Thread: Advice please

My website is for a garden club - karanadownsg.com - so I am not trying to sell anything, just provide information and photos for the members, and I have never had any experience in webbuilding before, nor am I very experienced with the computer. I haven't loaded the complete site, but would like some criticism. Is there any way of locking the various items - such as the heading, so that it will load as a whole and not have one kookaburra sitting there for some time? I have broadband, but a lot of the members do not, so it won't be good for them.
Any suggestions would be most welcome.
Thanks,
Aussietrim
http://www.karanadownsgc.com/index.html

Hi there,

For someone who says they do not have much experience with computers you have done a great job.

I am not sre I undersand your question but if you want to loke element (such as the header) on your page just right clikc on the element and click on lock. I am not sure if this will help you.

Smething else you might consider is centering your pages so they are centred on the screen. You can do this by right cliking on an empty part of the page, select page properties and then check the centre page box.

Good luck with it all ... you are going really well ...

Hi Aussietrim,

I agreed with whiteshepherd, you are really doing a great job!

I like the background which balanced off with your green theme and the two birds in yr frontpage.

You can learn more from the BlueVoda tutorials. Keep practising and you will create a pro website.

Thanks to both of you. I originally tried centering the pages but they didn't look right. Now when I try, it doesn't seem to make any difference. However, I will keep playing with it and hopefully improve along the way.
And I do lock all the elements but that doesn't seem to stop them loading separately. I wouldn't mind if just the heading loaded together and then the rest of the page, but it doesn't look good for one bird there on its own for a while. It doesn't happen with the front page, but does with the others.
Aussietrim

nice site :)

correct me if i'm wrong, your site look align to left. To put your content at center of browser, u have to tick 'center in browser' in page properties. also try to set your page width to 800 to prevent 'empty' space on the right.

AT,
-Use a paint program, Paint.net, Windows Paint, etc. and fine tune your heading from 3 elements into one *.jpeg file. Work a larger version and resize with PixResizer to the proportion you want for your site. Both Paint.net and Pix Resizer are free software, search forums for the downloads or let us know.
-Consider working color palette on heading to blend the two background colors, the kookaburra's have a square yellow rectangle and the header is a different tone.
-Header size is different on home page, might want to use same.
-Title your pages, do this from Page Properties. "Kookaburra Bird Watchers" or "Brisbane Gardens" and yr URL. Different titles for each page. This will help search engines.
-Center your photo pages, right click "center on browser", nice pics : -)
-Also, noticed you use Lightbox for some but not all.
-Some links still under construction.

Good luck.

Thanks for that advice Bill. My problem is I am not good working with colours etc - I have been trying to get rid of that yellow rectangle and just have the oval with the kookaburra, but don't know how to do it.However, I might be able to enlist the help of a friend. I do have Corel Photo paint on my computer and I have the Pixrezer, so I will play around and see what I can come up with. I changed the header on the front page this morning and will probably do the rest like it. All the photos are in light boxes, but if you click on a photo before they have all loaded, they don't come up as though they are in one. Is there any trick to changing that so that people can start to open them before they have all loaded and still get them in the light box?
I haven't got all the pages ready and am just seeing how it looks on the web. I am not telling all the members about it yet! Only a select few for criticism.
Whyshyan - I have a problem in that my page won't stay at 800, even though they are all set at that in page properties. However, with a lot of strong words I was able to get the updated index page published at that size - but on my computer I still have the empty space when it is published. Maybe if I can remember those words.........
Aussietrim

Originally Posted by Aussietrim

Thanks for that advice Bill. My problem is I am not good working with colours etc - I have been trying to get rid of that yellow rectangle and just have the oval with the kookaburra, but don't know how to do it.However, I might be able to enlist the help of a friend. I do have Corel Photo paint on my computer and I have the Pixrezer, so I will play around and see what I can come up with. I changed the header on the front page this morning and will probably do the rest like it. All the photos are in light boxes, but if you click on a photo before they have all loaded, they don't come up as though they are in one. Is there any trick to changing that so that people can start to open them before they have all loaded and still get them in the light box?
I haven't got all the pages ready and am just seeing how it looks on the web. I am not telling all the members about it yet! Only a select few for criticism.
Whyshyan - I have a problem in that my page won't stay at 800, even though they are all set at that in page properties. However, with a lot of strong words I was able to get the updated index page published at that size - but on my computer I still have the empty space when it is published. Maybe if I can remember those words.........
Aussietrim

Hello,

I like your First page very much has a very nice feel to it. I would suggest changing all of them to it so they match easiest way is to make your Owen temple and just use it for all your pages.

I hope you don't mind but i fixed you bird for you.

