Critic anyone?

[Aden]

Well dispite my constant struggle with my PHPBB forums i've got a website i've put quite a bit of work into for my local filmmaking group.
So if anyone has a few spare minutes and would like to poke around on my site go check it out at Slimmovies

[treanglin]

What was the screen resolution you created this on cause im runnnig 1024x768 and the right side of the site is getting chopped of a little. Forget a name the stickfigure contest, how about a redesign the stickfigure contest. I am a fan of the white text and graphics on a black background, Most of the sites that i have created followed that color scheme. The link to the forum is broken.You might want to hook up with a friend who's well versed in layout and design and get a few pointers from them. Good luck on you next version of your website.

[Aden]

What was the screen resolution you created this on cause im runnnig 1024x768 and the right side of the site is getting chopped of a little.

I'm running this on a box that has six moniters hooked up to it most of which are running at 1680x1024. I have tried to shrink the opening page but all the other still seem to work.
As for the rest of your post here i'm trying to figure out what your suggesting here.
The stick figure guy is our logo. It's simplistic and works for what we do.
I mention in my initial post that the forums had problems and i'm seeking help both in another thread and other outside sources.
As for a friend thats well versed... Well i don't have many friends besides the small rodients down here. Will you be my friend treanlin?

[©opy®ight]

Where did you download the phpbb forum files from ? Was it their official website ? Cuz wheni downloaded, all i did was extract the phpbb.zip folder i downloaded from them, renamed it to "forum", uploaded to my server, installed the forum by following these steps :

http://tutorials.forum-forum.com/phpbb/

uploaded some skin files, and this is the result:

http://www.stekdoza.com/forum/

Its a forum for friends so dont be suprised for the low post and member count

oh yeah: i also uploaded language files...

I'm running this on a box that has six moniters

Damn, one box and six monitors ? How many video cards do you have lol

[Winds8929]

The site looks good on my screens. However, (as posted) the forums are a little buggy.

Sometimes they'll load nicely, and other (more often) times it'll cut the page far short (little grey boxes). *shrug* Other than that nice job.

Do we get to download your movies or do we have'ta buy 'em? I looked for a preview or trailor link but didn't see one. Then again, I am partially blind.

[RoadClosed]

I like the stick dude. In fact I would name him "Stick Dude" or "Sticky-D"

The res looks good but there was a little white line under the Docs link, like something wasn't filled in all the way. I could not get to the forums so that is an access issue for users? Make sure all directories and files under the phpbb directory have the recomended access rights for "users". The site looks good, excellent work.

[;TT]

<< Very hard to please.

I'll be frank, the site looks like crap. You make a lot of first time mistakes that can easily be fixed.

First, by order of most annoying, learn to resize images. Open up paint and change the size of the image before inserting it into a webpage. Not only is there no need for a 2288px by 1712px image, but you are wasting valuable bandwidth loading that image. Your height and width tags may shrink it on the page but the fact remains that a 2288px by 1712px image is loaded from your server to the user and it kills load times.

Second, layout. The front page is scarey to say the least. Your front page should provide an easy clean cut outline of what your site is about. Your page has an image and a few image links. The updated content is way at the bottom and not easily seen. Going through each page of the site, I noticed you don't have a clear cut layout that you use. Every page is thrown together randomly and lacks cohesion, an element necessary to any site.

Third, the images overall. They're horrible. The images throughout the site, meaning the ones you made, not actual pictures, lack substance and blend-ability. They stick out and are positioned awkwardly. I see you're trying to add a film taping theme to your images but you need to learn to work those images into your webpages better. The "Movies" is what I'm refering to mostly on this. The main page navigation images could also be redone to blend a bit more. Rather than having the each navigation image seperate, have them in one block.

Fourth, content. Your pages lack content. Little blurbs and a very short rant aren't considered true content. Tell users about Slim Productions, the producers, the actors. Have a little bio on them, whatever, but as it is, the site lacks true content. Another suggestion for the "Movies" page would be provide a link to the script and a decently written synopsis of each movie on that page. One sentence blurbs aren't going to keep users interested. Well written and developed content will.

Fifth, color and text treatments. I myself like black and white themes but sometimes they just don't cut it. Your page looks very boring. It doesn't have anything to keep me stuck to the screen. It's simple which is good, but having zero diversity isn't a good idea. Also, the text treatments, add change. Currently, your pages consist of something similar to:

body text="#FFFFFF" bgcolor="#000000" link="#FFFFFF" vlink="#FFFFFF" alink="#FFFFFF"

You need to add some change between sections. Have important headings in a bold style, and then have the rest of the text in a different style. Again, diversity is needed.

I suggest you read this: http://www.searchengineworld.com/misc/guide.htm and this: http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20031222.html Both pages will give you more clues to redesign and improve your page.

;TT

[kurt_der_koenig]

I think ;TT hit the spot, very much so. But you got to give the guy a break , he did it in Frontpage!

<meta name="GENERATOR" content="Microsoft FrontPage 5.0">

For resolutions I would recomend the Web developer extenstion. Thats if you have Mozilla Firefox that is!?! It has a cool feature that you can check your page in different resolutions and other stuff of course.

May I suggest learning CSS? Just for the sake of formatting text and such. It makes a big difference and is very easy to learn.

kurt

[Aden]

Dang should of know you guys catch the frontpage thing.

[;TT]

I think ;TT hit the spot, very much so. But you got to give the guy a break , he did it in Frontpage!

Originally posted here by Aden
Dang should of know you guys catch the frontpage thing.

What does Frontpage have to do with anything?