novice -please help

[hansat]

Hello everyone. I am new to web design, having recently started a one evening a week college course in HTML.
I have produced my first site and would welcome some constructive criticism - http://www.hansat.co.uk

I have used a background that I found on a free background site.
What I would like is the same background but with a red line running down the left hand side of the page to make it look like a two inch margin.
I keep trying to do this unsuccessfully (I must be stupid!) by various means - tables, frames etc and have also tried saving the background with a vertical red line, as a picture. However, this makes the backsground file size about 260kb which is too much.

Any ideas? Thanks

[filburt1]

I don't understand, there already is a red line on the left side do you mean on the right side of the page in addition to the left?

[hansat]

at the moment it is right over on the left - I want the line to be about two inches in to look like a two inch wide margin

[filburt1]

Try doing this:

<table width="100%" height="100%">
<tr>
<td width="150">&amp;nbsp;</td>
<td width="10" bgcolor="#FF0000">&amp;nbsp;</td>
<td valign="top">page content</td>
<td width="10" bgcolor="#FF0000">&amp;nbsp;</td>
<td width="150">&amp;nbsp;</td>
</tr>
</table>

[hansat]

thank you, I will try that and let you know how I get on.

[BlueRayz]

Originally posted by hansat
thank you, I will try that and let you know how I get on.

how did that code work for you? i have been where you are and if you need any help i'd be glad too. I warn you though i'm new at this too, but i have sucessfully done what you want to do and yea it is a pain in the butt :classic:

[BlueRayz]

Originally posted by hansat
Hello everyone. I am new to web design, having recently started a one evening a week college course in HTML.
I have produced my first site and would welcome some constructive criticism - http://www.hansat.co.uk

I have used a background that I found on a free background site.
What I would like is the same background but with a red line running down the left hand side of the page to make it look like a two inch margin.
I keep trying to do this unsuccessfully (I must be stupid!) by various means - tables, frames etc and have also tried saving the background with a vertical red line, as a picture. However, this makes the backsground file size about 260kb which is too much.

Any ideas? Thanks

i like the site it is simple and easy to navigate. i really liked the scrolling marquee on the personals page. :-D

[hansat]

I have tried the code in my as yet unpublished update and it works well.
Thank you so much for the help and advice.
I have noticed that my scrolling marquee does not work in Opera? How do I get round this?

[filburt1]

You have to use Javascript, an applet, or Flash. The <marquee> tag only works in IE.

[Scarab]

Try keeping the background as a table background for the left instead of the whole page. If you made the right side a plain white background, and left the left side with the redish background and a red line separating the two, you'd present a complimentary contrast and make the site a touch more attractive.

Also, move the marquis up to the top, just under the buttons. A marquis should be used to illustrate an important piece of information, and you'd never see a top story on the back page of a newspaper now would you?

Monochromatic sites work well on "Business Card" type sites, but rarely for sites with more content than one page. Also, try to stay away from using 1 color images on a monochrome site. They tend to look like stamps and get overlooked frequently because they blend in too well with the overall look.