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SITE REVIEW: The Fall Of Autumn (JUST UPDATED 1-27-04)

  • Alan Lastufka
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Post January 21st, 2004, 5:26 pm

My band's official site is now up and running. I had some problems with the design but they are all worked out now.

If you have a minute, I'd like to know what you think so we can keep it in mind for future redesigns.

Our first single should be available for download in the next month or so. Thanks!

****REDESIGNED IN FLASH - BETA VERSION**** (please read my last post in this thread for more info...)
http://www.alanjoseph.com/FallNew.htm
Alan Lastufka | Fall of Autumn
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Post January 21st, 2004, 5:26 pm

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Post January 21st, 2004, 5:55 pm

Alan

Welcome to OZZU! We'll be more than happy to give you feedback on your band's new site. But we do have some rules and guidelines for doing so. You can read the rules easily by going to the reviews board and clicking the "New Topic" button. In the meantime, I'm locking this post, removing the link and moving it to the reviews board. After you've followed the guidelines one of the mods will unlock your post and you can edit your link back in and recieve feedback.


-----------------------------------------
Edited by ATNO
Released for review. Have at it folks!
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Post January 21st, 2004, 7:00 pm

I like the look. I see you did the slices with Image Ready, so I think I would suggest adding rollover effects to the navigation. It might take a few hours of Photoshop work. Just duplicate your slice layers and change the text color.

The only other thing that several here could help you with is that your flash animation seems slow. I'm on broadband with a couple fast computers, but with my older P160 (also on broadband) it's painfully slow.

Check the Flash board for tips on speeding up the opening animation...if not, ask. Someone will help you.

I do like the them for sure.
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Post January 22nd, 2004, 4:44 pm

Thanks!

Actually, we are going to do away with the Flash thing all together, everyone I'm talking to says they are tired of Flash intros that don't do anything but look pretty... like ours!

For the roll-overs, I was thinking some annimated stratches/choas scribbling behind the words as you scrolled over them, I only left that out because I thought the font was hard enough to read on it's own and didn't want ot clutter it anymore than needed...

Thanks again, anyone else... comments, suggestions, questions?
Alan Lastufka | Fall of Autumn
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Post January 22nd, 2004, 5:06 pm

yeah the last time I did a site for a band... they too neglected an intro... but they did want a flashy site.

I think the tides are changing... flash for splash has died, and flash for cache (well html like pages, but html didnt rhyme) has been born.
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Post January 24th, 2004, 1:16 pm

ATNO/TW wrote:
...I would suggest adding rollover effects to the navigation...


Okay, site was updated today, instead of adding the rollovers as you suggested I added the Alt Tags (what I call TOOL-TIPs) as I felt the font was already too hard to read but we (the band) love it, so this way you get the best of both worlds, better clarity on what's clickable and actually being able to read it.

I also fixed some spelling mistakes and took away the Error/Pop-up warning from the Downloads page as I got about 100 complaints sent to me about its annoyance factor...

Next step = a complete redesign in Flash, then, giving the user an HTML portal that allows them to choose to enter the FLash site or the HTML site based on their personal preferences...

PS: I also did away with the splash page...
Alan Lastufka | Fall of Autumn
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Post January 24th, 2004, 3:32 pm

My only suggestion would be to offer the lyrics in html first, and pdf second. PDF's kind of slow up the browsing process. IMO.

nice site.
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Post January 24th, 2004, 4:04 pm

It looks like a band site should do, you have made a good job! ;)
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Post January 24th, 2004, 4:07 pm

Great site! I like how it almost looks like a flash page (but isn't) I see it's nicely centered but one little bug I saw when clicking on bios.... If you click back and fourth you'll see the page move ever so slightly (no big deal)... I'll have to point out that the navigation of the page is quick and painless.... Lets hear the music! :P I'm into music a lot and hope to hear you guys.... Also mentioned adding a rollOver to the buttons would make a difference in the navigation of the page...

That's all for now..... good work....

Later
:arrow: SycomCOmp :idea:
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Post January 25th, 2004, 5:47 am

Nice website. Clean and simple. I have no visual advice. It already looks good. But you might want to consider typing your html all in undercase letters in order to fit web standards. You can redo your entire layout with CSS (if you want to spend the time on it) and drastically cut down page loading time. Also, what the heck does this do?

