cdi-buy.com Posted April 24, 2004 Share Posted April 24, 2004 Hey all I got some harsh criticism about the old style of my store so I decided to re-do it (this also took care of browser compatibility issues). Please let me know what you think: CDI Buy! Online Store Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
starcam Posted April 25, 2004 Share Posted April 25, 2004 The interface looks clean and nice although it still looks a bit stocky. The mouse over in red looks a bit weird though, IMHO. Especially for the title links, ie... My Account, etc.. Nevertheless, a clean and uncomplicated site. starcam ************** http://www.mediaboks.com starcam ---------------- give your opinion on my shop: http://www.oscommerce.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=89341 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cdi-buy.com Posted April 25, 2004 Author Share Posted April 25, 2004 You should have seen how ugly it was before :lol: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
masat Posted April 25, 2004 Share Posted April 25, 2004 I like it! The red mouse over are little off but it's minor. You might monkey with some different combos to see what happens. As far as I'm concerned the stock layout is very cool, very classic and very efficient. I use it for almost all my sites. Tim How do you know when you know what you want to do for the rest of your life? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cdi-buy.com Posted April 25, 2004 Author Share Posted April 25, 2004 I agree with the mouse over color. It sort of worked with the old design and its a minor detail I forgot to change. I have it as black now until I decide which theme color to use. I like the simplicity of the stock layout and believe having the information at the fingertips is a good thing rather than having to click a million links to find it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted April 25, 2004 Share Posted April 25, 2004 Only the right side of your paypal logo in the top banner shows up for me (ayPal), the "P" is missing. For Security Purposes Your IP Address Has Been Recorded: 216 I would rephrase this part so browsing the categories at left is your best way to find what you want. You can also do a search below the categories if you If you have to tell people how to use your site there is something wrong. But I am sure people will figure it out on their own. I have looked at your site before and I still can't figure out what your target market is. "CDI Buy" does not mean much to me. I can't figure out where "Custom Digital Imaging Inc" fits into things. Why do you sell these products? Please don't take that question the wrong way. What I am thinking is by knowing "why" you do what you do on your site I think it may help to come up with a more meaningful approach to your site and also help with building meta tags, etc. to attract more customers. Peter Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cdi-buy.com Posted April 25, 2004 Author Share Posted April 25, 2004 CDI Buy is a "subsidiary" of Custom Digital Imaging Ink. CDI is for Custom Digital Imaging, Buy means retail/sales, CDI, Ink. is imaging & photography services. It's just an ecommerce arm of the parent company. Hence CDI Buy! and CDI, Ink. (an Inc. pun due to the use of a lot of ink) I tell people to browse on the main page because of the items being mostly one-offs and not being stocked in quanities. The could visit one time and an item be there but if they try to search again it may not be. I don't want people to think they can refer the site to friends and tell them to search for something and expect it to be there. As for the P in PayPal, it's a graphic and showing up fine on my screen so I have no idea why it would be "missing" for you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
devosc Posted April 25, 2004 Share Posted April 25, 2004 I think your box headings could do with a touch more padding. You should also consider, meta tags, and a using the search box contrib. Both of the above are sort of taken care of by the BTS solution and you'll find that BTS will allow you alot more potential especially in customizing particular boxes. You've certainly got an eye for colors... "Any fool can know. The point is to understand." -- Albert Einstein Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cdi-buy.com Posted April 25, 2004 Author Share Posted April 25, 2004 I don't want to install a template system. I like the boxed layout the way it is. It's clean, simple, and very easy to navigate. If I knew where the define was for infobox padding I would increase it a notch or 2 but I don't. