Aspire

Thanks for suggesting .png. I didn't know how well that format would work. I will definitely try the gradient fading to background color image. None of that would be necessary if I could figure out how to get the sidebar and the main content boxes to be exactly the same height as each other! I appreciate your reply. You are always so helpful.

I don't know if this is possible. It seemed brilliant when I first thought of it. I wanted to put a gif as the background image of my sidebar. It is a gradient that fades from light blue at the top to transparent at the bottom. Since the container background is dark blue, I hoped the sidebar would be light blue at the top and dark blue at the bottom (container color showing through). It worked a bit, but instead of a smooth gradient, I have a noise gradient at the bottom. Not what I was looking for. Is there a way to do what I want? Thanks for any input.

Like you, I have plenty to learn about web development. However, I have been a graphic designer for many years, so I would be happy to give you some suggestions on how you could improve the appearance of your site. You have lots of great material to work with. First of all, figure out a color scheme. Pick a few main colors that work well together and stick with them. In your header and sidebar, you have a blue-green in the top-left photo, a bright mint-green behind the photos and an olive green behind the navigation bar. These greens do not work well together. Right away, you lose visual unity. The second thing that screams “unprofessional” is tiling the background photo. I think you had hoped to tie the site together, but it is actually very distracting. You’d do better with a gradient, a soft texture or a background color. And since all the page elements are squares and rectangles, it would be better to give the main container a defined edge – not a border, but a difference between the page and the desktop background. Red as your heading color jars, especially with green. How about picking up a dark grey or taupe from the photos and using that wherever you have used red. Those three changes will help a lot, so now, let’s get pickier. (Don’t feel bad -- I do this to myself all day long!) I see that this header is also used on the blog, so this probably isn’t your issue, but it took me quite a while to figure out why Tinkerbell is there. Do you/Máiréad have permission to use this Disney image, which is copyright protected like crazy? And if you do, why not play it up instead of only once (make that twice) in the header ? Explain where Tinkerbell comes in to Máiréad's career. It’s pretty impressive. The vine in the navigation bar is not repeated anywhere else. If you can separate the vine from its background, you could create visual unity by using parts of the vine other places on the pages (without the dark background). And if not, I'd get rid of it. Using a distinct design element like that only once doesn't work. Chances are visitors are overwhelmed by the number of link choices on the home page. I would try really hard to have main links and secondary links. The page about Ireland for example – does it really deserve the same importance as the tour page? You could also be losing visitors by putting links to all the official sites on your home page. If they are interested in Máiréad, why would they not go to an “Official Site” instead of staying on yours? Hmmm. I’d put those links deeper into the site. I found your pages loaded slowly and I have super-fast internet. Have you optimized your graphics? Visitors won’t stay long if they have to wait. Last picky point for today. In typography, using all caps is considered hard to read and less user-friendly, so as you revise the site, it would be good to use upper and lower case for the navigation links. As a constructive critique, I hope this is helpful.

Okay. I got it. The float: left did the job once I took clear: both out. Thanks again for your help. I know I will be back before this project is over!

Andrea - thanks for catching those two mistakes. Wickham - I appreciate your input. It works, but not exactly what I wanted to do. There is a 70x200 jpg that I want to use as a background . I want to line up the four nav boxes because they contain a link plus description. Can you tell me how to code the four nav boxes sitting beside each other in a row? Do they even need to be in a container since there is already one for the whole page? Thanks again. I am so grateful to the folks on this board for your helpfulness.

I hope someone will help me figure out why this isn't working. It should be so simple. My css file is from Dreamweaver - fixed two column header and footer. Under the header, I want to add a navigation row that contains a row of four rectangles Each rectangle has the same background with text that links to other key pages. (Image sample attached - nav.jpg) In css I added a box called .twoColFixLtHdr #navigation Using Dreamweaver, I created a class called .nav I want to put the #navigation box under the header and fill it with four smaller boxes each based on the class .nav. Can you tell me what I am doing wrong? Thanks in advance. cascade.css template.html

Wickham, thanks for analyzing the styles and pointing out what wasn't working. That is exactly the kind of critique I was hoping for so I can learn from my mistakes.

Unfortunately I can't. It's for a private intranet. In the end I will just leave the page background and forget the band, but it frustrates me that I can't see where my mistake is. Not to worry, and thanks for your quick response.

Well, it didn't work. Only the page_bg band is showing. If I switch the images in the styles, only the body_bg background shows. Could you possibly have a look at this code and see if you can spot the problem? body { background: url(body_bg.jpg); background-position: left top; background-repeat: repeat-x; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; font-color: #666767; } html { background: url(page_bg.png) center top repeat; } ............................... In the html document, I have <html> <head> </head> <body> <div id="wrapper"> <div id="container"> <div id="header"> </div> etc. Thanks so much.

Which you wrote! Thanks, Andrea. That is exactly what I was looking for.

I would like to set up a page background that is textured (small square gif that repeats over the whole page) and a top band (narrow strip of pattern and gradient gif that is repeat-x. Can I have both on the same page background? If so, can you please tell me how to set it up. I can get one or the other but not both at the same time. Thanks.

Okay, thanks. That relieves my mind.

Sorry to be so dense, but where did you find the link for this site?

Thank you. That does help.

Is it possible to have folder on a website that is password protected? What I want to do is set up a system to upload html files into the folder so that the browser asks for a password before the file can be accessed? Is there a better way to do this? I need to control access to research documents that will be in html format, not pdf.