You did a lot of work to help me, thanks. I have not installed Netscape yet, the memory upgrade is late in coming in, no RAM left.

I am viewing it in IE and see very little unevenness, darn differences. Wifey wants the white under the name and did not like a white page, guess she wanted the contrast. I am playing with a very light bluish woodgrain that matches the nav bars. It looks pretty good, but I feel that I need a second color. Our store designer has decided that a burgundy will go with the store, which is generally a royal blue format. To my eyes anything seems to clash with the blue, but monotone is not my style either. Wish we did it in pastels, would have look like garbage, but any light color would match.

I am going to try to put up a file called index2.htm that will be with the blue wood, let me know your thoughts.

Philadelphia, PA (Really Bensalem)

Harvey's Sub Page When you finally understand it completely... it changes.

The blue wood sinks in a lot better than the natural wood grain. It does make the entire page very monotone, though, you're right, but I can't really think of anything much to off-set that. Blue to me goes with black, white, and silver, which doesn't allow for too much variety.

Can you add the woodgrain to the top part of your side-bar which is currently set to a solid light blue? Since the bar is basically floating over the background it will look a lot smoother if the swoosh leads directly into woodgrain instead of a solid squared off field. The problem there is going to be to get it to match up seamlessly, but that small area is mostly isolated from the rest of the background, so that may not be a problem.

I can understand the desire to keep the name of the business surrounded by only white. But the edge of the white field makes for a very harsh transition. I might try to create some sort of frame around the name of the company similar to the edging of the sidebar or the top swoosh which would offset it while making the edge look deliberate.

One thing you might notice about my web philosophy is I don't like sudden edges. I always feel there should be some transition, either through a fade or a frame. My way isn't the only way to do things, of course, and often I'll make it more complicated than it needs to be. When doing web pages where I have total control I'll even frame or dropshadow images.

The important thing is going to be to make some you're happy with (and your wife is happy with) which carries the feeling you want to portray, and is easy to navigate so that customers enjoy using your site, both for its functionality and attractiveness.

http://www.htsva.com
This is our company's webpage. There are some elements with it I don't agree with and some problem spots. The design is a mishmash of 6 people's opinions, and we all know how that goes. The copywriting is by our owner... he tries. I'm working of building it to my whims. Should I ever finish I'll show it off here in a more official annoucement. Just thought with giving you all this advice I should share something I've been at least partially involved with.

Sei

Again thanks. I think I will go with the blue and keep the color highlights in the products.

That will tend to make them jump out more.

Edit: Just looked at your site. Smack you in the face pretty. I am quite jealous. By the way, the link to Acrylic Awards is not active.

Philadelphia, PA (Really Bensalem)

Harvey's Sub Page When you finally understand it completely... it changes.

Thank you, it's taken a lot of work to put together. At the moment a lot of the links are not active or lead to blanks, but the page hasn't technically been released to the public yet.

Acrylic Awards should be working, but then again we've had no end of trouble with the menu system we're using. Lots of code issues, and it only works under Internet Explorer. We've tracked down an alternative which appears to do everything we need it to, and a hundred times better to boot.

Just need to convince the owner that it's worth $50, which can be harder than it sounds.

If I ever make it everything it should be, I'll announce it here in a thread of its own. Just a matter of finding a full week with nothing else to do.

Blending in the woodgrain to the top of the sidebar looks good, and it makes the edge of the swoosh look a lot smoother. Looking pretty good over all. And the great thing about the web: If you ever get tired of it or want to change something, it's quick and easy to do adjustments.

I didn't notice it before now, but I like the green shade you selected for the followed links. It works pretty well. I don't remember how it's done, but I'd recommend removing the underlines from the links. With all those different items that's going to break them up awkwardly. Besides that I think you're just about ready to go.

Sei

Thank you again. I guess I am an old fuddy-duddy, I like my links to be underlined on a website, unless maybe there is a mouse-over. But even then you have to bring the mouse over to find out.

I redid a few things. Finally figured out how to make the header squash with page size, so now the name is part of that image. Filled the search background with a matching blue. Still cannot figure out how to keep the search box from condensing like the link bar, but that will come and any changes in the template will filter through.

I did find out that Dreamweaver is not perfect on tags. Did a lot of manual editing on the code to get those darned white lines from showing up between some selections, it was bad coding. [I am so glad that I can still sort of read HTML.]

I also figured out how to get Burgundy into the site. The unfollowed links are now Burgundy. Just not sure if I like it.

I used IE6 to view your site. The main link to acrylic worked, the fly-out link did not. A lot more pizazz than mine.

Philadelphia, PA (Really Bensalem)

Harvey's Sub Page When you finally understand it completely... it changes.

Well, a few changes to make the site a little better balanced and functional. More pages and links added.

I figured out how to do dropdown lists for sub-categories, but it looked awful in the format of the site. Still have to figure out how to do a fly-out. that would go well and give sub categories a boost without so many links screaming at you.

The few pieces of glass that are shown engraved are real. I found a second solution to getting good photos without reflection problems. Instead of a black tent and fading back, just use a dark grey set of back and under boards, the seam helps if it is consistent pic to pic. If there are a ton of reflections about 5 to 10 times the distance between the camera and the object, they just seem to be static rather than images. Then when you go to 72 DPI and JPEG, they sort of wash away any information that was there anyway.

What I did not like was that I had to simulate the mirror keychains. I really hate that even though Things Remembered simulates all of the engraving in their catalog. I just could not get an acceptable picture of the mirror.

Philadelphia, PA (Really Bensalem)

Harvey's Sub Page When you finally understand it completely... it changes.

I get to see the crimson text now. Before this update I'd followed all the links that were available. It does blend in pretty well.

What quality level did you save the .jpg for your header? It looks a little rough. Close to the edges of color in the white field you can faintly make out random color distortions. These are known as Jpeg Artifacts and are a result of compressing the image too far.

The glasses look great. It's unfortunate you had to simulate the engraving on the mirror products, but I can just imagine the difficulty in getting a proper photo there. I'd had no idea that Things Remembered simulates all of their engraving, though it doesn't suprise me in the least.

Sei

I will look into increasing the file size of the header, just wanted the site to be fast, but if you noticed it, I went too far.

If you look at the TR catalog closely you can see the application of the graphic text. It is well done but on things that the engraving is on an item that is at an angle with parallax because one end is nearer than the other, you will see that the text does not taper, only the item does.

Philadelphia, PA (Really Bensalem)

Harvey's Sub Page When you finally understand it completely... it changes.

Dave,

I just went through your site. Wow, that is exactly what I was trying to do but could not. I might have made the links on the left dropdowns instead of leading to another page, I finally figured how to do a dropdown.

But the rest of it is exactly what I wanted!!!!!!

I sent you an email asking about database use. Add anything that might help me start to achieve what you did.

WOW again.

Philadelphia, PA (Really Bensalem)

Harvey's Sub Page When you finally understand it completely... it changes.

Thanks Harvey!

I mentioned in my e-mail response that I was frustrated with my original web-design effort at the point where I needed to set up the database. That's when I decided to gather my ideas from the experience I had gained up to that point, then bring in the professionals to coordinate a site that serviced my needs more effectively.

I am not a web developer, although I do enjoy the graphical layout and design process.

I still think it would be easier to integrate an open-source shopping cart program that includes the database structure already.

Your programming background gives you a deeper understanding of html and may put you in the position where you prefer to create your own database from scratch.

I would have way to much to learn to take on a project like that.