Critique my first website

[DT4K]

Hey guys,
I'm an experienced developer, but a total newb at web design, html, css, php, and MySQL
It would be great if you guys could give me your thoughts on my first website.
Please be kind(at least for AT standards) and remember that I am a programmer, NOT an artist.
This site was my hands-on way of trying to teach myself php, MySQL, html, and css. It's all hand-coded almost from scratch. I did use some very basic CSS layout templates to start. Basically just the skeleton for a 3 column layout with a header and footer.

It's 4 Golf Guys

 

[BadRobot]

The main problem with your website is that its about golf. Other than that it looks nice

But that green color...its not a bad shade of green...but..maybe its just a little boring. maybe have it fade from out to white along the sides.

 

[troytime]

considering its about 9000 times better than most "check out my first website" topics, i'd say you did damned good.

 

[imported_Dhaval00]

I am running FF3, and saw some issues with the top-menu under the Message Board. I don't see the text until i hover over it when it turns blue. I'd say you might want to give similar colors [green, beige] on the board as well just to make it consistent. Overall, great work on it. On the courses page, maybe adding gridlines to the list of golf courses of the left might make it look better? You could tap into 'golf-help' videos and what not on You Tube.

What's your handicap, btw?

 

[Markbnj]

Originally posted by: Dhaval00
I am running FF3, and saw some issues with the top-menu under the Message Board. I don't see the text until i hover over it when it turns blue. I'd say you might want to give similar colors [green, beige] on the board as well just to make it consistent. Overall, great work on it. On the courses page, maybe adding gridlines to the list of golf courses of the left might make it look better? You could tap into 'golf-help' videos and what not on You Tube.

What's your handicap, btw?

Using FF3 here too and it works fine, so maybe the OP jumped in and fixed something?

Anyway, nice job I would say. I do agree that there is something a little unappealing about that shade of green.

 

[TheEarthWillShake]

Looks great.

In FF3, the text for the links looks "not centered" and the FAQ, Register, etc... don't appear until I scroll over them.

 

[jjones]

Looks nice. I'm with the others on the colors though, I think both the green and the blue are a bit drab. Think about changing that up, maybe throw in some white where the blue is to brighten it a bit; otherwise, looks fine to me.

 

[Hyperblaze]

The only thing that kinda bugs me (and this is just a preference of mine) is that you don't seem to need to have everything under the "main" folder.

Also, might want to lose some padding at the top.

 

[DT4K]

Thanks everyone.
Yeah, I ran into that issue with the message board menu links not showing up in FF. I'm not sure what the issue is because it should be just a straight install of phpBB. Although I did install someone's custom theme for phpBB, so maybe there are some issues there. I can't remember if it was a problem before I added our standard header to the forum index page or not.

I agree that it would be nicer to make the message board colors match up with the main site. But I haven't gotten to the point of messing with all the css for the board.

Basically, we just wanted to get the site looking "decent", then we focused on getting all the course content added.

Oh, my handicap is about 20. My personal best is an 81 at Stonebridge, but apparently that was a miracle day because since then, the closest I've come is a couple of 87's and 88's. I'm usually in the low to mid 90s.

On the "main" folder thing, I also agree. We threw everything in that folder because my buddy had thrown a bunch of templates and other junk he was messing around with in the root of the public_html folder. There should be a way to leave the files in that "main" folder, but not have it show up in the address bar, right? How do I do that?

 

[slugg]

That's way... WAY better than anything I can do. I gave up and just started using templates and open source websites. Take a look: clicky

^^ remember... i didn't actually make that. I just used free pre-made crap. LOL

So yea, you should feel pretty damn good if that's your first website.

 

[ChristianV]

as for being your first site: You did a very good job! Congratulations.
Let me give you an advice: When you click on "Gold Courses" you get that "menu" on the left, it would be good if this menu remained there if you click on one of them instead of disappearing.

 

[theknight571]

I like it... I love the idea behind it too.

My co-workers and I started something similar at work... well.. until the big boss told us to take it down.

We traveled so much, we decided we would start writing reviews of the local restaurants we'd visit while in a town.

We had more fun writing the reviews... and pretending to be "food snobs" than anything else. LOL

 

[tfinch2]

Text in nav bar buttons is not centered.

 

[sourceninja]

For strict xhtml you should be using <br /> not <br>. Also you should not be using <center>. (use align on a block element or use css to align center). That is just a couple of quick things I noticed.

 

[ChristianV]

Originally posted by: sourceninja
For strict xhtml you should be using <br /> not <br>. Also you should not be using <center>. (use align on a block element or use css to align center). That is just a couple of quick things I noticed.

true, there are many errors.

I suggest to use this:
http://validator.w3.org/

anyway, I don't like all things that strict enforces, some are good though. That's why I use transitional and can follow the rules that apply to strict as well, but it doesn't work the other way around. I've you've got some discipline while coding this is not very difficult.

 

[mcmilljb]

Looks pretty good. I don't mind the green color too much. Maybe just try to extend it some you don't see so much of the background.

Now lets talk about expanding and possible IPO... lol. Keep up the good work.

 

[sourceninja]

Originally posted by: ChristianV

Originally posted by: sourceninja
For strict xhtml you should be using <br /> not <br>. Also you should not be using <center>. (use align on a block element or use css to align center). That is just a couple of quick things I noticed.

true, there are many errors.

I suggest to use this:
http://validator.w3.org/

anyway, I don't like all things that strict enforces, some are good though. That's why I use transitional and can follow the rules that apply to strict as well, but it doesn't work the other way around. I've you've got some discipline while coding this is not very difficult.

Yea, a lot of errors would go away if the page was changed from strict to transitional.

 

[Onund]

same message board link problem in opera, only visible on mouse over.

Also, from a user point of view, I expect the title bar/image to be a link back to the start page of a website.

The colours look fine to me, have those changed since first posting?