well, to it's credit - it writes cleaner code than Frontpage (and most other WYSIWYG editors I've seen). I've never used it, but does it let the user edit the HTML? |
No, you can not edit the HTML in iweb. You could edit the htlm in dreamweaver or another program after you publish your pages, but then if you make any changes in iweb, iweb will delete the edits you made to the html and reformat the html it's own way. iWeb is very easy to use, but very limited in what it can do, especially the old version 1.1 that he is using for this. |
Well then he fires this "developer" while he's at it. Doesn't need the guy anyway, quite obviously.
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