SITE REVIEW: Quotionary - Your quotes dictionary

Hi, as the topic mentioned,

I need really some good advice on the website http://quotionary.net

It is actually created base on my own interest on quotes and I would like to improve it. Any comments will be deeply appreciated ! Like all of you here, doing website is another of my interest, hehe.

I think the idea has wonderful potential, but the site could use a little work. Feedback:

- Don't use frames.
- There is no reason for you to be using an client-side imagemap for your menu (on the left) instead of a menu consisting of CSS-styled text options. I'd understand if it were graphically complex, but it's white text on a blue background. Speaking of which...
- Given the relatively monochromatic look of the site (header, logo, menu), that white on blue is a little jarring.
- Why is your menu basically duplicated on both sides of your Flash piece?
- The Flash animation is very jerky for me, not at all smooth. I'm viewing the site on Firefox 1.5.0.3/XP, 1600x1200.
- Ensure that your navigation works. Currently, clicking on "Daily Quotes" on the right-hand menu took me nowhere.
- On the right-hand menu, the distance between options is relatively equal, except between "about us" and "news"; those two are kind of jammed together.
- Your marquee at the top of the page is also not moving at all smoothly for me, it's very jerky.
- The text you do have could use some proofreading.

Again, I think it's a great idea and you're off to a good start. The site's got style, but it sort of falls flat. Keep the quality consistent throughout, and you'll do great.

Good luck!

- Gita

If i don't use frames, where would you sugges me to put my navigation links?

Also, I am a newbie so I don't really understand the CCS style stuff, care to elabroate more?

Your navigation bar is simply repeated at a specific location on each page, it doesn't need to be in a frame.

As for CSS, http://www.w3schools.com is a good place to start.

I suggest you take some time and teach yourself to use a content management system (CMS). For your site, I'd recommend Joomla.

You need them because your interest is in your content, not spending days and days to tweak and hack HTML and CSS. Using them to update your site would make your life much easier.

How then, do you get smarter if you take the easy way out?

I suggest you keep at your website, it has great potential. I was sitting their reading the quotes for about 10 minutes. It would be a great resource to teachers I think, just as long as your website shows up on Google.

The only thing that really bugs me is the first page, the navigation on the right hand side. It's very difficult for me to read. The black on white is ok, but after awhile it starts to hurt the eyes, there's no... whats the word, padding between the white and black, its just abrupt.


Thats it for now, great idea!

I was trying to find a easy way out too. But I use CMS (Joomla), would i still be able to maintain my site's look and stuff?

Or can i just intergrate to the site just for the quotes section, where I can just easily enter the quotes without hacking HTML and stuff.

If you guys recommend to use CMS, what else other than Joomla is recommended for newbies like me? Easy and good?

So two questions
1) Will I be able to maintain my site's look if i use CMS?

2) What are the recommended CMS softwares?

In my (albeit limited) experience, the thing that makes a CMS difficult to implement is needing to retain an existing site aesthetic. The applications I've evaluated use templates, so maintaining content is simply a matter of filling out some web-based forms. But modifying the templates requires knowledge of the underlying code, whether it's (X)HTML, CSS, PHP, Perl, or whatever.

If you want a plug 'n' play solution, check out OpenSourceCMS, where you can try live demo installations of various packages. The interface should give you some idea of how easy it will be to get it up and running. If you've got a CPanel deal with your web host, you might have Fantastico installed. This brilliant script enables one to install various popular applications (phpBB for forums, osCommerce shopping cart, WordPress blogging platform, among many others) with just a few clicks.

But keep in mind that most of these solutions are only "plug 'n' play" if you stick to the default aesthetic (layout, skin, whatever). If you want to retain complete control over that aspect of your site, then as ZeroIQ says, you're really better off learning to code properly yourself.

Should you decide to go with a CMS, Drupal, e107, Joomla, and PHP-Nuke are some of the most popular ones.

Good luck.

- Gita

I was just wondeirng, do you have a good help website for Joomla? I have installed alreadry Joomla manually

The Joomla site itself and the user community are probably good places to get help.

Thanks all! I'll use this website temp while try to figure out the rest =)

For the people that like quotes find a website like yours is a good new.
I was thinking create a site like http://quotionary.org/ but the work to add, update and review quotes take off the idea of my brain.

Hi ej3soft, just for your info, http://quotionary.net and http://quotionary.org is the same website

Cheers!

Added the quote of the day.

Was wondering if i should add a counter? any ideas?

i have something to say about SEO:
your site has no text
(navigation and main page body are pictures)
you have to have text to help you with the search engine