web site test/review

[robc]

I have just rehashed my web site and am wondering whether it will now work on browsers/macs which I can't test it on.

Any feedback on problems or useability/ease of navigation would be appreciated. It still hasn't much content in it but there are some images in some of the galleries.

If you experience problems with the site then please let me know which browser and browser version you are using and on which operating system. Eg Safari nn on Mac OSX or Opera nn on windows XP etc

Thanks.

Yer Tiz

[Josh Z.]

I get no content under any of the menus using Safari 2.0.3 on OSX 10.4.5, it works fine though apparently under Firefox. It looks like you are using javascript to some extent. Be careful with it, it's very prone to being sketchy. Check google for javascript documentation for standards compliance.

Otherwise, looks pretty decent.

[Mark Woods]

Yes I had the same experience with Safari and I too have OSX 10.4.5 The hyperlinks glowed, indicated they went to the page, but nothing changed from the home page.
MW

[Hening Bettermann]

Same here, MSIE on MacOS X 10.3.9.

[Frank Petronio]

If you can't test on real computers, online sites like http://www.browsercam.com/ are great for testing. They give you a free 24 hour trial too.

Drop downs in general are hard for people because people only click on things that they can see. So many people will miss whatever you've buried in the drop downs. Clients love drop downs because they make the organization tidy, but the challenge is to make easier/better for the viewer, not the client (or yourself).

I'd rethink the architecture

[robc]

there aren't any drop down menus!!!

[Frank Petronio]

Oh! Duhh, my bad

Well nothing happens on Safari, they just rollover, no linkies.

[Marko]

rob,

Just tested it in Safari 2.0.3 and Firefox 1.5.0.1 on Tiger (OS X 10.4.4) and compared them to Firefox and IE 6 under XP. It does not work at all in Safari, but there are some obvious misbehaviours in Firefox and IE too.

Just looked "under the hood" and IMO the behaviour in Safari is just an indication of several major problems there. Namely, lots of in-line styles, using tables for layouts, lots of JavaScript, partial XHTML structure in a document with no DTD, etc. It's not that JavaScript is bad per se, it's just that it should be used very sparingly and only when absolutely necessary. But since this is way off-topic, I will spare everybody the gory details.

I don't know who designed your site, but having a problem with a specific browser (other than IE/Win) is usually dead give-away of a non-standard code. For at least three years now, generally accepted practice in the web design community is to design for standards, not for browsers.

If you designed the site yourself, you are on the right track concept-wise, but you definitely need to read up on the coding practices. If this is the case and you want to get deeper into it, I'll be happy to point you in the right direction and help with advice.

If, on the other hand, you are paying someone to do it, don't! It should not be too hard to find a designer or a studio capable of doing the work proeperly.

Regards,

[Bill_1856]

Dear Mr. Brett Weston,

I assumed that you were dead, but I had a look at your web site, and see that you are alive and using an assumed name.

Congratulations,

Bill Mitchell (Sarasota)

[Frank Petronio]

Except very few websites actually valiadate for being standards compliant... including this one.