lovetease

lovetease

****- (Rated by 2 people, viewed by 258 people)

This is mostly a personal blog, with a few WordPress themes for the visitor.

Added by superawr in Personal

lovetease has 2 Reviews

Below are the reviews left by other members on lovetease. Jump to review form?

  1. [img: avatar]
    Chien gave it ****- on 22nd May 2009 and said:

    Hey there! I'm here to review your site :) Please bear with me for my reviews might be harsh occasionally.

    Using Mozilla Firefox on Windows Vista at a 1280x800 resolution.

    First Impression
    ==================
    I can't stop staring at the hearts. I love hearts and abuse them excessively in my notebooks, but the colours you've used here is rather too bright for it as compared to the content area, and I find my eyes unconsciously drifting to see the background everytime I read your content.

    But no worries - I see great potential in your site since your layout isn't all that bad and you've got great grammar

    Coding & Design
    ==================
    Like I mentioned earlier, your background takes up too much attention. Try lightening the colours for the background or using bolder colours for the content. I played a bit with it, and this is the best I could come up with: http://i41.tinypic.com/2ztm350.png

    Generally, the colours are rather too light. If the colours in the content area were more bold and outstanding, it would be easier on the eyes.

    You have validated xHTML but your CSS has one litle error, which I'm sure you can fix easily - it's just missing two more ee's I guess? :)


    div.pagination span.current {
    padding: 2px 5px 2px 5px;
    margin-right: 2px;
    border: 1px solid #e <- THIS LINE
    }

    :O You're using tables for your sidebar! You can easily accomplish the same effect using lists and some CSS.


    <div id="sidebar">
    <div class="side">
    <ul>
    <li><h2>Hot Mama</h2>
    <div>CONTENT CONTENT CONTENT</div></li>
    .....
    <li id="dailies"><h2>Dailies</h2><ul>
    <li>&raquo; <a href="link.com">link</a></li>
    <li>&raquo; <a href="link.com">link</a></li>
    <li>&raquo; <a href="link.com">link</a></li>
    <li>&raquo; <a href="link.com">link</a></li>
    </ul></li>
    </ul>

    (you can omit the &raquo; since you're going to use lists, so instead let's use a bullet for the CSS)

    and the CSS would be:

    #sidebar ul, #sidebar li {
    list-style: none;
    margin: 0;
    padding: 0;
    }
    #sidebar ul ul li {
    float: left;
    width: 67px;
    list-style-type: disc;
    padding-left: 20px;
    }

    If I'm not wrong (feeling rather groggy atm) this would probably work.

    Another think I'd like to point out is justified text. Sure, it looks neat and all, but apparently to improve typography, left-aligned text is preferred as subconsciously the mind knows where the next word is. There are some articles on SmashingMagazine.com regarding typography and Jem also has an entry on it: http://www.jemjabella.co.uk/blog/to-justify-or-not-to-justify

    Your sidebar has also too much information on it. Maybe you can use a grid system such as http://960.gs ? I use the grid systems as a standard for the size of my webpages since content are spaced out evenly.

    The footer quite lost it's purpose as a footer. There's no point advertising if it's free - put it in a separate page instead. There's too many blinking images and it makes me dizzy just looking at it, no offense. Footers are meant to be short and concise, not filled with Ads.

    Content
    ==================
    I'll skim through pages, and comment wherever necessary
    HOME
    There's only one entry and initially I thought that it was the one and only one too. You should have at least 3 entries per page. I love how flexible WordPress is, because you can make the first entry full-length, while the other two just little excerpts!

    This is my old coding from my old design, but it might still work for your case.
    <?php my_query = new WP_Query('showposts=1');
    while ($my_query->have_posts()) : $my_query->the_post();
    $do_not_duplicate = $post->ID;?>
    DESIGN BLABLABLA
    <?php the_excerpt(__('continue reading &raquo;')); ?>
    <?php endwhile; ?>
    <?php $my_query2 = new WP_Query('showposts=4');
    while ($my_query2->have_posts()) : $my_query2->the_post();
    if( $post->ID == $do_not_duplicate ) continue; update_post_caches($posts); ?>
    DESIGN BLABLABLA
    <?php the_excerpt(__('continue reading &raquo;')); ?>
    <?php endwhile; ?>

    ABOUT
    I don't like how the links are displayed since it isn't consistent - the position changes and things pop on and off all the time. I suggest using a dynamic sidebar. You can check http://melly.me/tutorials/the-dynamic-sidebar/ and http://melly.me/tutorials/dynamic-subnavigation/

    Stats/Credits: Well I think you can put your webdesign history with the information about your site since it's more relevant. I'd put credits in another page since it's a part where people least likely would like to know about your site.

