I want the truth!

Hey everyone. I've been working on my website http://www.thepowerbox.net for a few months now. It's a webpage that i made for the local NJ sports and music scene. I'm pretty new at web design, so let me know what my page is lacking.

[Xinil]

Don't use Times New Roman font.

Thanks for the input. Whats wrong with that font?

[LongIslandJam]

Times New Roman font seems to be going on the way side on the net like polyester suits did in the 70's.

It's just a matter of tastes and preferences really. However there is some fact behind it.

In a class I took on typography (the study of type and all fun things like that), Times New Roman and fonts like it are harder to read on computer screens than other fonts. Fonts like Arial and Verdana are fonts more suitable for reading online. However in the print world, the opposite is the case. But since you're online, stick with Arial and Verdana, and a big no-no is using fonts that are rare, as in order to see a font, the visitor must have the font (unless its a graphic or picture of course).

Thanks a lot.

nice site, lots of cool matrial. few things i would do. on the first page, put some about text so we know what the sites about. also i would move the news to the first page, and use iFrames for that, type in iFrames in the forum search to find out how to do it.
and for you guys out there, you dont have to stick with default fonts to make sites, there is a way of embeding "rare" fonts in webpages. here is the tut.

http://www.spoono.com/tutorials/html/embeddingfonts/


thank's to our good friends over at spoon.com.

Hey thats some good advice. I added some about text and changed the font. As for the iframes, I havent really gotten them down yet. Im not sure how i would use them in the table tag and I heard they can only be viewed with Internet Explorer. Thanks for the feedback.

Chris Flanegan
thepowerbox.net

I like the layout you chose. Easy and navigatable!

[mrmagill]

Originally posted by cflanegan
Hey everyone. I've been working on my website http://www.thepowerbox.net for a few months now. It's a webpage that i made for the local NJ sports and music scene. I'm pretty new at web design, so let me know what my page is lacking.

Hey, I'm one who prefers simple page coding myself, so I'm not about to tell you anything is "wrong" with it.

What I would like to say is how much I enjoyed visiting the site! Your little movies are terrific, I can't remember when I last had this much fun visiting a site. I especially like the Cat Movies, being a Ceritified Cat Lover.

As a very experiened photographer, I can say your use of light, texture and perspective to make your movies enjoyable is exceptional. Keep up the good work, and if you've got a mailing list for people to notify when new movies are added, put me on it...

[mrmagill]

Originally posted by Xinil
Don't use Times New Roman font.

You know, I've heard this before myself. When I originally set up the Word For Life site, I was using Comic San Serif, because I liked it. However, one of my partners was taking college courses in web design. First thing they told him: Stick to a standard such as Arial for the greatest cross-platform compatibility and readability.

So I changed it, and I do see what they mean. I think its much more readable.

[lingbeek]

There is no problem with using alternative fonts as long as you also specify a standard font to be used as an alternative when your wanted font is not available. In style sheets you can give several options in a comma separated way. The browser will try to use the first one available from the list...
fonts
fonts
fonts

[mrmagill]

Originally posted by lingbeek
There is no problem with using alternative fonts as long as you also specify a standard font to be used as an alternative when your wanted font is not available.
fonts
fonts
fonts

Thank you very much for the information. I think the point that the person was trying to make is that they (college prof) thought that Arial was one of the most easy to read... as for cross-platform compatibility, do you know anything on that? Are there some fonts that don't "transport" as well as others, or would doing as you mentioned above solve that as well?

[lingbeek]

I do not know which fonts are the easiest to read but if you would like E.G. Comic sans MS to be used on your page and you are afraid to do that you can also tell the browser use Comic Sans MS if you have it available, If not try Times New Roman, if not Verdana is your option..

[muijefr]

I post in another site critiques about the use of iFrames. I know there must be tens of tens, if not more, iFrame tutorials on the internet but this example is fairly straight forward, "view source". In addition to IE, iFrames are rendered by most contemporary browsers:

I heard they can only be viewed with Internet Explorer

and I know for sure they are renderable by Mozilla 1.1+ and NetScape 6.2+.

http://www.the-ebiz.net/autoplay/textbox.html

[Atomic-Design]

Originally posted by LongIslandJam
Times New Roman font seems to be going on the way side on the net like polyester suits did in the 70's.

It's just a matter of tastes and preferences really. However there is some fact behind it.

In a class I took on typography (the study of type and all fun things like that), Times New Roman and fonts like it are harder to read on computer screens than other fonts. Fonts like Arial and Verdana are fonts more suitable for reading online. However in the print world, the opposite is the case. But since you're online, stick with Arial and Verdana, and a big no-no is using fonts that are rare, as in order to see a font, the visitor must have the font (unless its a graphic or picture of course).

It's a matter of sans-serif vs serif (is that the opposite of sans-serif? I forgot that little detail!). Serif fonts have little tails below their line. The result is that when used in large paragraphs, it's easy to follow with the eye.