www.myprogrammer.com

[rcarr]

I just finished our new site and I was wondering how it looks.

Any feedback regarding design, bugs, navigation, etc. would be appreciated!

Thank you.

http://www.myprogrammer.com

[Chris_Seahorn]

It's a nice clean design and the speeds are good. I notice the upper section buttons begin to fail on IE (no mouseover reaction or choppy (very)) and I'm getting really bad font changes when I mouseover titles in the bodies. Some I assume you purposely make BOLD on mouseover but some actually shrink! Even worse the more pages you flip forward and back....it gets even nuttier with no seeming logic and what used to shrink remains the same..some that use to enlarge now shrink and all kinds of strange visual oddities with titles. Clean that up and I see you having a site you can be proud of

[Chris_Seahorn]

Forgot....the ALT text for the logo. I'm assuming you just haven't actually put something there since the build isn't done. Don't leave it as

MyProgrammer Logo

or they will think you think they are too stupid to figure that out

[rcarr]

It's a nice clean design and the speeds are good. I notice the upper section buttons begin to fail on IE (no mouseover reaction or choppy (very)) and I'm getting really bad font changes when I mouseover titles in the bodies. Some I assume you purposely make BOLD on mouseover but some actually shrink! Even worse the more pages you flip forward and back....it gets even nuttier with no seeming logic and what used to shrink remains the same..some that use to enlarge now shrink and all kinds of strange visual oddities with titles. Clean that up and I see you having a site you can be proud of

Thanks for the help Chris. Yeah, I think I have the strange link issue fixed in development version, so the mouseover choppy problem is left. Regarding the ALT tags you are right, the site isn't finished from that perspective. Going to do that and some SEO work as well as general cleanup next. But thanks for pointing it out.

[3PRIMATES]

Isn't that what alt text is for? Alt text is for a clear and concise definition of what the image says or implies. This is a must for accessibility. Users who don't have images turned on or users who are sight impaired need good alt text in order to experience the site.

3P

[Chris_Seahorn]

Could be if it was only shown if images are disabled. With ALT showing regardless we users with images enabled are just stupid? It's always been a flawed premise IMO.

EDIT: It's a half empty / half full oddity. I myself am from this vein of thought on it:

http://ppewww.ph.gla.ac.uk/~flavell/alt/alt-text.html

or even this

http://www.456bereastreet.com/archi..._not_a_tooltip/

and many more on the subject. I'm not alone in thinking it's absurd to show if I do...in fact...have images enabled and it's whole reason for existing was to show me things when they are not. Now last but not least we all know this is mainly an IE issue (and some others...Mac browsers included) but let's not forget what browser (whether you like it or not) still reigns supreme:

http://www.e-janco.com/PressRelease/...807Browser.htm

Is this nitpicking? Could be but are we site checking here? Every image he codes with ALT text will be a redundant tooltip in IE and a few other browsers so that to me is a big deal and I mention it. Should IE and the others get with the program? Yep. Until they do though every IE user (the number one browser...still) gets confused unless he detects the fact and suppresses by not using it. When I was trained the rule was if any tag was not uniform across all browsers...we setup a loader to detect and swap ...again...that's me. Whether one image or a hundred..the rule was logical to get you used to striving for 100% uniformity. So code this as you will...as it stands only users who have images enabled with IE will think it's a ridiculous and redundant description. It's only 75% or the market after all...no biggie right?

When I came to Flash the rule was just different...we had to use embed options that were uniform (I went directly to full flash and got off easy but hybriders deal with both embed options AND tagging). If not we either had to forego using that option or setup detection and swap accordingly if it was something we simply must have. There has to be a thousand posts in this website on detection so again I'm not alone in thinking every bit should be uniform across all browsers.

[rcarr]

I just uploaded a new version. The mouseover thing is still screwed up (working on it) but any other feedback would be appreciated for the site!

Thanks!

[Chris_Seahorn]

Hey man...I like the site. The ALT thing is semantics and don't go adding crazy time to your schedule because of what I said. Most people won't notice....I just wanted to explain why I originally mentioned it. Get those mouseover font changes...they are more of a priority for sure. Good luck with the launch

[rcarr]

Thanks Chris! Appreciate the help and kind words. Aside from the problems with the main horizontal navigation links (slow mouseover), are the other issues fixed (fonts changing size, bold, etc.)?

[Chris_Seahorn]

Yes sir...all seem to be as they should now

[rcarr]

Cool. Thanks!

[Adobemedia]

Awesome layout and design. Thumbs-Up

[rcarr]

Thanks for the kind words!

[dfalder]

Wow thats a wide site screw people that view at 800x600

Its suprising to me and I think your lucky that the average joe wont be looking at this but this site is very outdated as far as code goes its a monster that could be cut down to a third of its size if coded up to new standards.

Your back end guys right? If thats the case I guess it doesnt really make a difference, but I would be embarrised to hand this to my employer at least the code part. The graphics on the other hand are nice very easy on the eyes and make me view you in a professional light

[3PRIMATES]

dfalder, what code are you talking about? The html markup?

3P

[dfalder]

Yeah the html its valid and most people wont question it but given the tools that are avalible now I just cant understand producing a site that way. Its so much easyer and faster to do css layouts

[rcarr]

dfalder, thanks for the feedback. While the code does validate, you are right that it doesn't use CSS fully. Yeah, we are mainly backend guys, but that is no excuse. We'll correct this in the next revision.

Glad you like the overall look of the site! :-)

[rcarr]

To follow up, one thing that our developer did mention was the problems they are seeing with CSS rendering on certain browsers. So there was a feeling that to keep the site looking the best on as many browsers as possible, the best approach was HTML tables. We did validate the site for CSS and HTML, and then ran it through browsercam. So compatibility was the top priority. This is a constant tradeoff, but I still see your point and we will look into it in the future.

[3PRIMATES]

I myself am in the opinion that although css is wonderful and content and design seperation is a good thing, full css design is still a bit overated. CSS design can be very liberating but there are still a lot of rendering problems to contend with. Until all major browsers comply fully to W3C standards(I doubt they ever will), standard html is just as valid and usable as css. I have created both full css and full html sites and have found there to be way fewer problems with structure with standard compliant html markup. dflader, even your site is not full css/div/span. You are nesting tables within divs in order to get the best of both worlds.
I do think it is a good idea, that if you want to use alot of tables, then it is a good idea to aslo used divs and ids so content can be manipulated easier with css.
Also, since AJAX is really becoming popular, using more css type markup is a good thing.

3P

[rcarr]

Excellent comments 3P. We also have done full CSS design but there were a lot of rendering issues when checking it via browsercam. But we do think it is important that pages validate to W3C standards. It helps with SEO, and with future browser compatibility. But dfalder is correct in that we are a development company, so our web site says something about us to a select few that can understand the code. Again, it's always a tradeoff. Our clients just want all their pages to render correctly in the major browsers. Sometimes it is more practical to just use HTML tables to get it done.

Thanks