Jolen

Originally Posted by Aussietrim

Whyshyan - I have a problem in that my page won't stay at 800, even though they are all set at that in page properties. However, with a lot of strong words I was able to get the updated index page published at that size - but on my computer I still have the empty space when it is published. Maybe if I can remember those words.........
Aussietrim

Actually, i'm also on learning path :)

i see the scrollbar at the page botton, maybe some element have the width over 800. from the page source, it has this line,

<div id="bv_" style="position:absolute;left:2px;top:1px;width:99 2px;height:186px;z-index:5" align="left">
<img src="bv01104.gif" id="Shape1" align="top" alt="" border="0" width="992" height="186"></div>

i just wonder is it the image width cause the problem?
i also like to know the solution :)

Mind Jolen? I am delighted and thank you very much! I will start all over again with him.
Whshyan I am going to try keeping everything smaller and see if that helps.

Originally Posted by Aussietrim

Mind Jolen? I am delighted and thank you very much! I will start all over again with him.
Whshyan I am going to try keeping everything smaller and see if that helps.

You should be able to replace the ones you have in your header with him. I used the same color. make sure your header is your 800 with the height don't matter. if everything is 800 and centered you should be OK.

Jolen

If your page won't stay at the 800 you have set then something is probably sticking out over the limit.Usually for me it is something I shoved aside whilst creating, and then forgot about - an empty text box perhaps, something like that.
Do edit, select all, and everything should get highlighted. Then look beyond your 8oo limit and see if anything is there.

NIce start on this site - I like it!

Jolen, I saved the bird as a jpg, and when I inserted it in a page and tested it online, it just comes up with one of those dreaded red xs. Is there other way I should save it so it will work?
Aussietrim

Thanks Larazovich, I am sure you are right about that, and I need to be more careful.

Originally Posted by Aussietrim

Jolen, I saved the bird as a jpg, and when I inserted it in a page and tested it online, it just comes up with one of those dreaded red xs. Is there other way I should save it so it will work?
Aussietrim

Here try this I saved it a gif. and I tryed bmp they both showed in a test run.

Jolen

If attacment didn't show I can send it e-mail to you.

Jolen, I just tried - Save Target As, instead of Save Picture As, and he works just fine. Thanks a million for your trouble.
Aussietrim

Np if you look at my site the farm one you'll see I like doing that :).

Good luck with your site.

Jolen

Thanks Jolen - your site is great - maybe with help from people like you I might be able to acheive something that looks a little more professional. Oh well, only a couple of months ago I would never have imagined I could make any sort of website. Without Blue Voda I never would. Now I just have to improve.

I now have a new problem. I updated all my pages with Jolen's kookaburra, and re-published several successfully. But then as I published another, it came up with the web address above the heading like this.
http://www.karanadownsgc.com/woodlands.html. Help! I didn't do anything different. There are a couple more pages that I haven't published because they show up this way in the test page. Any suggestions will be greatly appreciated. Thanks

Originally Posted by Aussietrim

I now have a new problem. I updated all my pages with Jolen's kookaburra, and re-published several successfully. But then as I published another, it came up with the web address above the heading like this.
http://www.karanadownsgc.com/woodlands.html. Help! I didn't do anything different. There are a couple more pages that I haven't published because they show up this way in the test page. Any suggestions will be greatly appreciated. Thanks

Did you try to put something in your HTLM inside your page?
Here's the Kookaburra faceing the other way for your right side sorry I didn't think of it yesterday . :)

Jolen

Hi Aussietrim!

Super job mate! I agree with everyone else, super site.

One critisism might be that on the homepage the menubar at the top has a drop down menu which goes underneath the text at the bottom.

Good luck, great site!

Ooops, thanks Jolen for that. I do know how to flip him but just forgot in some of the pages and I am so unobservant I hadn't noticed. The only thing I did with the HTML part was put in the bit about no caching, but I did that to all the pages. It isn't happening any more so I will just do a new page for the one that still has that address at the top.
Thanks Jack. I don't know how to bring the text of the drop down menu to the front. Is is possible, or should I just move things round so that it doesn't go near the other text?
Aussietrim

NP Aussietrim,

you may want to look into using navals single menu. I use it for my headder, menus , and the address at the bottom of my site. here's the link.
http://www.vodahost.com/vodatalk/blu...ge-bv-php.html

to get your menu to the frunt you left click it and godown to move to front and it will be ove the other items.

Jolen

Tnanks Jolen - Naval has explained it very well - I would think that even I should be able to understand it! re the drop down menu, I hadn't realised that "move to the front" would work on the drop down part, but I see it does. Thanks a lot. I don't really like those menu bars and think the button ones are a lot better looking. If they had a drop down action attached to them it would be great. I might consider using them and just having text menus for the various sub pages.
Aussietrim

Another question please. One of my friends tells me that the word Links on all the pages, sticks out over the frame. This doesn't appear on my computer. That is a worry because lots of people might be seeing something different in other pages too. I have "no-cached" all the pages.
Aussietrim

Everything looks great except on your top menu bar when the sub-menu for Photo's opens up it does cover up the SubTitle Text. I would suggest moving your photos on your menu bar over to the far right, so that when you mouse over it, it doesn't cover up your text title. You do this by opening up your menu bar properties and select photos and move down. Other than that, everything looks fine. I am viewing using IE7. What browser is your friend using?

