Input?

Still trying to make a web page that suits for selling our artwork and sharing photos. Starting to figure out what I am doing, but would love some of your ideas for appearance and set up. Thanks in advance for your input!http://www.hmscandee.com/

Looks like you're off to a good start.
You artwork is really neat! :-)

Thanks oscar, any ideas for better layout?

I would put 'site maintained by' and 'e-mail' on the bottom. The heading and description should be first and together. The counter maybe too big? Somewhere I read not to state site under construction or any of those signs as it shows incompleteness.

I am just trying to be constructive.

Thanks golddog, just the kind of help I am looking for. Do you think the links should be on the side or bottom? There will be several more for family, travel and gardens.

Looks great, Haighr! I like the background and the buttons ~ nice. The first statement "This site was designed to offer wood works of art for custom order and sale.", IMHO, does NOT do your artwork justice! It's beautiful, girl! You could expand that statement a bit, or maybe add to it with something along the lines of "Our wares are handmade from many different woods and come in a variety of styles. Click on the link to the left to go to our virtual showroom." Then post a couple pics of different styles of your artwork, kinda' to draw them in to take a look, you know?

Have you heard about those spider programs that harvest e-mail addresses off of webpages to compile into a spam-list that they sell to spammers? I certainly don't know if they do that on personal pages, but I'm concerned with that, so put an e-mail icon on my page with a hyperlink on it that opens an e-mail to me automatically. You can do the same with just your name or use an icon. Might look nicer on your page to do it with just your name instead of an icon because of the stylishness of your site. If you change the font color of your name, they'll know it's a link to e-mail.

Good luck! Great job so far!

Thanks wing - like your ideas and will change the e-mail first thing. Perhaps you could come over and do the write up for me as I am a bit bashful at emphasizing our works. I did put a few examples on the first page of 'Works of Art' with links to all of the "masterpieces". Any other hints?

haighr...Your work is simply lovely. I like the modern series, especially the women

Haighr,
I think the website looks really good. The links are user friendly and quick.

I'm a proofreader and see several errors that need cleaning up. The 3rd, 4th, and 5th sentence each have an extra word or awkward word. If I find anything else, I'll email you.

GL

Thanks granny again and take another look added some tonight!

haighr, a truly fine site! Easy to get around, and it makes sense. Congrats!

That looks great, Haighr! Better! It sounds nice, too ~ really makes me want to go see what you have in there. I don't know how else to do the write up right now. I'll be thinking on it, but what you changed looks good!

Well....The bots that harvest e-mail addresses read the source code for the pages, not just the text visible to visitors, so having an e-mail icon doesn't really solve the problem of having your address culled from your webpage. The icon you see has code you just don't see when looking at the page. In a nutshell, if you want people to be able to contact you via your webpage via an e-mail address listed in text or via a "e-mail me" button, you're gonna get spam. That's where good e-mail filters come into play.

That is some really beautiful work! I encountered one misdirected link when clicking to see "more wildlife works of art"

Thanks so much all. Your input has been really helpful. Need to work on that "wildlife" link. Works from the link on the sidebar but not from the hyperlink at the pic. Need to add some info to each picture in the travel pages. On my IE the lettering looks great, but the IE at work makes the print look different. Need to figure how to downsize the hit counter.
What about adding some sort of photo to the home page, or would that be a bit much?
Need to get some garden links going also. Any suggestions, should I enter photos with a few pics from each month or perhaps a page of just lilies, etc.?
All suggestions are appreciated.
Got rid of the Site Under Construction, like it better without already (was a bit tacky).

Too many photos and the load time will increase to the point where inquirers will click STOP and decide not to attempt to access the site. The home page is an introduction and a table of contents. Try 1 photo and see how it goes.

Maybe the home page doesn't need a photo, what do you all think? If it does, what should it be?

Hi haighr, on the home page the words "this site was designed" should read "this site is designed" and "we also wanted to share photos" should read "we want to share photos". This change will put your site in the present tense, not the past tense. I feel strange making these suggestions; it is always easier to correct another than ourselves. Please take what I say not as final, but just thoughts to help.

Thanks golddog, constructive criticism is just what I am looking for. I read and read and still miss things that need changed and I appreciate your taking the time to look at the site and making suggestions and corrections. Keep it up, I can sure use all the help I can get. You guys have all helped greatly. Do you think I should do it more like a novel and add a dedication page to all of you? LOL

No haighr, no novel. But as you become famous and wealthy because of the response to your web site.....well, just don't forget your friends.:)

Won't ever forget my friends - as as soon as we make the first billion, you'll have MAIL!

I think the site has improved thanks to all your suggestions. I have added a favorites page, with DG of course and added callouts to the art pages, although they need arranged more appropriately (they looked good in the preview)! Will soon be busy adding family and gardens to the site. Thank you all again,
Candee

Looks great! Lots better than before, Candee! I see what you mean about the callouts. I hate when I design one of my pages, then it looks different when I upload it and view it on the web. :( I don't know what happens, so I've just learned that once I upload it I'm probably not done yet.