    Link Buttons: I'd put this page in a completely new section, not under the about page. The links section would then hold links to all your dailies, credits and link buttons. It's like killing THREE birds with one stone.

    Owner's Profile: Your bio is quite a good read, even though it was a typical type. Nonetheless, your writing grabbed my attention and I continued reading to the end of the page :)

    Previous Layouts: Version one looks really pretty, and, no offense, the colours are better than the current one. I'm sure your next theme would be better, so keep it up ;)

    WordPress Themes: I love the second one best. The first one looks rather dull, but has quite okay padding. The second one has too much top padding on the sidebar. It would be better if it was level with the content. The third one just isn't anything that I'd ever use, no offense. My eyes just couldn't be taken off the header.

    Overall
    ==================
    3.5 stars overall! :) Considering that I'm a stingy person when it comes to stars, you're doing quite alright.

    I think it's a great site, but nonetheless there are some areas to improve on, mostly coding and a bit of design.

    Oh, and *is too lazy to scroll up* your double arrows need a space between it and the link. Your navigation area needs more letter spacing too, since it looks rather squished up.

    Using Firefox on Windows | Report This?

  2. [img: avatar]
    Vera gave it ****- on 22nd May 2009 and said:

    I've seen your reviews around and found them quite interesting. So now that I got to your site I thought I'd review you, as well.

    = First Impression =
    ------------------------------------
    WHOA! That background is way too much. Soften the images there, by lower the opacity. It's too much right now. In contrast, your main content area is much too easily overlooked.

    = Presentation =
    --------------------------------
    Your background image attracts way too much attention. And I'm not particularly fond of it either... reminds me of the wallpapers in those 19th century houses that you see in movies.

    For a minute there, I almost overlooked your main content area. And it's not like I have an extremely large screen resolution either (1280x1024px) so it takes up a decent amount of space.

    I like that it's centered, and using Wordpress (got tired of telling people not to use Cutenews :P ). Unfortunately it's too bloody faded. Before I decided to review you, I did a cursory swipe around the site... and completely missed the main navigation. Yeah it's green and larger then the rest, but the letters seem to be flowing into each other. Aside this, the shame you used for them is also an extremely pastel one so I automatically ignored it.

    Another thing that struck me about your layout, is that you have sooo much info squeezed together in one place. Sure said space is not small, but your padding is seriously toeing the line toward "too little". I suggest you make use of more than 5px on either side. Have at least 10px, if not 15px. OK, so maybe not necessarily on either side, but at least on the left.

    I see you use justified text. Don't! Text on webpages shouldn't be justified, because you can easily get unwanted spaces. If you look at your self description (specifically lines 2 and 6) you'll notice some of the words have more spaces between them than others. Just use left aligned text. For more info on this, read:
    http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/04/03/8-simple-ways-to-improve-typography-in-your-designs/
    http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/03/18/10-principles-for-readable-web-typography/
    http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2008/08/11/top-ten-web-typography-sins/
    I'm not particularly skilled in this area either, so I'll just point you towards the experts :P

    Your main navigation could use a bit of padding between the right double quotes and the text. Also, try a different font, as this one is rather hard to read at this size being bolded.

    Your footer effectively murdered me. See, for all the faded colors and lack of sufficient padding, I found your layout nice all in all. By the way you really have to use darker colors because someone with my minuscule attention span is not going to last more than a couple of minutes (and in this aspect I'm like most net surfers).
    But THEN I saw your footer. It always pisses me off when people take up an insane amount of space to link to other sites... on EVERY BLOODY PAGE of the site. Since you don't mention it otherwise, I'm going to assume this is your personal site (well the rev.iew.me category says it so as well). So why do you feel the need to advertise so much. Half your sidebar is linking to others, and now 3/4 of your footer too?

    As an advice: don't display links not intended for the casual visitor, such as: admin login and webmail. Bookmark these if you think you'll forget them, or write them down. But DON'T display them is they are only of use to you. First of all, not all visitors will read what they are and will find themselves at unfamiliar pages. Secondly, you're practically inviting people to try to hack you, by "flaunting" your log-in links.

    All in all a decent layout, but PLEASE PLEASE make the colors in the main content area SHARPER.

    = Content =
    ----------------------

    Home
    Don't display just one blog post per page. It's really annoying when people want to read your older posts. Either choose to only display the excerpts on the index (and archives) page(s), or use the following plug-in, to set a different number of posts on various pages: http://www.maxblogpress.com/plugins/dppp/

    Yeah... rev.iew.me is kind of dead, but it's exam time (well not for me :P) so it's understandable. Just wait till mid June-July ;-)

    About
    Credits are certainly very important, and it's always polite to mention those who helped you, but... WHY THE HECK is this the first thing to show when talking about you/the site? This should be the LAST thing that you mention (well maybe before the links out page). Put the more interesting stuff before. By the way, that pink color is really hurting my eyes.., granted, it might be due to the fact that I'm very tired now.

