AnimeInfo w/ a CMS

[Ariolander]

Alright I am trying to work on getting our old site to work with a CMS 'cause static websites are sooo last decade. Yea the site has been around for over 10 years and tis about time we had a major update.

That and if I can get this working with a CMS we can have the staff update things themselves with minimal coding knowledge and not have to wait on Frank (our old webmaster) to code everything then throw it up via FTP.

Ne ways the new version I wanted some input is on my test server:
http://www.nekomode.com/animeinfo/

Not everything works but enough is up to give an example what things will look like. There is a minor glitch on my layout's header in IE I have yet to work out and can't seem to get the CMS to format the Cowboy Bebop index right T_T.

Ne ways what do you think? Also think it might be possible to recreate that layout in Divs rather than the dated table system I used? Yes, I know I suck @ photoshop and making transparencies.

 

[Morkula]

Of course you can get rid of the tables. You can make anything in divs and CSS. :3
And yeah, you need to do something about that header in Photoshop - clean up the white around the edges of the girl and maybe add some blending effects.

What CMS are you using, just out of curiosity? Looks Drupal-ish, but I'm not 100% certain.

 

[Gecko]

No offense to you, but it really doesn't seem like you have anywhere near enough knowledge or experience to run a website of a grand scale. I would suggest doing some reading. Tutorials, possibly books (I suggest you read through http://www.htmldog.com/ it's fast and easy, and you learn a lot). Learn from other well developed websites.

But to give feedback on your design:

One Big Tip: Switch all graphics to PNG format... Trust me.
For best effect, use a script to check if the viewer browser is IE#<7. If it is, then change to GIF format (Because old IE version do not render transparency in PNG). That's what I did with the layout I'm working on atm: http://www.outsid3rs.com/temp/cultanime/index.php

Other than that, try to make it all seem tighter. Or at least fill it up a bit with more stuff, it feels very empty, there's a lot of unused space. Like in the header. Look around for other sites you like and try to pick on small details that spice things up.

Good luck.

 

[Ariolander]

What CMS are you using, just out of curiosity? Looks Drupal-ish, but I'm not 100% certain.

Nah tis not Drupal. Was working with the old AI.org staff and they already took a stab at Drupal and it was too much "square peg in round hole" kinda system for them. The one I used is phpWCMS. I have a fondness for phpWCMS. Been with it since 1.1 RC2 and I like it 'cause it doesn't overly complicate things in the backend and is super easy to template for. The only system that I can really bend the templates to my will and feel comfortable using on a production site. Also the staff seemed to like phpWCMS since the backend made sense the way it structured articles and contents.

Actually most of my graphics are in .PNG format. At least my local source files are but I just exported them as JPEG or GIF if I needed transparancy for use on the web.

 

[Ariolander]

Alright worked through the night and most of the day. The old layout was something I did a couple months ago but here is the first draft of my all Div/CSS layout attempt. Wanna get it working as a static page. From there 'cause the way phpWCMS is designed it is only a few replacement codes in the proper places and I can config it for the CMS later.

What do you think of it now? Not a single table in sight and a mostly fluid layout.
http://www.nekomode.com/animeinfov1/

 

[Gecko]

As far as design goes, it's much better than the old one. I would probably add some more graphical details to the header. It feels a little empty. Also I think those rounded corners of the link and content boxes should have a smaller radius, in other words: Make them smaller, not by much, just a little smaller.

As for your markup, it needs a lot of cleaning. I see a bunch of unused tags and boxes. remember that all visible tags can have their own id's and classes so they don't need to be placed inside boxes to be styled.
Some tags shouldn't even be there: <center> isn't even used any more.
Uhh yeah and a lot of other things actually. It just really needs lots and lots of cleaning...

An extra tip would be: The whole "use xhtml 1.0 transitional" has been used out of context on the internet. Lots of webmasters will carelessly tell newbies to just use it coz it's the best, and don't ask questions. But xhtml is actually unnecessary if you're not going to use it's advanced features. And seeing you're site I definitely do not believe you will be useing it. In fact, if you don't actually program in XHTML into the site header (no, not the tags), the browser wont even know you're using XHTML, so basically you have it for a no good reason. I would suggest switching over to HTML 4.01. That would be better suited for your needs, check this out http://www.workingwith.me.uk/articles/scripting/mimetypes ... And again, it needs cleaning.

Good luck.

 

[Ariolander]

Yea code is a mess right now. Wanted to finish the draft before I left for San Diego Comic Con. Will probably redo all my CSS class names and like and call in a favor from an actual graphic designer friend for a better header.

The corners I actually created 2 graphics for a 10x10 pixel one and the 15x15 one I am using now. Shouldn't be too hard to switch em out only need to edit like 2 lines of CSS for each corner class.

Will do more cleaning up when I get home some I think. Thanks for the XHTML tip. Didn't know that was there must have been added by Dreamweaver when I was entering the content. Will actually will need to look at it line by line in my favorite text editor and clean the source up manually.

Edit: On second thought I am just making excuses for sloppy work >_<;; Onward and forward though. Thanks for your input sometimes good criticism can be a good kick in the pants to start improving.