Thanks for that advice Cindy. I will do that soon - I had moved them along a bit but evidently not far enough.
I think my friend is probably using IE6, as I am. I had IE7 on my old computer but didn't like it so haven't upgraded this one yet.

can anyone tell me how to start new topic or put new thred in this forum. i want to tell you my sad story in last 1 year regarding web designing and hosting
thanks

If you use your back button to the previous page, you will see at the top left of the lists of threads - New Thread. Just click on that.

Thanks Mate

Can anyone tell me if it is possible to put a counter on the sites in Blue Voda? I don't seem to be able to find anything about one, but I would be interested to know how many Garden Club members visit the site.
Thanks - Aussietrim
www.karanadownsgc.com

Yes you can, and I am sure someone will give you the way to do it, but I was just wondering if you have had a look at awsstats, in your control panel. There is so much information there about how many people look at your site, and when, and even what pages they look at and what browser they are using..and on and on.
Go to your control panel, click on website/ftp stats and then on awstats.
Enjoy!

Thank you Liz. I had a look and was amazed at the number of people who have been on the site!
Now I have another problem but I don't know if it is my computer or something else. Sometimes the photos and images in the Blue Voda files, have disappeared when I bring up the file to change something. Is this a common problem, and is there anything I can do to stop it?
Thanks,
Aussie Trim

Originally Posted by Aussietrim

Thank you Liz. I had a look and was amazed at the number of people who have been on the site!
Now I have another problem but I don't know if it is my computer or something else. Sometimes the photos and images in the Blue Voda files, have disappeared when I bring up the file to change something. Is this a common problem, and is there anything I can do to stop it?
Thanks,
Aussie Trim

So you just get space and a little box with an x in it, right?
Usually if they disappear it is because you have moved them from the original place, where they were when you made the page in the first place. Happened to me alot at first, because I would put everything all over the desktop , make the page and then tidy up, organizing the images into folders. bad idea. Best to put them where you want them in the first place.
When you make the page and place them, the construction page keeps a 'map' of how to get them next time, and when you move them they are 'lost'. All you have to do is reinsert them from their final resting place and leave them there, and the next time you go to update or cahnge the page they will be fine.
Hope this helps.

No Liz, they disappear from the construction page. I get that dreaded red x when I have used an image, not a photo. But often my photos in the Light Box on a construction page disappear too, just leaving a vertical white line. Because I am still changing my pages frequently and re-publishing them, this is very annoying because then I have to get the photos or images back onto the construction page before I can make the changes and republish.

Aussietrim

Originally Posted by Aussietrim

No Liz, they disappear from the construction page. I get that dreaded red x when I have used an image, not a photo. But often my photos in the Light Box on a construction page disappear too, just leaving a vertical white line. Because I am still changing my pages frequently and re-publishing them, this is very annoying because then I have to get the photos or images back onto the construction page before I can make the changes and republish.

Aussietrim

AH I see.
I get a vertical line in the lightbox feature too but am able to double click on it and the editing place appears and the pics are always there, though they only appear in preview and when publsihed. I don't know why that is, or why it only happens sometimes.
Maybe someone else will know and tell us....
Wish I had an answer for you.
Good luck

Well, it is good to know the pictures are still there when they are published. I hadn't tried them in preview - just tried clicking on them and when that failed, some strong words, but that didn't work either.
Thanks,
Aussietrim

I have a brochure in a Word document with text and pictures which I would like to put on the website, but I can't seem to get it there. Am I just being dumb, or is it not possible in that format?
Aussietrim









Aussietrim

Found out how to do it thanks.

Can someone tell me if it is possible to transfer the BV files to my laptop so that I can work on there there, and also as a safeguard in case my main computer crashes? I tried putting the files on a memory stick but they wouldn't open on the lap top.
Thanks,
Aussietrim

Originally Posted by Aussietrim

Can someone tell me if it is possible to transfer the BV files to my laptop so that I can work on there there, and also as a safeguard in case my main computer crashes? I tried putting the files on a memory stick but they wouldn't open on the lap top.
Thanks,
Aussietrim

Did you download the bluevoda website builder onto your laptop as well ... ? Your files will not open without that as well ...

I didn't download it from the Internet, but I was able to transfer the webbuilder to the lap top so that I can open Blue Voda and build a web page, but I can't get the pages over that I have in the files on this computer.

Aussietrim

Hi - I find your site very calming; in other words, I find nothing wrong with it.
Good luck
Marilyn
www.parisdoctorsatan.com

you should be able to just save them to a USB disc and transfer them across that way ... I've been emailed BV pages in the past and would think that as long as you have the program you can open them.

Thank you Marilyn!
Kym, I had put the web builder on the lap top via a memory stick, and even though I could build a page, I couldn't get my pages from this computer to open on the lap top. However, I did as you suggested and deleted the web builder and down loaded it from the Internet, and hey presto, everything works. So thanks for the suggestion.
Aussietrim