Raven's turn.

[Raven]

The moment of truth. First off, this site is huge and not all the pages are in place yet; however, as far as I know, there is only one link that will take you to a 404 error (About/This Site). Next, if you view my source code, you will not see meta tags. I fully intend to put them there, but am still building a keyword list.

What I'd really like to know from you guys:

How does the site look in smaller screens? My window is 1024x768. I would love to know how it looks in 800x600. I used percentages in my table widths to try and maintain the formatting that I want across a full screen. Did it work?

How does the menu look? I used a javascript menu, which of course, is layered. Is it staying inside the column? And is it working correctly in your browser?

Is it difficult to read? I'm not so much worried about the size of the text (that can always be increased in your browser) but more about the colors. I'm working on a black background and tried to choose colors that were easier on the eyes (e.g. - grays instead of white).

And obviously, if you come across anything that doesn't do what it's supposed to, let me know.

Thanks!

http://www.theravensfeather.com

[(jj)]

Well it's about time! I was beginning to wonder if you were going to make that "June 2002" launch date ;)

I use 800x600 resolution and the page looks just fine, everything fits and is in the right places.

The menu loads fine and I saw no problem with it at all, the sub-menus work smooth, and the menu is easy to read and follow.

The text is a bit small for an old guy at 3am, but the colors are easy on the old eyes and I'm sure much easier to read after a few more cups of coffee.

I am on a 56k modem connection and the pages loaded fast and without any problems.

Overall, I would have to say that you've done a wonderful job avoiding the pitfalls! Tis a very nice site, keep up the good work.


Just my "For What It's Worth"

[TERRELL]

(Hey,did you change your avatar)....
I like this site...a lot....I've took the liberty to read all the text in the philosophy pages.Very,very insightful (I'm gonna be visiting your site,again).The page looks beautiful on my 800 by 600...I read the site easy.Nice background.The images fits the purpose of the site.So,overall.Its a beautifully designed site
On a side note http://www.theravensfeather.com/ravenesse.shtml if thats you,you're also beautiful..hehe:p

[grendel]

Well, first of all, your post requesting a site check was all-class. Not that you asked for a critique of your site-check POST, mind you... It's just kinda one of my pet peeves when people post 'Hey, here's my site, check it out'... Like, if they put as much work into their site as they did their post about it, I'm usually not interested.

Now, to your site... very nice. Anytime I use a black background, I choose grey-ish text (for the same reason that you did). The text looked fine for me. If you were to get a visitor whose monitor had not-so-great gamma, they may have a squinting problem. They would definitely be a small segment, though, and would probably not mind cranking up the settings on the front of the monitor (sites that have real information can almost always get people to do this with no gripe, and your site is going to be one of those sites).

I came in on:
IE6
1280x1024
32bit color

Checking the source, the meta tags were there, so you have been working away since your post! :) Seems like 2 different editors were used to write the page code, but hey... that doesn't subtract anything.... I'm just overly anal, possibly, and one of these days, I'll seek therapy!

The menus are fast, and the organization makes sense.

You have Socrates quoted!! BIG BONUS POINTS!! ;)

The 'printer-friendly' option is a nice touch. I always like seeing that on a site that has essay-esque content.

The only thing that concerned me was when I was clicking around through the categories under the Raven Magick heading. When the pages loaded, I noticed that I had actually lost some navigation (namely, the whole Articles and Essays/Resoures sections). Don't know if you left those out of the lower level pages on purpose, or not?

I bookmarked your site, as I am unfortunately too rushed right now to dive into the philosophical sections of it. I sure as Hades intend to later tonight, though...

Thanks for a good link, and keep the strong work!
Oh, the pagan calendar is a great touch, too! :)

[alphadesk]

Hi Raven,

17" 800x600 all looks and works great. Worth the wait. You seem to have done your homework before taking the test. Some people put up a site without thinking twice about what they are going to do. You have a direction and a plan. Looks like when you fill in all the links with the content your going to have, it will be a great site. No matter how pretty a site is, content is still "King" that will keep visitors coming back.

I bought some Shaman Pharmaceuticals stock a couple of years ago and they went bankrupt, but this Shaman's stock will be a winner!

[Raven]

I was totally stressing about that menu staying in the column, you have no idea. I'm very pleased that you all had such positive things to say. Obviously, this site is a very personal project for me and I have invested several months and four total redesigns into it.

As far as the menu in the Raven Magick section, I did that on purpose. I haven't quite finished that yet. There is a method to my madness. Some of the categories in that section will end up going several levels deep. I've noticed that when the entire menu follows through the entire site, people have a tendency to jump around too much. I wanted to limit their options, so they tend to follow the intended path of the texts. The area beneath the menu will have a "send this page to a friend" link or something similar (haven't really decided yet) so the menu doesn't look so much like it's floating in space. And there is always a "Home" link at the very top of the column, if they want to bail.

Now, I just need to get some volunteers to play around with the interactive part of the site. All the articles and reading material are outside the membership area. Guests may sign the guestbook, of course, and post "replies" in the forum; but other than that, they cannot interact without a membership. Only members can start new threads in the forum or use the chat and personals. And I rigged the registration on the forum to go to the membership form for the site. I did this because of the level of flaming this type of site attracts. However, I've got a lot of cgis running on this site and I'm worried I may have missed a bug or something. If any of you are interested in playing around with the membership area, PM me and I'll set up a temp account.

Well back to work! Thanks again guys!
And yes Terrell, I did change my avatar! She suits me :D and she has my taste in clothes! ;) And thank you for the compliment. :)