I want some opinions on my website, Im a minimalist when it comes to websites, and tried to make it none cluttered like alot of websites out there, I also tried to not dazzle people with colours, whilst keeping it looking good, Its for a new Gaming IRC / Community that I run, and not all the site content is available yet, however im just wanting opinions on the site at this stage, so I can make changes if needed before I start adding all the content.. - thanks all ;)

http://www.forthegamers.org/

1. Nice one on minimal, all for it :)
2. It doesn't validate, get HTML Validator plugin for Firefox and check it.
3. In IE6, your content is pushed right down, seeing as this is the most used browser out there still it's a problem.
4. Maybe a little more padding around text.

Otherwise definitely a good effort :)

Generally I like the look of it. I think there needs to be something between the heading and first news post, even if it's just a heading saying latest news.

I quite like it, I'm all for minimal, looks nice and easy to navigate and the muted background won't detract from any screenshots you put up there

I reckon it's a good un

I like the general look... but i agree with probedb, it needs more padding around the text.


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Generally I like the look of it. I think there needs to be something between the heading and first news
completely agree with that, I realize its fairly new but as its a bit empty at the mo all the grey makes it a little bit newspaperish, content (the most important part) looks good so far though.
will reg later and have a proper nosy round.

well, i dont know what version of IE your using, but the w3c validator passes and it validates (or did when I checked it) and it worked fine in IE last I looked, but that was IE 7 - which more people will start using as XP updates to it (most people I know are now on IE7) but I will check again and fix any problems.

yes, there will be a bar between the header and the content, Im just trying to decide what to put in there, if you view source its there, but commented...

http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.forthegamers.org%2F

Failed 13 validation errors. Basically they're very simple to fix:

1. Make sure you close all tags, even input tags just like you have break tags with a slash at the end.
2. In URLs you can't use & to separate querystring variables, they must be & tho this can break ASP pages as the request object can't process querystrings separated like that....well unless I wrote them cos I wrote my own object ;) PHP is fine with this tho.
3. You've got a couple of uppercase tags, for XHTML they need to be lowercase.
4. alt attribute...must be specified even if it's empty
5. emoid isn't a valid attribute of anything

That should fix them all :)

Also you're using a Transitional DOCTYPE, it's best to use Strict as it will make browsers behave better, transitional types are for when you're upgrading a site from old doctypes to newer ones so should never be used when creating new sites.

Can't check IE6 at the moment but it still doesn't have market share, it's also only available on XP and newer so those corporate types and people with old PCs will never upgrade from IE6. Will check tomorrow and post a screen shot for you :) It'll just be a clearing bug in IE6 no doubt.

I'm just trying to help btw, don't take it personally if someone breaks your site or spots stuff you didn't....me and everyone I know who's been doing this for years still make mistakes!

more whitespace! much more.

I've looked at it with firefox and the only thing I would change is the vertical column with the links in. It seems a bit wide in comparison to the text. Oh, and don't use smilies.
Apart from that i like it.

It looks fine on K-Meleon browser :)

Just the cellpadding like others have said really :thumbsup:

As promised....the site in IE6:

http://i19.photobucket.com/albums/b157/probedb/forthegamers.jpg

I'm all for a good ergonomic website which makes nagivating easy.

I do like the main page, that's a very minimalistic look. It gives the first impression that it is going to be a simple website to navigate throughout.

I have not actually clicked on every link and checked for things which I would thought of as minimalistic. Having just skimmed on a few links. These points popped into mind.

- The mechanism on the front page which opens new windows, is not necessary. Is there a need for this constant referral back to the main page? Because the new windows just kind of cluttered up my toolbar. The user mentality maybe that, if I go into the forum, I'm into the next room. I don't need to go back to the main room to check anything. Cos there isn't much there to check.

- The download section of the forum have sections which titled "random files" and "download managers statistics". That bit looks cluttered, but then again, I don't know how you envisage that part to be used by users. So I don't know the users mentality when they reach that section. All I know is that it looks a little bit cluttered and busy on the graphical front. I'm starting to scroll down a lot.

probedb - Thanks, I know that problem and will fix it, its the classic 1px extra added on by IE, that is fixed in IE7.. I checked w3c after you said and yeah, the errors are with the new Login box, which I havent finished yet so im not too worried about the errors as I will fix thoes things as I go with the login box, I know about the alt on images, again i will fix this, thats just the 3 images on the front page post about Half Life 2, as for the emoid - thats the forums that generate that code, when you use a smilie in the forums it replaces the text one with an image one (like these do), and emoid= is a forum paramater that I will regx or str_replace out, but again, smilie support is a new addition at the same time as the login box and isnt finnished yet ;) -- and the same for using smilies, the forum automatically replaces the text based smilie, with a URL when you submit to the database, and I want to keep the forum formatting of the posts and smilies etc so thats why they are supported on the front page, as It uses a forum topic for the news (click on one of the "Read/Post Comments" links and you will see) -- so yeah, no problem on them and thanks anyway...

Bago - people have commented about the new page thing, and at the time the "home" link on the forums DIDDNT go back to the main page, it whent back to the forum index, this is now fixed so it goes back to the main page so i can now make it not open in a new window..

as for the download section, thats nothing to do with me/us - thats internal to the forum, which im not going to play with....

Good luck with it anyway. :)

This reminds me of all those little projects we used to do at uni. Should we, should we not add this function etc etc.

Yep hope it all goes well, looks like it'll be a nice community site :)