Website Update:Somewhat Improved

okiepolkie

I've updated my website a little bit.

www.holcombavt.com

I took a few of the suggestions from the previous thread:Website Test

There are still a few things I would like/need to change. I haven't been able to change the background color, due to some logo issues. I also need to make the hyperlinks open in a new page instead of leaving my website.

Dropdown menus in Frontpage are a booger. I finally found the right code using google, but it still took several days to get the kinks worked out.

The main reason for the change is the fact that I've increased my offerings via several new distributors. I went from about 50 brands to about 2000 within the last month. The website does not do justice to the sheer number of brands available to me, but I'm still trying to keep the focus on home theater.

The bulk of these brands address computer needs, and there are just too many categories and items for me to tackle at the moment. I may devote a separate website to that in the future, but I sell enough through local contacts to make it worth my while. It's basically one of those situations that if someone knows what they want, I find a price, then sell it to them.

I haven't been on the forum much for the past several weeks due to the number of installs I'm working on. Remember, I'm a full time school teacher as well, so I can only work on the actual installs during in the evening.

I appreciate all of the help so far from everyone. If you have anymore, or new suggestions, let me know. It may be another couple of months before they are implimented, but I'll still keep them in mind.

RuSsMaN

The dropdowns aren't working for me - they are still linked to an 'H' drive locally.

I need a 5.1 avr, nothing fancy - whatcha got?

Burnzy

Drop downs seem to be working now. I tested the "Contact Page" and it also seemed to work (if you received the e-mail).


Regards,
Scott

okiepolkie

I'll have to check on the locations of things when I get back to that computer. Every other time I've uploaded files, it has worked just fine.

Check on it again around miday Wed.

Russ, I'll email you a list of receivers available that would fit your bill. It may be Wed morning again though.

Off to install.

schwarcw

The drop downs didn't work for me either Zach. Sounds like you're off to a good start! Good luck, I wish you all the best!

neomagus00

the dropdowns are fine for me - firefox 1.5.0.2...

and to get a link to spawn a new window, add the phrase (without parentheses, obviously) (target="_blank") in between the 'a' and the 'href=' of any link

oh, and you should probably run the frontpage's text through a grammar checker... specifically, 'simply' should be 'simple', if i've read it properly... i find it mildly unclear...

g'luck with it!

MattN03

Looks good Zach! Pull downs work great for me on IE6. I'll be ready for the CSi5 within the next week or so.

okiepolkie

If the dropdowns don't link to the correct pages, you can still navigate through the "content" link to see some of the new offerings.

Scott, I didn't get an email yet. I just tried sending one to myself and it failed as well.

So far, beeeesidesssss the grammmmmerrr, I need to redo the links to the dropdown menus, fiddle with the "info request" page, and make a few changes as they pop up. Also, in my defense, someone else wrote the grammatically incorrect section of the website. I should have proofed it first, but that wasn't at the top of my list. My primary goal was to get an updated list of products for some of the clients I'm working with now.

Other than that, I already know I am going to re-insert a portfolio and an audio/video dictionary.
If I haven't said it before, my focus is to provide a place of information for potential customers.

Kris Siegel

Yeah, like already mentioned the drop downs don't work (Opera 9 here). Also, make sure you fix those references to your H drive.

If you want an example of drop down menus, check out our new Dealer Locator.

okiepolkie

Thanks for the help and suggestions again guys.

Kris, thanks for looking at the site. If you have any suggestions, let me know.

I like everything that is changed so far, but I did run into another problem that I'm not sure how to fix. My content page is including the website report links for every page. Any suggestions on how to get rid of them?

Kris Siegel

okiepolkie wrote:

Kris, thanks for looking at the site. If you have any suggestions, let me know.

Honestly, I've never been a big fan of navigation via combo boxes. For the dealer locator I posted, it works great because there is information that should be hidden or visible as you're filling out the form.

Websites should have more of a less JavaScript dependance on navagation (again, this is all my opinion).

Your site seems to work well with them though so it's not a big deal.

okiepolkie wrote:

My content page is including the website report links for every page. Any suggestions on how to get rid of them?

How are those links generated?

okiepolkie

Kris,

I'm not sure how those links are generated. I went back and changed one of the settings in my content page(I told it not to update for everynew page I added, and it seems like they have dissappeared for now. I don't know if that had anything to do with it, but it works so far.

What suggestions do you have to change the dropdown menus? In using the dropdown menus, I am trying to keep the clutter down for each page and eliminate some of the useless preview pages for each section. I don't have a lot of website building experience other than what I've figured out on my own with Frontpage for my website.

BTW, what website building program would you recommend if I were to upgrade software?

Thanks.

Kris Siegel

okiepolkie wrote:

What suggestions do you have to change the dropdown menus? In using the dropdown menus, I am trying to keep the clutter down for each page and eliminate some of the useless preview pages for each section.

In regards to cutting down clutter, the combo boxed navigation works quite well. If you want to try another method, you could create a row of links that serve as categories where your combo boxes are, then when a category is selected, display the links associated with that category. That wouldn't clutter your page too much.

okiepolkie wrote:

BTW, what website building program would you recommend if I were to upgrade software?

Depends on what you want to do. Do you want to learn more about web design? If so, you may want to learn the actual HTML and create your webpages by writing code instead of using the drag and drop features of a WYSIWYG editor (like FrontPage). If you want to go that route, I'd check out PHP DESIGNER 2006, Notepad++, and maybe Homesite/Dreamweaver.

If you don't have much interest in HTML code or learning a lot about web design and you just want to make some pages, then I'd check out Dreamweaver. It produces nicer code than FrontPage and has more features (I think). You could also check out nvu, which is a completely free application that does drag and drop web page building.

okiepolkie

I really don't have the time to learn how to do much html coding, so I might look into Dreamweaver where i can just drag and drop. It was frustrating enough having to rewrite some of the dropdown menu code. What does adobe have in relation to website building?

Kris Siegel

okiepolkie wrote:

I really don't have the time to learn how to do much html coding, so I might look into Dreamweaver where i can just drag and drop. It was frustrating enough having to rewrite some of the dropdown menu code. What does adobe have in relation to website building?

They have an app called GoLive. Not sure if they still sell it since they aquired Macromedia (the makers of Dreamweaver).

I've used it before. It was easy to use but I honestly think Dreamweaver or maybe nvu would be easier.

okiepolkie

Guess, I didn't check who owned dreamweaver before I asked.
I had thought about getting Adobe's creative suite, for the design aspect as well, but didn't really know if it had very good website building software integrated with that package.