Fresh out the Dev Server: Please critique

Nuevolution

Astar,You know what the problem with most developers / designers is. They(we) all think they/we can do a better job than the other person. I never understood that concept of how our brain works. But regardless if I charged my friend $600.00 the functionality is there. and under no  circumstance was I being dishonest or  ripping him off. We can sit here and argue about CSS, table-less web development and, hovers all day and night an never agree on anything, which is cool. we all have an opinion, which is why I always consider opinions like "Poop-Shoots" we all have one... So what!But, I stand behind any of my designs 100% and with all "Honesty tell you, I have a proven record of sales and customer satisfaction" I don`t develop web sites to boost my ego, I design for my customers to profit of their web sites. What good would it be if I charge a customer thousands and thousands of dollars when the [fancy one line code web site is sitting there doing nothing?] I think that would be a total rip off and by far more dishonest. The question to you is, for the sake of this conversation? What is your Track Record? Twilight? Astar? anyone? Please fill me in...

InactiveMember

Part of my track record. 1300 pages. 1000 graphics. [Oversaw design and implementation, including information mapping, template design, content architecture.]

Nuevolution

Im accepting everything, and learning others mentality. What I don`t accept is when you makes an assumption that just because the web site wasn`t coded in table-less format that I am ripping a good friend off? Come on now.... how would you take that? As for your track record, I don`t know... as for cookie monster? You don`t even  have a page... Thats a blog.. are you talking about blog pages? thats not a design..

InactiveMember

I included a link above. Here it is again.
Part of my track record. 1300 pages. 1000 graphics. [Oversaw design and implementation, including information mapping, template design, content architecture.] There is a convenient "validate XHTML" link at the bottom of each page.

InactiveMember

p.s Re: autooptic.com. [ I don`t mean to nitpick, but I also noticed...]

The font size is locked. This is bad design.
Embedding content in an Iframe creates three sets of scrollbars, including addition horizontal scrollbars. This is very bad design, bad implementation.
You`re using centered texts for paragraphs. This is bad design. English readers are used to justified text or ragged right edge.
The table sizes are hard coded. This is bad design.
The namespace definition is missing some important data. Bad design.
You`re using <br/> elements for paragraph spacing when you should be using CSS margins. This is bad design. Very sloppy.
There are tons of hard coded values in the code. This won`t scale.
Your tables mix inline parameters and CSS classes. Bad design.
Font sizes are inconsistent for similar information on different pages. Very sloppy.
You use a lot of unnecessary tags. You use <div> tags where you should use <span> tags.
The HTML isn`t properly nested. It`s poorly formed.

Chuck

One small item: http://www.autooptic.com/contactus.phpThe field label text for the contact form is the same color as the background, causing the text to disappear.

TwilightPics

Edgar, it`s not that we`re ripping on your site because you`ve chosen to use tables to display the site.  The problem is the site was poorly coded irrespective of tables or CSS, which is a direct reflection of your abilities to design websites.You asked for our input, and we`re giving it to you.  There is a reason why standards apply, and why a well coded site is important.  We`re suggesting to you if you understand this, your so called "proven track record" would be much better off.  If you learned to properly code a site, you could do your friends and future clients a favor by A) either charging less because you`ll be able to whip together a site much faster or Charge more because you`re a step above every so called web developer out there and can actually develop a website that validates.
TwilightPics2007-4-4 9:32:30

oleg

Table-based layouts are often needlessly demonized.  To the end user, it doesn`t matter whether your site uses table-based or CSS-based positioning.  In over 10 years or working with web-based software, I`ve never seen this be an issue; every browser knows how to render a table.  If it works, it works!
(just my $0.02...)

