Plz critique - getting ready for prime time

First : you have errors on your css, validate them first

Thanks
Shouldn't alter the layout at all... errors should be for having a z in front of a declaration to comment it out for testing purposes.... unless I had missed something..

Since I am not asking for layout help, but rather a critique of the design, and given that I mentioned that it wasn't quite ready for prime time; css errors... unless affecting the layout should be a moot point. They will of course be taken care of prior to going live.

Thanks again

ok,

well the design is too simple for me; the fonts, the layout, and overall design is to common, a lot of site using your kinda design (especially the web duplication system / web reseller site )

but if you give a artistic design, maybe it would be nicer.

rgrds

Welcome back Fred, been a little while since we've seen you here

If you resize the text too large, the nav items spill out onto the background and become unreadable. Any chance of playing around with min-width?

I also feel you need some sort of division from the intro+photo and the links at the bottom, it doesn't seem to flow right.

On the "kitchen" page the link tabs could do with a bit more bottom padding.

Getting there though, keep up the good work.

Hi rmfred
I like that. No nonsense, no frills - true Viking - it does exactly what it says on the tin.
If I was in a picky mood I would recommend just a bit of extra line-height in the content. But I'm in a good mood and I have to nip out to buy some avocado - just got to try Corky's Brunch Enchiladas (clearly from the Mexican branch of the family)

The aspect ratio of the thumbnails on the photos page are all wrong and look very ameaturish. Squishing images generally always looks bad unless used for effect and in this case it looks like lazyness.

Best bet would be to crop the image at the exact size the thumbnail needs to be, and use only a section of the image where you can still see what the image is.

If you resize the text too large, the nav items spill out onto the background and become unreadable. Any chance of playing around with min-width?

I also feel you need some sort of division from the intro+photo and the links at the bottom, it doesn't seem to flow right.

On the "kitchen" page the link tabs could do with a bit more bottom padding.

Getting there though, keep up the good work.
I can get two text size increases in FF before the main nav goes out of whack... and one increase before the recipe tabs go bad... I think two increases is fine... the text at two increases seems HUGE to me and I'm over 50 LOL... could probably stand another increase in the tabs... don't know if that will be possible... I'll look into mid-width.

Sorry, but I don't follow your comment intro+photo.
Yep, the tab menu could use some bottom padding
thanks

Plz explain "it does exactly what it says on the tin"
A little more line-height might be a good idea.
Thanks

Joseph: Couldn't agree with you more regarding the thumbnails... the page as it stands now is purely for testing purposes... once finalized the "squishing" will be a thing of the past... those photos aren't even going to be used, but they were the only ones I had, and I put the page up real quick.
Thanks

zhastro: Yeah the site is kinda simple... but then so is the family LOL. I happen to be a fan of simple, clean sites, but if you have any ideas on how it could be "spiced" up I'd love to hear them.
Thanks

Sorry - Brit colloquialism creeping in there :oops:
It's a tagline from a television advertisement over here for paint/woodstain/varnish. It means no pretension, no marketing lies, just the plain wholesome truth about what the product does/is. As our kk5st might say it is a "Good Thing".

From Ronseal. As in "New Ronseal bench treatment. Does exactly what it says on the tin".

As for the photo + paragraph stuff, I meant I think there shoudl be some sort of division between the top bit of the page (the bg photo and description) and the rest of the content, it's too squished. Maybe a <hr> or a bigger margin?

Couldn't immediately locate the culprit, but a short page like http://www.redhorseoil.com/test/skurdal/reunions.asp requires some vertical scrolling. You may want to get rid of that.

Lorraine: OK... I get the "tin" reference now - thanks for that; no pretension is a good thing.

TPH: I agree with the comment on the content and top of the page on the home page...(or do you mean all pages?) I will tidy that up a bit.

technossomy: the "culprit" is the html height and body min-height. I have that in there so there "would" be a vertical scroll on small pages to keep the design from "jumping" left 10 pixels when the scroll bar appears or disappears depending on the length of the content.

Have made the following changes based on topic comments...
Increased line height for content
Tried to put some type of division between top bit of page and rest of content
Re-did the photos page

Plz comment on these revisions and/or the rest of the site.

Still having a bit of a problem with implementing TPH suggestions of some bottom padding on the tabbed menu (recipes page) as well as his suggestion of a min-width. Help appreciated in these two areas.

Thanks

Line height
Certainly, for me, it is now easier to read and scan from the end of one line to the beginning of the next.

The tabbed menu
These two changes worked for me, 5px was purely an arbitrary choice for demo/testing purposes, needs tweaking, no doubt:

#tabmenu {border-bottom:1px solid #555;
 margin:12px 10px 0 20px; 
 padding-left:20px;
padding-bottom: 5px; /****************/}

#tabmenu a {color:#fff;
 border:1px solid #555;
 padding:2px 5px 5px 5px;/**********/
 text-decoration:none;
 font-weight:bold;}

Content dividers
Well, I'm biased because I was happy with the original. It's hard to apply custom styles to <hr>s that work cross-browser because Opera does not seem to want to play that game. I don't know whether different background colors would work. Possibly a separate div with an image in it with alt or title text indicating it is a divider. Those ideas would need additional divs/markup though and may not be what you want to do. Let's hope TPH comes along soon and explains what he had in mind.

The photo gallery
Excellent. Are congratulations in order?
You may wish to advise visitors to wait for the page to download fully before clicking, unless the family are all on broadband. I'm not and it took quite a time to download (but, then, I knew what was happening )

Min-width/Max-width?
I agree with your point about 2 text size increases being reasonable so, IMHO, no need to mess with this. However, you'll find some examples on Google by searching for "css max-width+IE" or "css min-width+IE" whichever may suit different areas of the site.

Good luck.

Lorraine:
Tabbed Menu I had already tried your suggestion and it didn't work... must have been a typo or something, because I tried it again and all is good (I went with just a small amount 2px) I also lightened the borders from #555 to #999.

Content Dividers I removed the styled <hr>s and just added some padding/margin. I hope TPH has some comments on what he would like to see.

Photo Gallery Added your suggestion regarding load time. YES, congrats are in order... that's my son and his wife... expectant parents of my wife and my FIRST GRANDCHILD!!!! WOOHOO

Min-width Have done mucho googling... still not happy with the results of anything I've tried

Thanks for your comments, and keep em coming

That's it from me, except to say I hope all goes well and would you mind cracking on with those recipes before you get side-tracked into grandfatherhood?

The enschiladas were delicious and I'm finding it hard to wait for the rest. Sweets, next, would be good