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted April 25, 2004 Share Posted April 25, 2004 Web Page Speed Report URL: http://www.cdi-buy.com/ Title: CDI Buy!? Online Store Date: Report run on Sun Apr 25 11:55:02 EDT 2004 Diagnosis Global Statistics Total HTTP Requests: 21 Total Size: 349700 bytes Object Size Totals Object type Size (bytes) HTML: 3975 Images: 339175 java script: 250 CSS: 6550 Multimedia: 0 Other: 0 External Objects External Object QTY Total Images: 19 Total CSS imports: 1 Download Times* Connection Rate Download Time 14.4K 275.23 seconds 28.8K 139.72 seconds 33.6K 120.36 seconds 56K 73.89 seconds ISDN 128K 25.54 seconds T1 1.44Mbps 6.05 seconds *Note that these download times are based on the full connection rate for ISDN and T1 connections. Modem connections (56Kbps or less) are corrected by a packet loss factor of 0.7. All download times include delays due to round-trip latency with an average of 0.2 seconds per object. With 21 total objects for this page, that computes to a total lag time due to latency of 4.2 seconds. Note also that this download time calculation does not take into account delays due to XHTML parsing and rendering. Page Objects QTY SIZE# TYPE URL 1 48348 IMG http://www.cdi-buy.com/images/candlestylephone.jpg 1 46214 IMG http://www.cdi-buy.com/images/ceramiccandles.jpg 1 36020 IMG http://www.cdi-buy.com/images/waterer.jpg 1 32968 IMG http://www.cdi-buy.com/images/tea.jpg 1 28218 IMG http://www.cdi-buy.com/images/cologne.jpg 1 27281 IMG http://www.cdi-buy.com/images/kitchenradio.jpg 1 24503 IMG http://www.cdi-buy.com/images/ceramicbear.jpg 1 20173 IMG http://www.cdi-buy.com/images/pickupstix.jpg 1 19455 IMG http://www.fineclicks.com/fc2/view.cfm?sid...d=1367&bid=5938 1 18626 IMG http://www.cdi-buy.com/images/banad.jpg 1 11242 IMG http://www.cdi-buy.com/images/coasters.jpg 1 9608 IMG http://www.cdi-buy.com/images/cars.jpg 1 9001 IMG http://www.cdi-buy.com/images/bkgrnd2.jpg 1 7032 IMG http://www.cdi-buy.com/images/paypal_logo.gif 1 6550 CSS http://www.cdi-buy.com/stylesheet.css 1 3975 HTML http://www.cdi-buy.com/ 2 314 IMG http://www.cdi-buy.com/images/infobox/arrow_right.gif 1 43 IMG http://www.cdi-buy.com/images/infobox/corner_right.gif 2 43 IMG http://www.cdi-buy.com/images/infobox/corner_left.gif 7 43 IMG http://www.cdi-buy.com/images/infobox/corner_right_left.gif 23 43 IMG http://www.cdi-buy.com/images/pixel_trans.gif 21^ 349700* Total (^unique objects) # This site is using HTTP compression, otherwise called content encoding using gzip. The sizes reported here are for compressed content sent from the server to the client. * CSS alternate stylesheets may be referenced in the HTML but are not actually downloaded until they are needed and are therefore not included in the total page size. Analysis and Recommendations TOTAL_OBJECTS - Warning! The total number of objects on this page is 21 - consider reducing this to a more reasonable number. Combine, refine, and optimize your external objects. Replace graphic rollovers with CSS rollovers to speed display and minimize HTTP requests. TOTAL_IMAGES - Warning! The total number of images on this page is 19, consider reducing this to a more reasonable number. Combine, refine, and optimize your graphics. Replace graphic rollovers with CSS rollovers to speed display and minimize HTTP requests. TOTAL_CSS - The total number of external CSS files on this page is 1. Because external CSS files must be in the HEAD of your HTML document, they must load first before any BODY content displays. Although they are cached, CSS files slow down the initial display of your page. TOTAL_SIZE - The total size of this page is 349700 bytes, which will load in 73.89 seconds on a 56Kbps modem. Consider reducing total page size to less than 30K to achieve sub eight second response times on 56K connections. Pages over 100K exceed most attention thresholds at 56Kbps, even with feedback. HTML_SIZE - The total size of this HTML file is 3975 bytes, which less than 20K. Assuming that you specify the HEIGHT and WIDTH of your images, this size allows your page to display content in well under 8 seconds, the average time users are willing to wait for a page to display without feedback. IMAGES_SIZE - Warning! The total size of your images is 339175 bytes, which is over 30K. Consider optimizing your images for size, combining them, and replacing graphic rollovers with CSS. SCRIPT_SIZE - The total size of all your scripts is 250 bytes, which is less than 1160 bytes. This will fit into one higher-speed TCP-IP packet. CSS_SIZE - Caution. The total size of your external CSS is 6550 bytes, which is above 1160 bytes and less than 8K. For external files, try to keep them less than 1160 bytes to fit within one higher-speed TCP-IP packet (or an approximate multiple thereof). Consider optimizing your CSS and eliminating features to reduce this to a more reasonable size. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cdi-buy.com Posted April 25, 2004 Author Share Posted April 25, 2004 Great. ;) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted April 27, 2004 Share Posted April 27, 2004 I like how it's centered in the browser. It's stocky but attractive. I use 800x600 resolution and the P in the Paypal logo is cut off on my screen too. You'll need to view it on other monitors or try changing your resolution and see if you can spot and correct the problem. