SITE REVIEW: Allinnia.com

I am a musician who is looking to use my site to:

- Allow users to freely listen to my works with my flash player
- Provide helpful links for aspiring musicians
- Provide interesting articles on philosophy and religion, with eventual user contribution
- Provide tutorials for musicians getting started, with eventual user contribution
- Sell my music on the site using a paypal system (Not present at the moment)
- Search the site using the sphider open source php program (which still needs to be designed to match the site theme)

Right now the site has only a moderate amount of content but I am updating everything to be based on PHP/MYSQL, for the growth of prospective site contributors. I will be creating an admin inclusion page for allowing contributors to provide articles and pictures via PHP/MYSQL, which will conform to the site's graphical design. I still have to work out the way I can allow user-password access in this PHP/MySQL admin contribution page.

Please give me any of your insights on design flaws or anything else you may have noticed. I had some trouble with my two column layout displaying properly on some older IE versions, which I recently changed.


Thanks,
Travis

Nice site, nice design, nice ideas. I would recommend you making the site [X]HTML valid. You can test for validity on w3 validator.

That is good for your PR and the speed at which it loads for other people.

Thanks Bogey, I had only 5 errors before, but since I have updated some more php integration onto the page it would seem I have 11!

I don't know why the w3c validator has been marking some of the things it has. I use Dream weaver for most of coding, and Adobe is usually spot on with their HTML...and some of the errors it points out are unavoidable, and usually something to do with background properties or embed error objects.

Thanks for the review though, I still have a lot of work to do.

Okay, let me try my best to explain why it would bring up the errors that you may not understand the reason behind. I know this is a thread for review, but help in creating a better site isn't bad is it?

Okay, your first error brought up by w3c validator.

" <td background="Images/Searchbar/searchbar_r1_c6.jpg"></td>" on line 81. In XHTML you cannot set a background image or color in the HTML. Instead you are supposed to use CSS. That is a more valid way. A CSS equivalent to what you are doing would be...


...so the td would look something like...

Easy, and valid.

Your second error is on line 85. There is no action...

Why did you put " action="" " attribute in an INPUT tag? It shouldn't go there. It has to be in the <form...> tag. so the form would look something like below...


Your third error is on line 85. There is no columns...

Attribute "columns" don't go into the tag INPUT. They go to the tag TEXTAREA.

Your fourth error is on line 85. There is no autocomplete...

I don't know of such attribute whatsoever unless it goes to your PHP. Even if you are trying to get it valid, you probably would have to keep it with that error. Looks like its part of your script that would probably be in PHP, AJAX, Flash or whatever kind of script requires that attribute. Not an error on your part.

Your fifth error is on line 85. There is no delay...

Same as above.

Your sixth error is on line 107. There is no bordercolor...

The same as background image... it has to be defined with CSS either externally or internally. Better if its external... CSS equivalent to what you are doing would be...



Your seventh error is on line 124. With all of those {&'s)...

You should not have a & in your source code. Even if it's in a URL. U should substitute them with (&amp;). Yes, even if its in URLs.

Your eighth error is on line 124 again for the same reason as above.

Your ninth error is on line 124 again for the same reason as above.

Your tenth error is on line 124 for some entity.

Don't know anything about it. Can't help.

Your eleventh error is on line 126. The same as ninth, eighth and seventh error.

Your twelfth error is on line 124 for the same reason as the tenth error. I do not know anything about it.

Hope that that would have helped you a bit

Thanks.

I figured it was because of something that should be done in CSS. I used a pre-built search script, that I will fix. Thanks for taking the time to help me out!!! I am still new at the "rules" of HTML and CSS. I just get by.

Glad I can help you out. I was the same when I started.

Nice design and content.. I would give 8 out og 10 rating..

Thanks silver, I am really working on getting the dynamic framework ready for users and content contributors. If anyone is a musician or likes philosophy and religion, feel free to email me. I need writers.

