After I made more posts on my Tumblr blog, I realised that the div tag for the homepage blog was getting very long.
A simple change had to be made in order to get a 'scroll' effect on he div tag, changing the overflow to scroll.
Although this is very useful it looks a lot better on the Safari browser, as the scroll bar is invisible until you mouse over the div tag. But all in all it makes everything much neater!
Saturday, 10 December 2011
Friday, 9 December 2011
Feedback!
I decided that to get a good bank of feedback for my website, I should show it to people that sit right in my target audience. I started by posting my website on my facebook page, my artist page and my personal page, asking for feedback. Below are a list of pictures showing peoples comments.
The main conclusion is that the people that did comment seemed to like the website, as well as the people who liked the post. In terms of the changes that some people made, one person stated that they didn't like the blue 'glow' effect on some of the objects on my page. However after personally asking other people they proclaimed that it looked fine. If the majority of people suggested that I should change the colour of this glow to a different shade, then I would do so. However everyone apart from one person said they really liked it, so I won't change it.
One comment that I got in a private message was that they think it would look better if the 'smokey' background stretched across the whole screen instead of the blue/black gradient. I decided to go along with this idea to make my website look more interesting.
The main conclusion is that the people that did comment seemed to like the website, as well as the people who liked the post. In terms of the changes that some people made, one person stated that they didn't like the blue 'glow' effect on some of the objects on my page. However after personally asking other people they proclaimed that it looked fine. If the majority of people suggested that I should change the colour of this glow to a different shade, then I would do so. However everyone apart from one person said they really liked it, so I won't change it.
One comment that I got in a private message was that they think it would look better if the 'smokey' background stretched across the whole screen instead of the blue/black gradient. I decided to go along with this idea to make my website look more interesting.
Wednesday, 7 December 2011
Changes to the Contact Page Using Sprys
I posted my website on my personal facebook so people could have a look at it and tell me what they think...
I then received some emails from my 'form to contact' boxes on my contact page, one said 'sdfsfdfsdfd' or something to that effect in the name, email and message box.
This put the thought process through my head of 'how do other websites design their website so you are required to give a valid email address?'. I went away to the internet to find out, and through this page on the adobe website I found that it can be done through sprys.
I have changed the email box so that you have to have something with an @ sign and a period (.), but without telling the audience.
If I told the viewers that they only need something that includes an @ sign and a period, then they could still sent untraceable and un-replyable messages by just literally typing '@.'. By not telling them what characters are required, if they type something that isn't an email address (for example one of the emails I got from posting my site was apparently from 'bunion.com') then it won't let them send it, in turn making them think they need a proper email address.
All this is not for security reasons, more so that I can reply to those that send messages, and personalised ones at that - "Hey there Joe! Thanks for the message."
I then received some emails from my 'form to contact' boxes on my contact page, one said 'sdfsfdfsdfd' or something to that effect in the name, email and message box.
This put the thought process through my head of 'how do other websites design their website so you are required to give a valid email address?'. I went away to the internet to find out, and through this page on the adobe website I found that it can be done through sprys.
I have changed the email box so that you have to have something with an @ sign and a period (.), but without telling the audience.
If I told the viewers that they only need something that includes an @ sign and a period, then they could still sent untraceable and un-replyable messages by just literally typing '@.'. By not telling them what characters are required, if they type something that isn't an email address (for example one of the emails I got from posting my site was apparently from 'bunion.com') then it won't let them send it, in turn making them think they need a proper email address.
All this is not for security reasons, more so that I can reply to those that send messages, and personalised ones at that - "Hey there Joe! Thanks for the message."
Sunday, 4 December 2011
Finished Contact Page
After playing around in Dreamweaver for a bit I came across something called a form. Forms are basically what you associate them in reality: something that you fill out and send or give to someone.
In Dreamweaver it can consist of any number or boxes that a user types into and sends that information somewhere. I used this for my contact page and created a 'name', 'email' and 'message' box, which when filled in and sent, gets sent to my website email address.
This is very useful for both consumers and producers in terms of usability. For me, it is an easy way to get a users' questions or even employment opportunities (if they want to book me to mix a track or create a soundtrack for them) sent to my website email address. It is also a much easier way for users to send it without being diverted away from my website to copy and paste an email address into hotmail or google mail or something similar. It makes it feel like the message being sent is integrated within the website.
The only problem with this is that search engine robots can easily find my website, trawl through it, find my email address from this form and spam my email with junk mail.
After a bit of research about this, I found this website.
It talks about the different kinds of bots and how to prevent them in different ways from searching your website. You can order certain bots to leave your site alone, or all bots to not search a certain page of your website.
I will make one of these simple documents and direct all bots away from my contact page and my new sent page (a page telling viewers that their message has been sent. This page cannot be accessed unless a message is sent as it is not linked to from any other page). This should stop bots searching these pages and being able to find my email address.
Now that this page is finished, I believe I just need to add some more to my 'about me' page and the website will be finished! Hooray! :D
In Dreamweaver it can consist of any number or boxes that a user types into and sends that information somewhere. I used this for my contact page and created a 'name', 'email' and 'message' box, which when filled in and sent, gets sent to my website email address.
This is very useful for both consumers and producers in terms of usability. For me, it is an easy way to get a users' questions or even employment opportunities (if they want to book me to mix a track or create a soundtrack for them) sent to my website email address. It is also a much easier way for users to send it without being diverted away from my website to copy and paste an email address into hotmail or google mail or something similar. It makes it feel like the message being sent is integrated within the website.