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cdi-buy.com Posted April 27, 2004 Author Share Posted April 27, 2004 ok I've fixed it. I had it set at a percentage instead of a pixel width. It should look ok now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cdi-buy.com Posted April 27, 2004 Author Share Posted April 27, 2004 If I've missed any pages, let me know. I went through and manually set the widths so I'm sure I've missed a couple still. I also cannot figure out how to get the shopping cart to stop widening the page when there are items added to it. ;) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted April 27, 2004 Share Posted April 27, 2004 The header is much better on my screen now. I didn't check all the pages, it is late and I am tired. I like what you have done recently with the pages, very nice. Peter Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cdi-buy.com Posted April 27, 2004 Author Share Posted April 27, 2004 Thanks. If there are any other improvements or suggestions, let me know. Aside from installing a template system (I like the clean infoboxes) or adding images to infobox headers, I could use the help. I dont want headers above my infoboxes/nav bar because of download times. I'd rather keep it simple. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AXM Posted April 27, 2004 Share Posted April 27, 2004 Don, Yeah don't worry about the "man" trying to force you to use a template :P . The boxes if modified a bit can work for anyone. I ♥ PHP/MYSQL/CSS Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cdi-buy.com Posted April 27, 2004 Author Share Posted April 27, 2004 I agree - I believe the infobox layout is clean and functional and makes the store easiest to navigate versus trying to find "hidden links" or pictures that might be a link to what you want but you arent sure. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
devosc Posted April 27, 2004 Share Posted April 27, 2004 You could of as easily (moreso in my opinion) achieved the same effect via BTS, I wasn't "forcing" anyone, you (Don) have a very good talent (potential) in design and I was trying to encourage you into a direction where there is less of a limitation as to what your imagination could do, there isn't any now, but strictly using the infoBox convention has it's limits, you'd have to mess with the infoBoxHeading in the stylesheet and look for infoBoxHeading in catalog/includes/classes/boxes.php. Anyway all the best. "Any fool can know. The point is to understand." -- Albert Einstein Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cdi-buy.com Posted April 27, 2004 Author Share Posted April 27, 2004 I'm not saying BTS is bad - I just didn't want it for this situation. I may or may not have another store installed shortly so I might use BTS for it. I'm also building one for a friend so I may implement BTS on it as well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SpangieUK Posted April 27, 2004 Share Posted April 27, 2004 Hi Don I like the layout on this. I like the colours and the images you are using. Just a couple of points (and only IMO). Gift vouchers - the thread is difficult to see cos of the black text. Also, I prefer to have a list of all the categories straight off to see what I can buy with out having to click on the combo box. I can see why this may not be suitable for your site though, as from what I can see your produts (and therefore - I am assuming) your categories are forever changing. Not sure if this will make mcuh difference except if you have hard coded links all over the show. Nice site though. Like it, the colours and the overall layout. Well done mate! Ps - That is not the Gift Voucher mod is it? I had hell and all of problems with that, but would love to get similar sorted for my site. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cdi-buy.com Posted April 27, 2004 Author Share Posted April 27, 2004 Actually yes that is the gift voucher mod. Took me about 4-5 different tries to get it installed. It's a pain but worth it once you get it in there. I just recently noticed the black text for the thread in the nav bar. I'll have to get to changing that. The reason for the drop down categories box is to keep the page from scrolling up and down so much. I like a website that has minimal scrolling, be it vertical or horizontal. Thanks for the Kudos - I'm here to prove ya dont need a template to have a nice site... :D P.S. - All the images are orginals so if anyone needs/wants help with logos & such, send me an email through the forums. Product pictures are of the actual items as well - taken from atop my desk. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cdi-buy.com Posted April 29, 2004 Author Share Posted April 29, 2004 I added a new header image, if anyone cares to take a look at it. It's cleaner than the old one because I messed with the size of the old one too often. I know it doesn't go with what I'm selling at the moment but my inventory is only temporary. Once it sells (or I get startup funds) I will have the real antiques/replicas and just a few "collectibles" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ryanf Posted April 29, 2004 Share Posted April 29, 2004 I get an error when I check your site: Fatal error: Call to undefined function: paypal_check_order_status() in /home2/cdibuy/public_html/shop/includes/application_top.php on line 262 If I was crafty, this would be a funny signature. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cdi-buy.com Posted April 29, 2004 Author Share Posted April 29, 2004 Yes I just installed an updated contribution and came up with that error. I'm still working on it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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