The Yak Shack

NyteOwl · 2006-06-28 01:41:50

Ok, the first of a couple of planned projects using Textpattern is finished except for tweaks (I hope) and regular updating. This is the first full site I have tried to migrate from static html to Textpattern.

<a href=“http://www.ve1cbf.ca” title=“VE1CBF – The Yak Shack”>The Yak Shack</a>

Comments and suggestions – polite ones! – welcome ;-)

net-carver · 2006-06-28 03:48:13

NyteOwl,

I like the clean layout and the background image :)
It’s quite easy to navigate but perhaps moving the cats menu up some so you don’t have to scroll down to see them would improve the navigation.

Very nice.

marios · 2006-06-28 06:00:48

NyteOwl , lovely , neet little trick there with the fixed background-position.
I’ll look at this in-depth later.
BTW.: I left a comment at the Melancholy Theme, but it is not visible, since you havent enabled it yet.

regards, marios

kevinpotts · 2006-06-28 12:36:30

I like it. Very clean and lots of white space. My only suggestion would be to have the main window have percentage-based margins, not fixed pixel margins. The content can get very difficult to read on wide monitors.

NyteOwl · 2006-06-28 21:56:32

Thanks, glad you like it and for the suggestions.

net-carver wrote:

NyteOwl, I like the clean layout and the background image :)
It’s quite easy to navigate but perhaps moving the cats menu up some so you don’t have to scroll down to see them would improve the navigation.

Hmm, I could move the search bar further down the page I suppose or sacrifice the top navigation header (which I kinda like). I moved search down :)

marios wrote:

NyteOwl , lovely , neet little trick there with the fixed background-position.
I’ll look at this in-depth later.
BTW.: I left a comment at the Melancholy Theme, but it is not visible, since you havent enabled it yet.

Thanks, took a little trial and error to get a fixed spot that “worked” in FF, IE and Opera. I enabled your comment. :)

kevinpotts wrote:

I like it. Very clean and lots of white space. My only suggestion would be to have the main window have percentage-based margins, not fixed pixel margins. The content can get very difficult to read on wide monitors.

Sorry, I had a max width set originally but had it commented out while doing some testing and forgot to uncomment it :) It’s always the little things … :)

net-carver · 2006-06-29 03:09:47

NyteOwl

Re: moving the search.

Rather than move the search down, another option you could think about might be to resize/move/change the compass-point image at the head of the column. (Is that what you mean by the top navigation header?)

I think people are getting used to the site search feature being top right, or at least, above the fold. I can get by with scrolling for nav but packing it all above the fold would be a plus.

NyteOwl · 2006-06-30 19:58:13

net-carver wrote:

Rather than move the search down, another option you could think about might be to resize/move/change the compass-point image at the head of the column. (Is that what you mean by the top navigation header?) I think people are getting used to the site search feature being top right, or at least, above the fold. I can get by with scrolling for nav but packing it all above the fold would be a plus.

Yes after moving the search and looking at it and having some friends try it, it does seem to work better with the search in the top spot of the navigation section.

As for “above the fold”, it does look above the fold to me :) Then again my browser window is usually kept at about 900px high :)

There is some extra padding at the top I can shave off as well. The problem of course is that if/as more categories are added the category menu will continue to grow below the fold naturally.

And special occasion/announcement banners (such as the current one) push the regular content down further if only temporarily.

net-carver · 2006-07-01 03:45:14

NyteOwl wrote:

As for “above the fold”, it does look above the fold to me :) Then again my browser window is usually kept at about 900px high :)

Getting 900px in the vertical is nice but, according to stats from my site, almost 60% of my visitors can’t achieve that.

NyteOwl · 2006-07-02 23:59:07

net-carver wrote:

Getting 900px in the vertical is nice but, according to stats from my site, almost 60% of my visitors can’t achieve that.

I dropped my window height to 600px and even if I put the categories at the very top the bottom a good portion of the navigation will be below the fold. It seems much of a catch22.

Only way to keep all major navigation above the fold is to either limit the number of options or use select boxes, and I try to avoid requiring such for navigation.

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#1 2006-06-28 01:41:50

The Yak Shack

#2 2006-06-28 03:48:13

Re: The Yak Shack

#3 2006-06-28 06:00:48

Re: The Yak Shack

#4 2006-06-28 12:36:30

Re: The Yak Shack

#5 2006-06-28 21:56:32

Re: The Yak Shack

#6 2006-06-29 03:09:47

Re: The Yak Shack

#7 2006-06-30 19:58:13

Re: The Yak Shack

#8 2006-07-01 03:45:14

Re: The Yak Shack

#9 2006-07-02 23:59:07

Re: The Yak Shack

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