SITE REVIEW: Underground Writers' Forum

This is a site I made myself mostly using HTML. I update it in my spare time. I understand that some of you may not agree with the content of the site, but I'd like your constructive criticism on the layout and anything you think I can do to make it better. And do you have tips on getting more traffic to the site? I don't have enough budget to advertise.

http://www.undergroundwriters.com

I like the design, in general. There are a few things that don't work so well though...

• At maximum resolution (1280x1024) I get a white line (maybe 50px across) on the right hand side. If I shrink the browser window, though, it gets hidden again.
• I also get a small box at the bottom, which is the same width and colour as the main white content part, and this doesn't go away if I resize the browser.
• Some of the text wraps badly, especially in the blue boxes on the left. (See picture below)
• There's no way back from the forum! This annoys me about a lot of phpBB installations - there really should be an easy way back to the rest of the site.

You're using linuix, right? I noticed that the text wrapped improperly in linux's default browser. But it seems to work ok on windows. Any tips on how to fix it?
I saw that gap at the bottom too in firefox (and linux too), but in internet explorer on most computers, it shows up fine. I've tried a couple different things to fix that, and nothing helped. Any tips?
The white line on the side, I can easily fix. Thanks for mentioning it.
I agree that I should have a link back from the forums, and I've tried to find a way, but I'm severely limited on my php knowlege. Thank you for your input.

To link back to your main page, all you need to do is edit your index.php file in your phpBB directory. Simply add in an HTML link, or find the header image and change the link to go back to the main page!

Hope that helps!

Actually, I've tried that. But I didn't see any html at all in index.php. No link or anything. Just php. Maybe there's a different file? I'm not sure.

I am indeed using Linux, and Firefox (there isn't a default browser... ). I've had a look at your source code, and I think I can see why it does that... you should really let the quotes wrap themselves. If you set an appropriate cell-padding, then it will still fit in the box, no matter how big the font gets. At the moment, because you've imposed line-breaks on it, the quote will get messed up as soon as a slightly different sized font is used.

And the file you're looking for in phpBB is templates/<your template name>/overall_header.tpl.

Well, I use Mandrake linux, so I was referring to that default browser. I appreciate your input, and I'm gonna try out every tip you gave me. Thanks!

Just a tip on adding traffic without money to your site.


I would create a topsite list on a subdomain, then add a banner to your site there and add google adsense, so you can start getting a few pennies for more advertising.,

Very good.

The site seems balanced in terms of layout colour content etc.

There is not too much information on the screen so the users dont feel bogged down in what could potentially be indepth information.

I like it, up the revolution.

Tim

Question: Does anyone here think that the overall layout of my site would be better served by CSS? I ask, cause I've really begun to take an interest in CSS, but this site is all done with tables ( I began building it three years ago, so didn't even care about CSS back then). Or should I just leave it the way it is and pursue my new-found interests in CSS on a completely different project?

To begin with, why not do both? Don't remove the tables, but remove all the other styling elements from the html, and make them css. Then, when you're more sure of yourself, and IE css support is better (if only ), finally remove the tables.

I the website and found it very informative with a lot of content. The site is well put together and if updated regularly should do very well.

ok, I spent a lot of time doing a lot of touching up on the backend of my site. I had a lot of junk HTML from previous re-designs, and I added more CSS styles. I also Redisigned the logo and the navigation links. Let me know what you guys think. It should run faster now to.

Very Informative. It was about a belife not feelings. Unlike other websites obsssed with hatred of a good man.

It is book marked.

Hey, I upgraded my site to XHTML now. Let me know what you think of the changes.