The only problem with this is that search engine robots can easily find my website, trawl through it, find my email address from this form and spam my email with junk mail.
After a bit of research about this, I found this website.
It talks about the different kinds of bots and how to prevent them in different ways from searching your website. You can order certain bots to leave your site alone, or all bots to not search a certain page of your website.
I will make one of these simple documents and direct all bots away from my contact page and my new sent page (a page telling viewers that their message has been sent. This page cannot be accessed unless a message is sent as it is not linked to from any other page). This should stop bots searching these pages and being able to find my email address.
Now that this page is finished, I believe I just need to add some more to my 'about me' page and the website will be finished! Hooray! :D
Saturday, 3 December 2011
Link Testing
As my website is coming to a close, I decided to create a link test to make sure all of my links work.
This is simply just a table of sorts with different coloured boxes to give a formulated way of checking all your links work correctly, instead of spontaneously clicking everywhere on your website. Below is my result:
There are a couple of things I should explain here.
As a key, the grey boxes are just the name of the links, the green boxes are working links and the black boxes mean that there was no link created.
The black boxes that travel diagonally down and right are because there is no need to link a page to itself other than to refresh the page in a different manner. The group of black boxes to the right are because on my external sites like YouTube, Facebook and Soundcloud, I have only put something like "check out my website: http://www.beesonaudioproductions.co.uk" which would take you to the index page. I haven't linked from those websites directly to my 'about me' page for example.
However, I have linked to the other external sites. For example I have linked to my Facebook page from my YouTube page.
From this I can easily see that all of my links are working, which is good! :D
This is simply just a table of sorts with different coloured boxes to give a formulated way of checking all your links work correctly, instead of spontaneously clicking everywhere on your website. Below is my result:
There are a couple of things I should explain here.
As a key, the grey boxes are just the name of the links, the green boxes are working links and the black boxes mean that there was no link created.
The black boxes that travel diagonally down and right are because there is no need to link a page to itself other than to refresh the page in a different manner. The group of black boxes to the right are because on my external sites like YouTube, Facebook and Soundcloud, I have only put something like "check out my website: http://www.beesonaudioproductions.co.uk" which would take you to the index page. I haven't linked from those websites directly to my 'about me' page for example.
However, I have linked to the other external sites. For example I have linked to my Facebook page from my YouTube page.
From this I can easily see that all of my links are working, which is good! :D
The Finished Flash Banner!
So as the title suggests, I finished it.
Despite it being such a small thing, it took me a long time to do. I was surprised at how well I could remember to use Flash with no prior training or experience. But with my skills in Logic already inside, I was able to create a nice little sound to go with my Flash Animation.
Here is where you can see the finished banner.
The reason for this is to try and make my website 'sticky' (yes, this is a proper term).
A sticky website makes customers or viewers stay on the website and this is exactly what I want to do. I don't want people looking at my website and going 'this is boring!' and leaving almost immediately. I created a flashing effect with the three words 'BeesonTheBeeson' on my index page, having them fade in and out fairly quickly one by one, followed by flashing with the blue glow effect. This is all accompanied by a dark sound clip intended to 'wow' the viewers as they enter my website.
I'm quite proud of this little animation to be honest :]
Despite it being such a small thing, it took me a long time to do. I was surprised at how well I could remember to use Flash with no prior training or experience. But with my skills in Logic already inside, I was able to create a nice little sound to go with my Flash Animation.
Here is where you can see the finished banner.
The reason for this is to try and make my website 'sticky' (yes, this is a proper term).
A sticky website makes customers or viewers stay on the website and this is exactly what I want to do. I don't want people looking at my website and going 'this is boring!' and leaving almost immediately. I created a flashing effect with the three words 'BeesonTheBeeson' on my index page, having them fade in and out fairly quickly one by one, followed by flashing with the blue glow effect. This is all accompanied by a dark sound clip intended to 'wow' the viewers as they enter my website.
I'm quite proud of this little animation to be honest :]
Friday, 2 December 2011
Flash!
After a lecture on how to use Adobe's Flash I decided I can now create a more interesting index page. I already had an idea for this before, but due to the fact that I didn't know how to use flash I was very reluctant to try it. However now I can have a go and I have a couple of weeks to perfect it.
In a future post I'll share how well or how badly this flash element is going!
In a future post I'll share how well or how badly this flash element is going!
Thursday, 1 December 2011
Better Music Page
I recently changed my music page on my website to something a bit more concise and user-friendly.
Instead of having loads of separate tracks I found a way to group all of my sound cloud tracks to a single player.
It looks much better now, although there are some things I need to consider.
At the moment I don't have any albums out or any songs that go with each other, so if I create another song and want to upload it, I'll have to recreate the player again.
This kind of player is more suited for when I do have albums out, so I can group a whole album in a single player. But it is appropriate now for the purpose of this page, so it shall stay! :]
Instead of having loads of separate tracks I found a way to group all of my sound cloud tracks to a single player.
It looks much better now, although there are some things I need to consider.
At the moment I don't have any albums out or any songs that go with each other, so if I create another song and want to upload it, I'll have to recreate the player again.
This kind of player is more suited for when I do have albums out, so I can group a whole album in a single player. But it is appropriate now for the purpose of this page, so it shall stay! :]
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