After several weeks of work, our new home page is finally published. A special thanks must be given to Code Monkey for all of his hard work.
There is still a little work to do, mainly validation.
We need your feedback before we upload the rest of our site.

__________________
David

From
www.your-garden-ponds-center.com/

David, wow this looks absolutely GREAT! The buttons, background color, etc. all flow very well.

One thing I noticed and it will be interesting to note if others feel the same way but when I went to your left nav, I expected it to fly out when I hovered with my mouse. I didn't realize I had to click until to see the expanded nav. And then when you do click the main nav button and the right arrow appears on the sub nav, I assumed the right arrow meant there would be a fly out so I sort of hesitated and waited for the flyout to come up.

Not a huge deal because when you click on the buttons you quickly get a feel for how it works, but it was a bit confusing to me at first.

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Before commenting let me offer my congratulations on all the effort you have been putting into your site. You are doing some great work.

I agree with Lisa on the navigation. It is a little confusing. Let me say that it looks good, however, so I would do just two things that I think would produce a significant improvement. I would change the effect from click to on hover to open the sections. Then I would remove the right pointing arrow from the hot link buttons. Those arrows cause people to think another submenu is going to open instead of clicking to open the page.

Another issue I would raise is especially apparent on the home page, at least more so than on some other pages. The title "Garden Ponds" seems lost in space. Perhaps just tightening up the space would solve that, or a larger type. But there seems to be a bit of a problem with the sharpness of the type, too. It appears to be a little ragged around the edges.

edit for additional point: I notice that the type font for the home page title is different than the other pages. If you change that to match the others and close up the space a little (perhaps with a slightly larger type) that may solve that issue (if you agree with the need).

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Good Success!
James
Douglas County Master Gardeners
"We don't always get what we want, but we always get what we expect."

I love the brightness of the site. And your ponds are beautiful. Great work in both areas.

Shirley

That's exactly what i thought at first
but i really like the layout and colours and all

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looks great, colors flow effortlessly

I agree with all of the above.

However, I was also a little thrown off by the different look of the other pages. For a minute there, I thought I was on another site. Both designs look nice though.

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Alpha7
A low calories diet plan does not mean starvation, it simply means know how much you should be eating - Eddie Lewis

I will remove the arrow from the navigation as suggested by all.

My inner pages are my first attempt at uploading my own pages.

With a little time all pages will be the same as my home page.

This new design took quite a bit of time to produce!

New logo to design, new navigation, changed my css, included a rotating banner, light box for my pictures, and so on….

This site is produced with XHTML not HTML and is not very different but caused problems to validate.

Just as an example SBI includes are in HTML so when I placed them on my site it would not validate.

The navigation, rotating banner, and light box all have an onload event.

I had to get an onload event handler just for the code.

All of this has been quite a distraction, and has taken all of my time.

But I have time and new content will come soon.

So in a few weeks all 70 pages will be the same and then I want to build more traffic and content.

So in the long term I believe it will help.

Short term ( it killed me )

__________________
David

From
www.your-garden-ponds-center.com/

I believe what you are referring to is what we sometimes call the "learning curve." Fortunately, it never ends. I say fortunately because I work with a lot of dementia limited folks and I know that when your brain slows down life deteriorates fast in a lot of ways. So enjoy the learning.

This is where some start saying, "Boy, is that guy weird!" But the truth is, I enjoy learning how to do these things more than having them done (although the joy is mixed with a little frustration at times). And I enjoy helping someone else learn how to do things more than the money I make from some of these projects. It is what makes life worthwhile.

Anyway, you are doing well learning all these things. And I wouldn't worry about the validation problem too much in the way you mention. As long as you know what is causing the problem. I have the same issue with Aweber. I should check with them to see if I can replace what I have with a newer code, perhaps, but my xhtml won't validate because they use some capital letters and other things which regular html allows but xhtml won't. I just look to see what any issues are so I know it won't affect my page negatively.

__________________
Good Success!
James
Douglas County Master Gardeners
"We don't always get what we want, but we always get what we expect."

Hi David

I saw the www.your-garden-ponds-center.com/. It is amazing, stunning & exciting. There are not enough words to express how much I was impressed and drooling over your BEAUTIFUL this site. Grea..........................................t work

[Manual signature removed. As instructed in the note in your account, you are not allowed to add a signature until you reach the appropriate amount of posts.]

As a new member to WB can I suggest that you introduce yourself?
WB is the best and is full of good help.

PS

I sent you a privet message.

__________________
David

From
www.your-garden-ponds-center.com/

Wow, I can tell you put a lot of work into your site! It looks great! I agree though with everyone else about the navigation bar, though I don't think it is that big of a deal. Once I figured it out I had no problem navigating through your site. By the way, I really like the flow and colors of your site. Keep up the good work my friend. I look forward to see how your site progresses.

Chris H.

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hi David great job, you are always improving your site.

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I really like the site I think it is great The site is really professionally dont site buildit