# site Testing?



## losttravelerfl (Mar 9, 2007)

If anyone has a few minutes, and is in a particularly helpful mood, I'd love to get some thoughts on my site.  I'm a programmer and just a hobby photographer, so I built a combo photoblog, and img hosting site that I use, and is open to anyone else.  I'm not trying to sell anything, and there are no pop-ups or ads of any kind!

So, if there are any that could upload a few pics and try that out, or  especially any that are willing to play around with the photoblog portion, that one has a few wrinkles that might be a little diff than most blog admin tools, so feedback is greatly appreciated.  Of course, if anyone actually likes the site and wants to use it for blogging or img hosting, that's even better, my posts won't be so lonely there!  

The friends I tried to get to help test were either too lazy, or just didn't even know how to upload a picture.  Maybe I just need better friends.  

www.f8pix.com

Thank you all
-Joshua

P.S.
There are "page tips" on the top of any admin page that attempt to explain how to use a page.  My one friend that attempted to help me said she didn't understand a page and I asked if the page tips helped, and she said, "huh."  Feedback on whether or not those links are helpful at all would also be great!


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## losttravelerfl (Mar 27, 2007)

Anyone?  Anyone?  Bueller?
Felt like a good spot for a quote from Ferris Bueller's Econ teacher.


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## Alex_B (Mar 27, 2007)

the intro page is so cluttered with things that I feel lost.

but maybe I am just too old for this sort of thing 

navigations seems fair enough though.


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## mr e (Mar 27, 2007)

Just a quick note as I haven't looked around too much, but the layout needs some reworking, looks too outdated in my opinion, and that's probably not helping with the "cluttered" feel of your homepage.

Try cleaning up the layout and see if that can help it feel less cluttered.


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## losttravelerfl (Mar 28, 2007)

I do appreciate the comments and agree the front page doesn't look the way I want it to.  I'm not a layout genius, so I'm not positive how to change it yet, but I do agree.  It does become slightly less busy if you are logged in, as you don't get the top two boxes explaining photoblog/hosting options, they go away.

Anyone with thoughts on how the gallery pages function?
http://www.f8pix.com/gallery/joshua/

thanks again


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## alan927 (Mar 29, 2007)

Yea, the gallery needs some work.  Once you're looking at a picture there is no previous/next to navigate among them.  Everything is left-justified as well, which takes the page out of balance (too much on the left, not enough on the right).  Centering would help quite a bit.

I would suggest checking out JAlbum.  You can put your galleries into an iframe and let JAlbum generate all of your navigation html for you (and it's free!).  My site is 100% JAlbum-generated.


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## losttravelerfl (Apr 1, 2007)

Alan, thanks, you helped me find two things.  jalbum isn't an option as my imgs are integrated within the whole site, not to mention that iframes aren't search engine friendly.  But, I did add nav links when viewing an img.  And, I'm not centering the entire pg, but I did add a bit more margin on the left, and I am adding the first preview img to go along with the thumbs.  Before it didn't look right with just thumbs on the Left before filling in the preview location via mouse-over.

Anyone else?  It's very helpful!


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## dewey (Apr 1, 2007)

I took a breeze around, and the comic sans looking font is what's making the site look so dated.  I would choose a more modern font... smaller and not bold everywhere.  It's a good start though. :thumbup:


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## alan927 (Apr 1, 2007)

You've got a bit of a typo, too...

"*f8Pix - Simple and free, designed for photgraphers"*


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## losttravelerfl (Apr 2, 2007)

THANKS!
I changed the font family to:     
verdana as the primary, 
arial, helvetica, sans-serif as the back-ups

I believe verdana is what TPF is as well.  Any better? (you may have to hit refresh to make sure your browser triggers the new css sheet)  Can you tell me where you feel it's too much bold, specifically?

Alan, I've probably looked at that a thousand times and never seen it, that's why it helps to get strangers to take a look and give feedback!


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## alan927 (Apr 2, 2007)

I like that font a lot better.  I understand about the typo's, we've all done it at least once.


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