Photography Site

Alright, I think I need to just redo the whole thing, but first I need to figure out how to organize everything.

http://test.jumpfrog.org/
I'm nowhere near finished with the above site, and I really don't plan on fininshing it. It's kinda just bare bones, but I need some help with the general layout.
Btw, I know the site's kinda slow--it's on my home server. I'll get decent hosting when I'm finished with this and another site.

Somehow I just kinda ended up with light-on-dark. I was really just goofing around until I decided it looked like a website. *shrugs* The final site will most definitly be dark-on-light.

So...

First of all, the numbers up top look goofy. I can't figure out what to do with them, though.

Second, I'd like to have the thumbnails and photos on the same page, but the most photos I have in a set is 22 or so. The middle set (the largest there) has only 14. 22 thumbnails plus an 800x600 picture just isn't going to fit. So, I was thinking I could make thumbnails 80x60 or so and when you click them it gives you a large thumbnail--say 400x300. Then when you click that (if you want) it gives you the full size image (2048x1536 most of the time) in a near-blank window. Or, I could replace the smaller thumbnails with text links.

Third... Before, I've just had my photos in chronological order. I'm getting enough now (30 sets or so, so far) that I think I need different categories. I was thinking of having something like this...
Sort by: Date, Rating, Ratings, Views, ...?
Categories: Plants, Animals, Cats, ...?
Do you think doing categories and such is worth programming it?

Lesse.. Fourth, is the favorites page a good idea? Or do you think sorting by rating is good enough?

Fifth--you think a comments feature would be nice? If so, you think I should have it immediately post the comment or go to a stack that I have to approve?

Wow I wrote a lot. So, any suggestions?

I love the overall design of the site, looks great and very slick. Your structure is kinda confusing though. Instead of having the numbers at the top i would create a page for the photos and then have the different numbers on that page, do u get what i mean?

I am a bit confused with what u mean about the thumbnails. Personally i would have it so that you have a set of thumbnails, and when u click on one of them it loads in an iframe, then if you select another one it would load in the same iframe. Have a look at the image i have attached.

I would say it is definitely worth programming the categories, it would make your navigation much better and easier for people to find what they are looking for.

I'm not sure, i would probably have a fav. page just so that people can straight away have a look at your best pics, but that is just a personal preference.

I think a comments page is always a good idea, especially for a portfolio. DEFINITELY make it so that you have to approve it, you are always going to find some little kid who thinks it's funny to write something offensive and this could drive away visitors.

The text on some of your pages, although i find very amusing could drive away other people, e.g.

Quote:

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Like my work and want to inflate my head even larger? Hate it and want to bitch about it?

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This could be seen as offensive to some people, although like i said i found it quite amusing ;). Maybe consider toning it down a bit, e.g.

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Liking my work? Have a problem or query? Whatever you want to say, feel free to drop me a line at...

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Lastly, i looked at your code and was quite intrigued at it. On all your tags you have used single quotes, yet the rest of your code is in xhtml. For xhtml ALL your tags should be with double quotes e.g.

Code:

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<img src="image.gif" alt="Blah Blah Blah" />

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Also you don't appear to have a doctype, view http://www.alistapart.com/articles/doctype/ to find the right doctype.

I hope you find this helpful. :D

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Instead of having the numbers at the top i would create a page for the photos and then have the different numbers on that page, do u get what i mean?

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Alright, yeah. I think that would be much better too.

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I am a bit confused with what u mean about the thumbnails.

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Well, real thumbnails won't fit on the same page as an 800x600 image--that's why I have tiny little strip thumbnails. Unfortunetly, they look too small to me to be of much use. :/

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The text on some of your pages, although i find very amusing could drive away other people.

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Yeah, good point. I more-or-less just slapped something down so I could see what it would look like, though. I'll..erhm..be more professional when I rewrite it. :cheeky:

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On all your tags you have used single quotes, yet the rest of your code is in xhtml. For xhtml ALL your tags should be with double quotes.

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Huh. I use single quotes a bunch because I generally program as so:
print("<tag param='value'>{$variable}</tag>");
Makes life easier to use single quotes rather than escape double.
My html code at the end is usually pretty ugly, too, for basically the same reason. ^^;
I didn't realize that xhtml required double quotes, though. O.o *checks*
erhm...
http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=ht...0+Transitional
It checks out fine. No errors (sorta).

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Also you don't appear to have a doctype...

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Yeah, I'm usually too lazy to bother with sticking one in there until I'm finished. ^^; I don't think I've ever had any errors in my code when I've validated, though, so there's really no reason to stick it in there until I'm done. Well, except to make sure I don't forget it. :P

Thanks for the help! I still need to figure out how to organize the thumbnails and images, though. :/

Your site works fine in FireFox and IE.

I think some of the navigation icons are misleading and it would be better if there were some text underneath them.

On your contact page your email address is split up "skara dot mm at gmail dot com"

Even though you have done this to prevent bots to take your e-mail address there are other ways in preventing them from stealing your mail and not confusing people.

I have used a email form since bots don't like php too much.

Another way is to use an image since bots only read script and can't see the image, the only problem is you can't copy and paste.

I'm adding text next to the buttons in the new one. I've also got the nav at the top, so there's more room for the images.

I was thinking about the contact thing... I think I may just have an email form there.

Ok, I went a completely different way, pretty much. I still like the icons, and I like a little grunge somewhere, so here's what I've got.
http://test.jumpfrog.org/next/
What you see is all that's there at the moment. ^^; I'm through working on it tonight.
I think this is gonna work, though. Thanks for the tips.