www.team66.com : Another makeover? What?

[JoeXIII'007]

Yes, its happened again in less than a year: www.team66.com has gotten redone. A new format will hopefully stay, and perhaps the photo gallery will be easier to navigate for everyone. Please stop by.



-Joe

[sanddrag]

The blue link in the white paragraph on the main page is hard to read. Also, I'm not too fond of the yellow paragraph. I think websites should be viewable with any modern broswer, including IE which well over half the world still uses.

Also, sorry to say it, but I'm a big hater of frames. It just does not work well/ look good for me in IE at 1024x768.

When I hit the main logo in the top left, it loads your main page in that tiny little frame.

Last, you may want a "home" button in the nav column.

Anyhow, I do like your nav buttons though.

[JoeXIII'007]

Originally Posted by sanddrag

The blue link in the white paragraph on the main page is hard to read. Also, I'm not too fond of the yellow paragraph. I think websites should be viewable with any modern broswer, including IE which well over half the world still uses.

Also, sorry to say it, but I'm a big hater of frames. It just does not work well/ look good for me in IE at 1024x768.

When I hit the main logo in the top left, it loads your main page in that tiny little frame.

Last, you may want a "home" button in the nav column.

Anyhow, I do like your nav buttons though.

Half the world uses IE, yes. BUT, and this is a big but, it is the most dangerous and horrible browser ever made compared to Firefox, Mozilla, etc. That's why I put that little plug in for Mozilla.

And even though its outdated, here's a great story on why IE is just plain bad: http://eetimes.com/sys/news/showArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=YQIEP1FJGVEHUQSNDBCSK HQ?articleID=22103358

Don't get me wrong, I have fixed IE compatibility problems before, especially with the text not centering right. So you can use it with IE. But, for a better view, I rather get everyone to get something for FREE and with MORE features.

Frames are just plain simple to maintain and plus I can do some simple modular design with the site. I've looked into CSS, but that is something that I'd have to really sit down and learn before I can use it. I just haven't had much time.

Logo problem's fixed and a home button has been added, and thanks for the complement on the nav buttons. Thank GIMP

Other than that, I love critiques like this, it helps me improve the site. So bring em, and I'll see what I can do.

[Guy Chriqui]

i do believe that the site is pretty good looking
i hate frames like sanddrag but it somehow works for your site. The nav buttons are plain pimp and the red text on black background makes it easy to read.
-guy

[lukevanoort]

Er, is the members part members as in members-only or team members? It's password protected, so if it is the former that makes sense, but if it's the latter than it doesn't make any sense at all.

[JoeXIII'007]

Originally Posted by lukevanoort

Er, is the members part members as in members-only or team members? It's password protected, so if it is the former that makes sense, but if it's the latter than it doesn't make any sense at all.

yeah, its members only

[Freddy Schurr]

Overall, good however I feel that a lot is happening at the same time.

[lukevanoort]

Originally Posted by Freddy Schurr

Overall, good however I feel that a lot is happening at the same time.

Yeah, it looks a little busy.

Originally Posted by Raving Rabbi

i do believe that the site is pretty good looking
i hate frames like sanddrag but it somehow works for your site. The nav buttons are plain pimp and the red text on black background makes it easy to read.
-guy

That is because often people use them wrong, and if you mess up with a frame based site, it just looks terrible, this one doesn't screw up and use them wrong. I bit of advise though, add the NOBORDER attribute to the frameset, IMHO, the site would look better with no borders. Or maybe just thin black lines. The light grey clashes a bit with the darker reds, and is a bit thick. Adding NORESIZE to your frames helps too, so neither the browser nor the user will screw up the sizing.

[artdutra04]

I don't really like the frames that much. They remind me too much of websites from the 1990s. Plus, if you do use a browser like Firefox, and you try to open one of the links in a new tab, you get this as a result - the frames are gone.

The website is good, but with some clever use of CSS you can hide the amount that frames are used. You can shrink the borders of the frames to zero, and you can make sure that you never have to scroll the link navigation menu to see all the buttons. The Team 66 and GM / Team 66 / FIRST frames can be conbined into one frame, with use of two <div> elements to display the content like this:

CSS:
.header-left { float:left; width:200px; padding:8px; background-color:#fff; }
.header-left img { border:0 }
.header-right { float:left; text-align:center; padding:8px; background-color:#000; }
.header-right img { border:0 }

HTML:
<div class="header-left">
    <a href="http://www.team66.com">
         <img src="http://www.team66.com/images/logo.jpg" alt="Team 66" />
    </a>
</div>
<div class="header-right">
    <a href="http://www.gm.com">
          <img src="http://www.team66.com/images/gm_logo.jpg" alt="GM Logo" />
    </a>
    <a href="http://www.team66.com">
          <img src="http://www.team66.com/images/B24_T66c.jpg" alt="Team 66" />
    </a>
    <a href="http://www.usfirst.org">
          <img src="http://www.team66.com/images/FIRSTlogoR_color_rgbm.jpg" alt="FIRST" />
    </a>
</div>

Or, you could eliminate the frames and go directly to either tables or CSS. Using a simple table for the layout would work better in all browsers without as much browser hacking.

Also, if you know some basic PHP, you can use the PHP include() feature to add the page header, links, and calendar into everypage. This way you can change the header on the entire website by changing one .inc or .tpl file, just like how you use one .html file in the header frame works on every page.

Otherwise, the website is nice. Keep up the good work.

[JoeXIII'007]

Originally Posted by lukevanoort

Yeah, it looks a little busy.

That is because often people use them wrong, and if you mess up with a frame based site, it just looks terrible, this one doesn't screw up and use them wrong. I bit of advise though, add the NOBORDER attribute to the frameset, IMHO, the site would look better with no borders. Or maybe just thin black lines. The light grey clashes a bit with the darker reds, and is a bit thick. Adding NORESIZE to your frames helps too, so neither the browser nor the user will screw up the sizing.

(smiles) he he he. That is just what the doctor ordered. The site is IE compatible now after that and fixing a few glitches. And I wonder why I didn't google for that. *sigh*

Thanks a lot!

[ThomasP]

If possible, you may want to look at removing the lens flare from the background image. When looking at the site, the lens flare seems to attract attention away from the main content.