Re: Please critique russiantranslation.com

* Bonnie Granat <bgranat(at)lynx.dac.neu.edu> writes:
> "gordon" <gordon69b(at)earthlink.net> writes:
>> David Rolla Wright writes:

>>> Please critique http://www.russiantranslation.com, my first
>>> effort.

>>> It doesn't validate yet - most of the trouble seems to be in the
>>> Javascript inserted by Fireworks.
[...]
>> Every page is crunched up into the left portion of the page..very
>> tacky.  This forces me to scroll down when there isn't enough
>> content on the page to really warrant such action.

Table problem, fixed widths used.

[...]
>> HTML is abused, as though it were a design specification rather
>> than a structural markup tool, throughout this poorly described set
>> of documents.  Obtain a copy of the "HTML 4.0 specification" [
>> http://www.w3.org/ ] and have a look at "2. Introduction to HTML
>> 4.0".
[...]
> I can't imagine what Gordon was looking at.  I think this is a fine
> site.  No crunching on MY monitor, and I'm using a diddley low-res
> one.

... and that's what the site was "designed" for. Gordon's critique is
well deserved, because HTML is not DTP but a markup language. The
author of the page had a specific setup on the viewer's side in mind,
though.

> I think the site looks terrific!  Seems well-written, also.  What
> WAS Gordon looking at?  And with what?

Netscape 3, Netscape 4.05, Amaya, W3. Didn't work in any of these, of
course. The problem is the resolution: 1600x1200. But: the site loaded
very quickly and it looked nice (although the choice of colours seemed
oddly familar - at first I thought it was done using Fusion, but at
least the code doesn't say so...).

> Perhaps I'm missing some new-fangled thing that would make the site
> look awful, but as far as I can see, it's super.

It's not exactly perfect. Fixing the tables (width="90%" or something)
would make it look much better. I had the same problem as Gordon: a
load of text in the left third of my monitor, stretching down 3-4
screens. Not good. I also found the repeating the address on every
page a tad unnecessary, and I positively disliked the huge chunk of
javascript, especially for the links. Has this become good practice by
now?

Robin

P.S. Bonnie, the way you format your mails makes them *very* hard to
read. Replies are meant to be "quote, remark, quote, remark...", not
just the whole message you refer to including signature pushed at the
bottom.

-- 
Robin S. Socha M.A. 
Control Risks Ltd. <http://www.crg.com/>

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