    I see that the subpages don't have the subnavigation, nor do they have a back link. I'd put them in the sidebar, because some people might not feel like hitting the back button every time. You can check out Melissa's dynamic sidebar tutorial for how to do it:
    http://melly.me/tutorials/the-dynamic-sidebar/
    http://melly.me/tutorials/dynamic-subnavigation/

    Your self description was a really fun read. Not entirely sure why, as I've seen more interesting ones... nevertheless it's what determined me to write a review.

    Oh... and as mean and unhelpful this may sound: I rather prefer your previous version to this one :P

    Wordpress Themes
    I really like your second one. But these also have serious padding issues. Well not the last (bottom-most) one. That one needs larger font size.

    Subdomain Hosting
    This seems to be a different site, so I won't be writing a review for it. Plus, I'm not really qualified for these kinds of reviews anyway.
    You shouldn't however put the link in the main navigation. Have a section with "you can find me elsewhere" or even and advertising button. But as it is, it can be really misleading.

    Also another thing: don't open links in new windows/tabs. You shouldn't dictate to visitors the behavior of their browsers. If someone wants to open a link in a new window he/she can do so by right clicking on the link and choosing the appropriate option. However if you forcefully open a link in a new window, the visitor can't choose not to open said link in a new window.

    If you wish to differentiate external links for inside links, you can have some kind of arrows pointing up for these.
    See this article for more info: http://www.terminally-incoherent.com/blog/2008/10/06/identifying-external-links-with-css/

    = Coding =
    ----------------------
    I don't much care if your site is valid or not, but I do care that the code for it is correct. Considering you state that you struggled with some validation issues, this might seem mean of me. But much like perfect spelling doesn't necessarily mean that your grammar or sentences' meanings are correct, same way validated code is not necessarily correct one either.

    Your themes pages has a question mark right before the doctype tag. Is this a leftover from an opening/closing php tag? In any case you should get rid of it. I see that all your content pages have it. So check the page.php file in your template folder, see if you forgot something there before you include the header.

    Your code is for the most part nice and ordered, but for a few slip ups here and there.

    1) You use a table to display the links right below your mini description in the sidebar. You could easily make use of a two columned unordered list for that. See this article on how to achive it: http://articles.techrepublic.com.com/5100-10878_11-5810687.html It presents 3 methods for that. Same goes for your dailies links.
    This is not tabular data, so there's no need to use tables to display them.

    2) Your main navigation. You should use a list to display these, not just style your anchors to not allow more than one per line.
    Jem has a useful tutorial on how to achieve this: http://www.tutorialtastic.co.uk/tutorial/semantic_css_block_navigation
    For more interesting example of vertical navigational lists, see: http://css.maxdesign.com.au/listamatic/ (preview with code)

    Score: 3.5/5

    You have a very nice site, with little content, but mostly of very good quality. Just work on the layout and ditch the advertisements.
    Also, you might want to consider making the site title a link to the home page, my eyes keep sliding off the main navigation, so out of habit I try clicking on the site's title.

    P.S. I apologize for any eaten words/letters... am extremely tired, but really really wanted to review your site... so. :B

    UPDATED 22 May 09:
    You seem to take as personal opinion a bit too much stuff. If I had said "change the background to stripes because I don't like hearts" that would have been a personal opinion (I don't like hearts). However it's a fact that my eyes were more attracted to your background than your content, to the point of almost ignoring the latter.

    The advertising, I suppose you could call it an opinion. It's something I feel strongly about though: ads on personal websites. It should be all about you, your opinions, you you and you.

    You should really point things out that are incorrect or that would be likely that most other people would feel, too.

    Let me get this straight: unless we agree on disliking something, I'm not allowed to mention said dislike in a review? LOL. Have you ever been reviewed?

    Using Firefox on Windows | Report This?

    superawr's Response:

    Thank you for the review!
    Personally I don't think I need to change the background or the colors of my layout because that's really just a personal opinion issue. Not everyone is going to like my layout and I do understand that. But thank you anyway.
    I do agree about the login links, I'll take those off.
    I don't really see why you think I should display more than one blog post per page... again, another personal opinion issue? It isn't difficult to read my earlier posts; there are links in plain sight that take you to them.
    Um, take away my advertising? Why? A lot of things about my site that you said you didn't like were totally just your personal opinion. I think when you review websites you can't really do that because your opinion won't be the same as everyone else's. You should really point things out that are incorrect or that would be likely that most other people would feel, too.

    Thanks for taking the time to review it, though.


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