New Gallery Front end, whachu think? AND

Lex

First, take a peek, and give responsible thought provoking opinions. (hold nasty criticism though, as I worked to hard!) Keep in mind, all text will be further reviewed, even photos. Got to get a start, and these provided that. Other pages will follow as I can get to them (tabs)

www.smokymountainsgallery.com

At present, no buttons are active. It's taken most of today to get this main page up, and get the flash elements coordinated, etc... (when you don't do web development all the time, or graphics, these things take time. Also, designing as I go, lol.

So far, it's just a simple link to Smugmug burried in the text. But I am also looking for opinions, how I can seemlessly integrate my independent site with smugmug most successfully?

Keep in mind, I have a web server for other business interests, so maintaining my separate domain name makes sense. Also, I have shopping cart, and credit card processing, so I want to maintain some control at my main site for future mods/changes, etc... best of both worlds. Smugmug works for me today, but I leave the future out there. Today, I don't want to be in the printing biz anyway. :-) But maybe small independent stuff, you know....

Thanks for any input, advice. Many apologies if I put this in the wrong section. I wasn't real sure...

Doug
www.fotogafer.com
www.smokiesgallery.com (also points to new page)

caroline

Lex wrote:

First, take a peek, and give responsible thought provoking opinions. (hold nasty criticism though, as I worked to hard!) Keep in mind, all text will be further reviewed, even photos. Got to get a start, and these provided that. Other pages will follow as I can get to them (tabs)

www.smokymountainsgallery.com

At present, no buttons are active. It's taken most of today to get this main page up, and get the flash elements coordinated, etc... (when you don't do web development all the time, or graphics, these things take time. Also, designing as I go, lol.

So far, it's just a simple link to Smugmug burried in the text. But I am also looking for opinions, how I can seemlessly integrate my independent site with smugmug most successfully?

Keep in mind, I have a web server for other business interests, so maintaining my separate domain name makes sense. Also, I have shopping cart, and credit card processing, so I want to maintain some control at my main site for future mods/changes, etc... best of both worlds. Smugmug works for me today, but I leave the future out there. Today, I don't want to be in the printing biz anyway. :-) But maybe small independent stuff, you know....

Thanks for any input, advice. Many apologies if I put this in the wrong section. I wasn't real sure...

Doug
www.fotogafer.com
www.smokiesgallery.com (also points to new page)

Hello Doug
I don't think I do thought provoking ) but I like what i see so far. I am using FF and Safari on a mac, there is a white empty block at the top of your page - is that how it should be right now ?

The text on the top 2 paras is very tight to the pics a little space would be more pleasing to my eye. Otherwise I enjoyed looking at your galleries .

Caroline

Caro

denisegoldberg

I like the overall design of your page, but I think that the text describing each topic is very small. It's probably fine for young eyes, but it's uncomfortable for older eyes. And unfortunately smugmug isn't one of the sites that abides by browser settings for text size - so a reasonable size needs to be chosen in the gallery customization.

--- Denise

Lex

Thanks to both of you.

In the end, it may take browser specific code techniques, unless MAC does Flash.

So, that's the first question, does MAC/Safari, etc do Flash? I would have thought it did. You are missing my entire heading Caroline, for this reason.

Ok, small text.

I guess I've some work to do yet, and research. I am handicapped by my basic web skills, oh well! Can't pay a pro developer to do it now.

Estimates are, that Flash content reaches 98% of users. I would ASSUME this includes Apple users, if not, then Apple's percent of market is smaller than I thought.
Adobe Flash estimates
http://www.adobe.com/products/player_census/flashplayer/



thanks.

Lex

Caroline, after 1 cup of coffee, I am going to speculate that you are running Flash 5.0. This is just a wee bit OLD with Flash 9 currently at least.

You need to update your Flash player I believe, and then you will see my top heading.

www.adobe.com look for flash player installer.

any flash player from 6 to 9 or current should work regardless of platform. I know this is true because my Macromedia Studio 8 can be installed on Apple or PC, and it includes Flash, duh on me....

Anyway, so far, as usual Firefox is proving to be difficult too, menu not displaying in Firefox, geesh.

Doug

Stormdancing

Lex,

I have Flash 9 installed and I too see a big white block for your header.
I'm using Firefox.

Scott_Quier

Stormdancing wrote:

Lex,

I have Flash 9 installed and I too see a big white block for your header.
I'm using Firefox.

Ditto

Lex

Scott_Quier wrote:

Ditto

Firefox is an issue. I hate that browser, it's incompatible with the WORLD.

For the record, this is written in measely flash 6, Any flash player later than that, SHOULD play this. Folks, this is not a Flash issue, or an application issue, it's an issue with Mozilla Firefox, not following compatibility rules that Apple and Microsoft are. So, what's the solution?

I may add a basic menu bar for diehard firefox users, rather than coding an entirely separate HTML page and use code if statements to determine your browser. I don't really want to go through all that mess, that frankly, I know nothing about much so far anyway, lol.

But thanks for the input and confirmation. For the record, I also ran in Firefox unsuccessfully with both Flash 8 and then Flash 9. Fact is, the only thing that shouldn't run is Flash 5.

Scott_Quier

Just popped this up in IE 7 with no issues. Shows up there just fine. However, none of the links seem to work. Is that just me, or is the page not yet complete?

Lex

Scott_Quier wrote:

Just popped this up in IE 7 with no issues. Shows up there just fine. However, none of the links seem to work. Is that just me, or is the page not yet complete?

Yes, the page is not complete yet, the links are inactive. Was a design elements only posting. :-)

But you saw it, yeah!

caroline

Ok Doug, I have just installed Flash 9 and I see your header just fine, also the text boxes now look better spaced, although I do agree with Denise about the size of it, too small for me to read comfortably, also I think small white on black is an issue for me.
Cheers
Caroline

Lex

caroline wrote:

Ok Doug, I have just installed Flash 9 and I see your header just fine, also the text boxes now look better spaced, although I do agree with Denise about the size of it, too small for me to read comfortably, also I think small white on black is an issue for me.
Cheers
Caroline

I did increase the size of text from 10 to 11 point. I will consider 12 point text if necessary. The black on white, is likely non negotiable at this point since it fits my general style at this point. I don't know if you saw the 11 point text or not Caroline. Additionally, the resolution you use on your screen could also affect what you see. The higher resolution scree, the smaller a site and it's text become. So, I may not be seeing what you see! When I get to work where I can go higher resolution, I may see different!

I'm adding minor button functionality now, not done yet. it will be a vanilla version at present, just to get some content up. Later, I can explore integrated slideshows, and other advanced features.

Thanks.
Doug

Lex

Flash now working with Firefox. So, I think most issues now fixed, except white text for Caroline. :-)

Doug

Scott_Quier

Keeping in mind that I'm no Flash expert, I find the that your flash header goes through the entire re-init animation to be more than a little distracting. I'm thinking, if it's possible, to do the animation only on the initial page load, and not on subsequent page load for that session.

Just a thought.

photogmomma

Everything looks great! I love the header, etc...

My only comment is that there is too much text on your main page. I would have that information available AFTER clicking a link... I think, if I'm a customer, I want to see the images most and the information second....

Just my 2¢! Take it for what it's worth!

But everything is showing up great and i love your header and the flash! Very nice!