New site launch

[Foamcow]

There are a few things to clean up/redo but I've just launched a new e-commerce site for a local Kitchenware business.

http://www.kitchenercookware.com

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Tyres: Mine's a pint of the black stuff.
Mike: You can't drink a pint of Bovril.

 

[PaulBricker]

I'm viewing the page in Explorer 7.0.5730.11 and everything under the Featured products and Special offers is jumbled up or not showing. Also, you spelled yogurt "yoghurt".

Paul

 

[Foamcow]

I'll look at the IE thing, though last test it was working ok in IE 6 and 7.

Yoghurt is the correct (i.e. English) spelling ;-)
Yogurt is an Americanism

But thanks for noticing

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Tyres: Mine's a pint of the black stuff.
Mike: You can't drink a pint of Bovril.

 

[PaulBricker]

Just refreshed the page and it showed properly so that was my bad. I wondered if the yoghurt was a cultural thing.

Paul

 

[Foamcow]

I wondered if the yoghurt was a cultural thing

Was that an intentional joke?

I think you may have seen one of the things I need to redo. The site uses Protoype/Scriptaculous to do the image transitions and there are plans to add some other fancy tricks. However the main image position gets screwed up by this process which may mess up the layout below.

I will be moving the site across to use jQuery instead of Prototype/Scriptaculous which should mean the problem goes away and there will also be less download overhead.

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Tyres: Mine's a pint of the black stuff.
Mike: You can't drink a pint of Bovril.

 

[PaulBricker]

Nah, I'm not that funny.
I've opened the site a number of times and most of the times it did not load completely on the first try but always loads when refreshed so it sounds like you are already making the changes that will improve that.

Paul

 

[mmerlinn]

[&nbsp;}
Mostly works in IE5.1 on a Mac. The "Welcome" section is below the "Payment Methods" though.

Get an error

"Not Found

The requested URL /js/rollovers.js was not found on this server."

when trying NS.

Cannot find "

http://www.kitchenercookware.com/js/rollovers.js"

Will try FF on a POS Dell when I get a chance.

mmerlinn

http://mmerlinn.com

"We've found by experience that people who are careless and sloppy writers are usually also careless and sloppy at thinking and coding. Answering questions for careless and sloppy thinkers is not rewarding." - Eric Steven Raymond

 

[johnwm]

Nice looking site in general. Works the same for me in FF3, IE6, IE7 except the picture transition seems smoother in IE than FF.

Only thing I wasn't keen on - the top picture loads top left of screen, then jumps into place as rest of site loads.

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[Stretchwickster]

Nice clean design - good job. Perhaps make the black border on each page a bit thinner (it's more my personal preference though!).

I agree with johnwm regarding image jumping into place.

You have some validation errors/warnings on several pages. For example, on home page you need to escape an ampersand (& -> &amp and have an image filename that needs a space escaped ("t_garlic zoom1.jpg" -> "t_garlic%20zoom1.jpg").

I like the embedded Google Maps, but have a minor gripe with the directions generator. When I type a postcode, it doesn't recognise that as a starting address (displays a "No corresponding geographic location could be found..." error) - I have to type house name, road name and town before it recognises it. It'd be really nice (if you've got some time!) to have it auto-suggesting places after typing the first 3 characters.

Hope this helps.

Clive

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"To err is human, but to really foul things up you need a computer." (Paul Ehrlich)
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To get the best answers from this forum see: faq102-5096

 

[Stretchwickster]

Forgot to mention, on search.php the full header doesn't display.

For your reference, I was using FF3 on XP-SP2.

Clive

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"To err is human, but to really foul things up you need a computer." (Paul Ehrlich)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
To get the best answers from this forum see: faq102-5096

 

[Foamcow]

Fixed the validation errors mentioned. I need to go through and check the methods that output HTML to ensure special characters are encoded. There are bound to be other places.

The jumping image is something that will be fixed when I move to jQuery and dump Prototype/Scriptaculous.

There isn't meant to be a header on the search results.

Fixed the missing file error. Not sure where that crept in!

The map is interesting. It's using Google's API. What postcode were you entering?

I'm not going to fix things for IE 5 on the Mac. It's just not worth the effort since that browser is so old and hasn't been developed for a few years now.

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Tyres: Mine's a pint of the black stuff.
Mike: You can't drink a pint of Bovril.

 

[audiopro]

That is a nice looking site but I have a couple of suggestions. Make your menu a bit wider to prevent some of the lines from wrapping and fill in the bottom space with more products.
On a personal note, I always think that Times New Roman works on paper but not on a screen but that is just my old eyes.

Keith

http://www.studiosoft.co.uk

 

[Stretchwickster]

The map is interesting. It's using Google's API. What postcode were you entering?