Quote:
<TR>
<TD> <IMG SRC="images/spacer.gif" WIDTH=74 HEIGHT=1 ALT=""></TD>
<TD> <IMG SRC="images/spacer.gif" WIDTH=104 HEIGHT=1 ALT=""></TD>
<TD> <IMG SRC="images/spacer.gif" WIDTH=19 HEIGHT=1 ALT=""></TD>
<TD> <IMG SRC="images/spacer.gif" WIDTH=22 HEIGHT=1 ALT=""></TD>
<TD> <IMG SRC="images/spacer.gif" WIDTH=28 HEIGHT=1 ALT=""></TD>
<TD> <IMG SRC="images/spacer.gif" WIDTH=24 HEIGHT=1 ALT=""></TD>
<TD> <IMG SRC="images/spacer.gif" WIDTH=87 HEIGHT=1 ALT=""></TD>
<TD> <IMG SRC="images/spacer.gif" WIDTH=106 HEIGHT=1 ALT=""></TD>
<TD> <IMG SRC="images/spacer.gif" WIDTH=18 HEIGHT=1 ALT=""></TD>
<TD> <IMG SRC="images/spacer.gif" WIDTH=71 HEIGHT=1 ALT=""></TD>
<TD> <IMG SRC="images/spacer.gif" WIDTH=25 HEIGHT=1 ALT=""></TD>
<TD> <IMG SRC="images/spacer.gif" WIDTH=51 HEIGHT=1 ALT=""></TD>
<TD> <IMG SRC="images/spacer.gif" WIDTH=44 HEIGHT=1 ALT=""></TD>
<TD> <IMG SRC="images/spacer.gif" WIDTH=13 HEIGHT=1 ALT=""></TD>
<TD> <IMG SRC="images/spacer.gif" WIDTH=64 HEIGHT=1 ALT=""></TD>
<TD></TD>
</TR>


View source at http://www.fallofautumn.com/contact.htm

I recommend doing away with it. Spacers are NEVER needed. Learn a little CSS if possible. Nice site though.
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Post January 25th, 2004, 11:28 am

gsv2com wrote:
Nice website.


Thanks!

gsv2com wrote:
Also, what the heck does this do?


No idea man, never learned to speak HTML, I just let Dreamweaver put in there what it feels it needs to. I played around with a couple of different designs and these might be left-overs from that...?

BTW, can anyone give me a link to a tutorial on CSS? Never used it before (it still should say newbie by my avatar...
Alan Lastufka | Fall of Autumn
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Post January 25th, 2004, 12:33 pm

gsv2com wrote:
Also, what the heck does this do?



It's a Photoshop thing. When you create slices in Photoshop/Image Ready, sometimes it's hard to get your slices completely perfect, so the code automatically generates spacers. I can't really agree that they aren't necessary, because without them the graphic would not display intact. Unfortunately it does add to the code.

But bottom line that's what causes it.
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Post January 25th, 2004, 12:35 pm

Well, judging by how many there are, I need to learn how to slice! And they are all 1 pixel high, shouldn't there be a "snap-to" function when using the knife tool in PS?
Alan Lastufka | Fall of Autumn
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Post January 25th, 2004, 12:41 pm

Alan Lastufka wrote:
Well, judging by how many there are, I need to learn how to slice! And they are all 1 pixel high, shouldn't there be a "snap-to" function when using the knife tool in PS?



I always thought they would snap to grid, but I've never been able to figure out how to do good slices without getting a bunch of spacers. And I do try to pay attention to the coords in the info panel when I'm slicing. Thank god I'm not a brain surgeon!
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Post January 25th, 2004, 6:48 pm

ATNO/TW wrote:
Thank god I'm not a brain surgeon!

LOL. Good luck on the slices. I've never really messed with them. I try to avoid using anything other than dreamweaver for web design and avoid using anything other than photoshop and illustrator for graphic design. IMHO Macromedia makes the best web products and Adobe makes the best graphic software and that's primarily how I use them, but I guess the best policy is just to use what you know. Whatever works, right?
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Post January 25th, 2004, 6:48 pm

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