TwilightPics

Table-based layouts are often needlessly demonized.  To the end user, it doesn`t matter whether your site uses table-based or CSS-based positioning.  In over 10 years or working with web-based software, I`ve never seen this be an issue; every browser knows how to render a table.  If it works, it works!
(just my $0.02...)That`s part of the problem... browsers such as IE 6 are tolerant of poorly coded table based layouts, which make it seem acceptable to use them.

oleg

That`s part of the problem... browsers such as IE 6 are tolerant of poorly coded table based layouts, which make it seem acceptable to use them.
When you say "poorly coded" do you mean malformed HTML?  Or do you consider any table-based layout to be poorly coded? 
IE 6 in general is very forgiving of malformed HTML.  But IMO well-coded table-based layouts are a valid alternative to CSS.  (as long as it looks the same to the end user!)oleg2007-4-4 12:43:21

TwilightPics

Yes, I mean malformed HTML. However, if you`re using tables to control layout, then technically that is invalid too.  Tables are great for doing what they`re meant to do- display tabular data.  They were never invented to control the layout of a complete site.Sure it might LOOK the same to the end use [for a while], but you`re limiting yourself to who the end user is. Too many devices handle tables based layouts differently, a lot won`t even display them at all.
TwilightPics2007-4-4 13:12:28

InactiveMember

Well-formed HTML is important. Poorly formed HTML, tables or not, says two things:

I don`t know what I`m doing.
I don`t care.

Nuevolution

Table-based layouts are often needlessly demonized.  To the end user, it doesn`t matter whether your site uses table-based or CSS-based positioning.  In over 10 years or working with web-based software, I`ve never seen this be an issue; every browser knows how to render a table.  If it works, it works!
(just my $0.02...)Oleg,Thank you.. see the problem with twilight is he/she I can`t tell by the picture is a newbie here and wants to sound like "it" [please identify your gender or post a bigger picture of yourself, I`m using the word "it" because I don`t know what you are] knows everything. Table based layouts have been around since the begining of the Internet, It will never be replaced until everyone jumps on the Table-less designs, which I have experience terrible things with since most old browsers don`t understand them. I can recall two years ago I designed a CSS- table-less Web site. One day before I launched I had to redesign it all over again because Netscape, Safari, and Firefox didn`t know how to handle it. I remember submitting it to the forum and BOY did I get bad feed back...and people were sending me images of what the site looked on their computer.So again CSS and table-less format is fairly new and I would hate to re-structure or re-design the web site.

TwilightPics

I can recall two years ago I designed a CSS- table-less Web site. One day before I launched I had to redesign it all over again because Netscape, Safari, and Firefox didn`t know how to handle it. I`m not surprised.  Even today you can`t properly code a site, why would you have been any better two years ago?

...CSS and table-less format is fairly new...Wrong, CSS has been around since the mid 90`s, and really started to take hold in `97 when the W3C started to embrace it.Look, I used to design with tables too, that was before I knew any better.  I learned about the benefits of table free designs for both myself and my clients and I have never looked back since. Every person I`ve encountered who swears by tables are always those who don`t fully understand web development/coding, and use programs such as Dreamweaver or FrontPage to make the site look how they want, without giving a hoot about coding (again, I was that way at one point).TwilightPics2007-4-4 14:39:21

InactiveMember

Tables aren`t the question. This site uses tables, which is fine. Sure, tables should be used only for tabular data, but there`s nothing wrong with using tables if you really need a time shortcut, as long as the client understands and doesn`t care. It`s really up to the client. I would guess that the majority of sites use tables still.
The real issue here is the underlying sloppiness of the page source, regardless of the end results. I cannot imagine that any experienced, skilled web designer would want to produce a web site with such sloppy code. Whether or not tables are used. Sloppy code causes major problems with rendering, scaling, and transformation onto different devices. Heavy pages, in terms of size on server and in memory, increase bandwidth costs for no gain. A heavy page is a monolithic data structure that really should be properly granulated for good performance across a variety of aspects. Monolithic data structures cause performance problems because the cost for the browser to traverse the HTML data structure is often N-log or N-squared. If you have a three line file, and you add a fourth line, the browser has to re-traverse the entire data structure each time the page is rendered. So if you`re adding lots and lots of lines because you`re not using CSS properly, then any functions that run on the page have to traverse a lot more code. I believe the web browser has to traverse the entire data structure each time the page is rendered - which could happen each time the user moves the mouse.
Using CSS isn`t really just about convenience either. A CSS file provides a library of functions that tell the browser how to display the page. Without a correct implementation of CSS/HTML, the web designer has to use a lot of duplicate code. This of course, even if cut and paste is used, is bad practice. A CSS class is the equivalent of a function in C++. Everyone who has ever written any C++ knows that duplicating functions is bad design because you end having to fix errors or make changes in numerous places. This of course, leads to errors that don`t get fixed, and higher maintenance costs.