I tried "SM1 4AA". Actually after some experimentation, it seems to accept "SM1 4" (which I think is in line with what you enter into a sat nav device), "SM1 4A" seems to work which seems a bit odd to me. But if you're simply utilising Google's API, I guess you won't have much control over this. Maybe you could display some advice so the user knows how much of the postcode to enter.

Clive

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"To err is human, but to really foul things up you need a computer." (Paul Ehrlich)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
To get the best answers from this forum see: faq102-5096

 

[audiopro]

On the subject of the map - I tried an LA4 postcode but it gave me directions from LA2. There is something wrong there I feel. I like the idea of directions but what are you using for your source data?

Keith

http://www.studiosoft.co.uk

 

[ChrisHunt]

Good stuff as usual, Pete. I'm only able to look at the site through IE6 (until I get home - working for luddites at the moment!). I'm seeing about a line's worth of white margin between almost every line of the "Departments" menu, apart from the first one at each level: i.e. there's a gap between Alessi and Bakeware, none between Bakeware & Baking Trays, a gap between Baking Trays & Cake Tins etc. Dunno if this is by design, but it looks odd.

I think you should make the hover states on the top menu a bit more contrasty - you barely see them change at the moment.

You get the manky IE image toolbar showing up on the header image, I'd disable it.

I really like the stuff he's got in the About page, but I don't think it really belongs there. I'd suggest having a page with more conventional information about Kitcheners today, and then having a sub-page (or pages) about the history of the shop building and of Cheltenham in general. By the way, he should be able to look up the census records for the shop between 1841 & 1901 for more information.

-- Chris Hunt
Webmaster & Tragedian
Extra Connections Ltd

 

[tjcusick]

Just a side note, didn't see if anyone else had this problem, but I'm using IE7 and on the about page at the bottom there is a clickable image of the store at Christmas in the Delicatessen, circa 1992 and when I click on that image it goes to the picture screen at the top it says:
Christmas in the Delicatessen, circa 1992 7 / 7
and in the picture window it has:

Internet Explorer cannot display the webpage
  
Most likely causes:
•	You are not connected to the Internet. 
•	The website is encountering problems. 
•	There might be a typing error in the address. 
What you can try:
 
Diagnose Connection Problems 
 
More information

And in fact all of the pictures in that picture window give the same result.

 

[Foamcow]

Err yeah. Forgot about that. Ooops.

Noted the gaps in IE6, think I know how to fix that.

Interesting comment about the About page. I tend to agree. I'll mention it.


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<honk>*:O)</honk>

Tyres: Mine's a pint of the black stuff.
Mike: You can't drink a pint of Bovril.

 

[roshaoar]

Very nice site all round. One observation, I have the firebug extension for FF3 installed and according to that, the tracking script you have installed from w3counter.com hangs the loading of the site between 4 and 11 seconds.

 

[AtomicChip]

I'm curious... Why not just use flash for the animated banner? The cross-fading images is one of the most simple things to do and the large(r) images will be compressed further in your swf output, reducing your overall load time.

I know the old web programmer thinking of "Flash is bad" for a variety of reasons... But these days, how many browsers don't have Flash support out of the box? Another thing is, it's only an image, so you don't have to worry about search engines not grabbing text...

Just curious..

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[Foamcow]

I'm curious... Why not just use flash for the animated banner? The cross-fading images is one of the most simple things to do and the large(r) images will be compressed further in your swf output, reducing your overall load time.

I know the old web programmer thinking of "Flash is bad" for a variety of reasons... But these days, how many browsers don't have Flash support out of the box? Another thing is, it's only an image, so you don't have to worry about search engines not grabbing text...

Nothing to do with "Flash is bad".

More to do with...

It makes changing the images simpler. If I want to add more images I just add them to the page, job done. Yes I could do that with Flash, but then you are looking at creating a separate file or writing Actionscript.

Interesting what you say about compressing the images and I think I would have to disagree. Putting a compressed image into a SWF movie will NOT compress the image further unless you increase the JPEG compression and thus reduce the quality of that image. AFAIK there is no magic compression algorithm in Flash that will make JPEGs smaller, they just get recompressed. Decompressing a JPEG and resaving as a JPEG will actually reduce the image quality further.

I could make the images smaller than they are by compressing them more, but decided the current level was acceptable given size/quality.

The layout glitch is now fixed, it was a CSS oversight and was obvious when I took a moment to look at it.

The W3Counter thing is a temporary measure. I didn't find it slowing the actual site down, but the response time from W3Counter's system is pretty slow. I may well ditch it in the next couple of days. The tracker code is right at the end so the page should render before it starts communicating with W3Counter's server.

Did you find the page loaded slowly?



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<honk>*:O)</honk>

Tyres: Mine's a pint of the black stuff.
Mike: You can't drink a pint of Bovril.