1st site ever published

[chaps]

Hi all,

This is my first website ever so bare with me - I know it is simple. Am I on the right track? I know my photos page needs help but I'm not sure how to fix it. Anyways, any advice is appreciated,


www.chaplainsmith.com

[bill2006]

Re: 1st site ever published

Getting there.
-The seals of the Armed Forces are out of focus. I beleive you are missing Army and AirForce.
-In your contact page, link your emails so users do not have to copy and paste.

Good luck

[Lincslady]

Re: 1st site ever published

Hi Mike,

Youve done a great job, its a very nice site everything worked that I tried but I have to say your photo's were so huge I couldnt see the whole photo, try resizing them with pixresizer..you'll find it here...
http://www.vodahost.com/pix.htm

The buttons look great by the way :o)

[zigzag]

Re: 1st site ever published

Hi
Well done. Your links work, and the site is too the point.
You could use the 'center in browser' option on your web pages. First check the page width is set correctly in Page Properties (just over 900 in your case)
You might use Pixresizer on your center photo of the home page, to decrease page load time.
Your background colors are not consistent. e.g. Red on the home page, and White on the rest.
Regards

[LadyEye]

Re: 1st site ever published

Very nice looking site and layout too .. good navigation ... I agree with Bill on the seals ...

in so far as your photos, I might enlarge the thumbnails, being careful not to distort the photos at the same time, tug on the upper right corners of the blue handles as opposed to side to side .... you have plenty of room on your page to do this ... I would enlarge the thumbnails probably another three or so times ....
you also may want to consider resizing them a bit and reloading them into the gallery... there is a handy pic re-sizer here, someone will post the link, or I will look for it here .... but if you resized them that may also help,

there is also the photo album option ... in fantastico in your control panel ... jalbum ... i use that and it will resize your photos and create your album complete with thumbnails, photo views or a slideshow .... if you choose to use the album I and many others can give you help with that ... once you know how to do it and remember how to do it .... it's a piece of cake .....
a sample can be found here if you like to see it how it all ends up coming together ......

you click just one of the thumbnails and another screen opens with the controls for viewing a larger pic or the slideshow and the timing of the slideshow can be set by the viewer ......

http://www.halifaxwolverinesjra.com/vstruro101206

Awesome looking website!! Great job!

[Bethers]

Re: 1st site ever published

If you added those pictures using the gallery feature - then the first thing I would do is stretch it further on both sides - yes, it will make this page longer, but is necessary if you want these pictures to be seen. You could also try doing 4 across instead of 3 - which would mean you wouldn't need the page to be as much longer.

Your site is nice and clean. You've done a great job so far.

[chaps]

Re: 1st site ever published

Thanks everyone, I will forge ahead with your suggestions. How cool to have professionals help me with this!

Bill, how do I focus those emblems, they were high res or so I thought... (also I am a Marine turned Navy Chaplain which means I only deploy with those specific branches. Army and Air Force have their own chaplains.)

Again, thanks all!

[asirimarco]

Re: 1st site ever published

good choice of colors for your site - all nav buttons i tried worked fine - agree about photos - if you dont want to use the BV gallery option - both Jalbum and Porta or Web Album Generator are other alternatives - all 3 can be downloaded for free - Porta and Web Album are the easiest but Jalbum looks the nicest an example of WebAlbum can be seen at http://www.movingon1.com/aflaalbum.html Jalbum at can be viewed at http://www.movingon1.com/august2006.html

[chaps]

Re: 1st site ever published

I downloaded jalbum and created an album (I think). I tried to publish and it didnt work. Do I create a blank page on Bluevoda first and then send it there?

[Andy128]

Re: 1st site ever published

JAlbum will create a folder. Upload that folder to the server with FTP Manager and then simply link to it.

For instance. IF the folder created is HolidayPics- then you would create a link like so;
http://www.mywebsite.com/HolidayPics

No need to put .html on the end because JAlbum creates a index page in the folder which will automatically open.

Also- the emblems. Their true dimensions are 900X900 pixels. Instead of shrinking them down - use pixresizer to reduce them to 45X45 or 32X32. You will loose less quality this way.

Cheers,

Andy

[BrentB]

Re: 1st site ever published

Hello Chaps.
Great site and much needed. I have just launched my site as well.
Please have a look www.cmmissions.org

[Andy128]

Re: 1st site ever published

Brent-
You would probably get a better response if you started a thread for your site specifically. More people will respond and it will not interfere with chaps site critique.

**NEVER MIND- IT APPEARS YOU DID SO ALREADY.

Andy

[chaps]

Re: 1st site ever published

Thanks everyone for your help - I have finally figured out how to upload nice albums. Thanks for all of the input.