Great job, though! The front page sure looks nice now. You've put enough text there to atleast fill up the screen for the most part ~ IMHO that's what makes that page look better. I love the pic of the pam in Aruba! What a cool plant!!!!!

Thanks wing, I'm getting there. Sure don't know why the upload looks so different from the preview. That was a neat plant in Aruba, did you check out the dividivi tree link? That is a very interesting tree. I've been working at the page from home a bit each evening and then scrutinize what's wrong with it when I come to work. Very time consuming process, but it is fun too!

It IS fun, isn't it?! I keep meaning to find time to re-do our main page, but haven't found time lately. Today I'm getting out some trades I feel horrible about taking so long to do. BUT Kenny's back on his feet now! Woo-hoo! So I'll have more time now!

Heading to your site to check out the Dividivi tree...

That's wild! They're nice looking trees when the wind gets ahold of them!

what is your page wing? Maybe I can get a few more pointers!
Those trees aren't blowing sideways, they actually grow like that because of the wind, it blows about 25 mph constantly and it is a good thing cause we went to Oranjestad and ended up in an area where there was no wind, and I thought I would melt. That was part of my problem down there, I felt constantly blown away!

Yeah, I guess that's what I meant ~ once the wind "trains" them sideways! :) When I read that, I figgered there was some kind of winds down there! LOL! Judging from your pics, it's beautiful place!

The page I spend the most time on is the Texas Swap Meets and Garden Parties page: http://www.moment.net/~wingnut/swaps/swaps.htm My main page isn't really all that: http://www.moment.net/~wingnut It loads so slow because of the graphics. When I find time, I plan to pick one of the pictures I've taken around the farm, mute it (Can't remember what they call that ~ when it looks like a fog is covering the pic) with my PhotoImpression software and use it as a background. BTW, all I used on both those pages and their links is Front Page Express and Coffee Cup Free FTP. I have links where you can get those free if you want them. I found out I had free webspace with my ISP, looked around for free webpage builders and FTP programs and started playing with it! LOLOL!

Now that I seen those pages of yours, I am ready to start over again! The home page is very impressive and your property is gorgeous. Lil' Cypress is beautiful and those swaps look like great fun. I'll be taking a look at more of that. How did you frame your home page like that? It is beautiful, the frames, the print everything!

Oh, no! That's not my fault! LOLOL! I just did the "cut and paste" thing (with a little fiddling. ;). At the bottom of that page, there should be a link to the website where I got the graphics. I can't remember how I got them lined up, but I do remember at first they didn't line up like the lady said they would, so I had to fiddle a bit with it. So you don't think it took a long time to load? Maybe I'll leave it ~ I don't know. I have a couple cool pics that I'd love to put on it as a background, but maybe I can just post them on it. Thank you so much for the compliments on it!

And Thank you for the compliments on the creek, Haighr! I love my home! :)!!

Nope, didn't take long to load at all, we have cable. It is just fantastic and I bookmarked it so I could check out some more when I have time. I'll check out the graphics too!

Yes, do! That lady has some awful pretty ones! Isn't cable faster than dial-up? Oh, well ~ I might keep the graphics, move them to another page (the gardening page) or dunno...

But thanks again!

Cable is much faster. How did you download her graphics? Didn't see any link to do that?

I didn't remember, so went to check. I now remember that I had to e-mail her and give a link to my site so she could check it out. Don't know if you want to go through all that...

Hi, Candee -- Wow, your website has grown by leaps and bounds since the last time I looked. It's looking great! I have a couple suggestions...

On http://www.hmscandee.com/Gardens.htm , the picture in the upper right of the blue rose of sharon is a huge file, 1600x1200dpi and just resized to appear smaller on the page. What you need to do is resize and save that image in a smaller file for that page -- even though the image is small to the eye, it is still downloading a 340kb file, which is huge by web standards (even on my cable it loaded slowly, LOL). I had someone point out this same error on one of my pages when I first brought it online.

The dahlia is 1119x125dpi and 169kb, still large for a webpage. Same thing goes for it.

Ideally, graphics should be very quick loading, like 30kb or less if you can do it. You can compress jpg's pretty far before there's any noticeable degredation of the quality anyone will see on a computer monitor, so don't worry about dehydrating them too much. :)

Saw your pics of the hymenocallis -- did you see the post I put up for you? Here: http://davesgarden.com/s/322637.html I'm so tickled they've all bloomed - some even with four blooms on the stalk!

Thanks garden for your input. I have a question, if you go to my page and go to favorites and click on DG, does that take you to the DG home page or my Welcome page?

It takes me to my welcome page, so it'll do that to everyone else, too. :) Did you link it to www.davesgarden.com? That'll do it ~ takes us members to our welcome pages and everyone else to the "Welcome to Dave's Garden" intro page.

Baffled garden, when I go to the hyperlink, the rose of sharon and the dahlia properties show less than 100 pixels?

Candee I think your site has come a long way since you first asked us to view it. I can't offer technical advice, not being gifted in that field but we are not short of experts here who will help you along. Seems to me you are doing just fine and it's great to see your art all in one place. Great job!!

Thanks louisa, it is coming along, put in lots of June pics today and of the deer, but forgot to put a photo link on the family page !