I tried my hand at a revision of the site and owuld like to get some insight from a third party on the overall look and functionality of the site. Please be critical, you won't hurt my feelings. I need to brainstorm on DESIGN, and would also like to know if the site is browser cross compatible.

Thanks ahead

PS: This is also a possible job opportunity (with pay of course) for those who could take my basic idea and make it match my musical theme. I want to focus more on my music and less on the site. Shoot me a quote if interested.

Really? No thoughts on the design? I have completely redone the layout and added quite a few little niceties. I just want to know if the site looks "professional" for being my business home-page. I can look at all day and find something wrong with it, but I like to hear what a third-party thinks.

Nice, but it shuld be lighter. I hate dark designs.

Also, mabye a better looking logo?

Excellent. kinda like Vista theme. I love your template.

That template is really great, like it.

lol Sorry Travis. It appears you are victim of the mad rush to add a worthless review so they can post theirs.

Template? Whatever gave you guys the idea that was a template. You didn't read a word Travis said:



There's no way that is a "stock" template.

As far as design Travis, yes, it does look quite professional for a site for your business. In fact, in a way, I feel it takes on the characteristics of your music:


I like that, however, I would suggest that your logo is too dark. My suggestion would be to at least make "Allinnia" equal to the brightness of the horizontal divider under it. "Transcending art and audio" doesn't have to be quite as bright but should be a bit brighter than it is. It's just too dark for a logo that is considered essential to identifying who you are. I would make the same observation on the rollovers on your menu buttons. I like the buttons but on mouseover, you've just faded them way too much. Similarly, I think the "Search the Site" text is too dim. Not sure if it's the text color or the whole text box that seems too dark but it almost makes it difficult to see that you have a search option.

I've only looked so far in IE7 and Firefox 3.0.5. There are a couple browser issues that stand out. It's a little odd, but in the paragraph I quoted above when I first pull the home page up in FF, I thought the work mystical was missing the letter "l" at the end and was going to point that out, but when I copied and pasted it here, I noticed the spelling correct and went back to the page and the l was showing. refreshed the page and it disappeared again. I have no idea why it's doing that.

In IE, there is a glitch with the Latest Updates content area. Upon entering that page when you mouse over the Latest Updates that entire content area shifts about 5 pixels to the right. The same thing happens on the search box and search button. Those are the only two areas that do that.

The blog bothers me. Not that you have a blog. You need one. It's just the wordpress design blows the rest of the great work on what you've done with the rest of the site. I know that's a common thing with blogs like that, but in addition to being a little "ugly" compared to the rest of your site, you also lose any kind of link back to your real home page. Perhaps consider putting the blog in an iFrame so you can keep your design consistent throughout.

I'm surpised you don't have a link to your Creative Services on your menu. You should. It's the primary reason you have the site. I know you clearly have it advertised on the bottom of the main page and throughout the site, but you should include it in the menu. Simply call it "Services" if you'd like. Where you have it located on the main page is not prime advertising real estate, and there's nothing that makes it really jump out. Honestly until I got further into your site, I really didn't even notice that's what you were focusing the site on. Perhaps consider reworking that ad to a different position on the page somehow. Here is a "map" of where google suggests good placement versus bad placement where the darker orange the better and lighter yellow the worst.
https://www.google.com/adsense/support/ ... swer=17954

I hope that helps you improve that awesome "template" you have going there! GL Travis. btw - I really like your music. Right up my alley.

Heh makes me think that people believe all websites are born at template monster...

Travis I would add that a few of your buttons look a little strange to me with the hard white line running horizontally across the object. Here's an example of what I'm referring to. I think you might want to blend that gradient a little better.

Also I would recommend adding a bit more spacing across the board. There are a lot of instances where it feels like content is way to close to its container box borders. 5 to 10 pixels would make a huge difference there.

But hey look no the bright side. The worthless reviews bumped you back up to the top of the page so your getting other reviews now