# progress



## daArch (Mar 15, 2008)

Just a progress report. 

Finally feeling like I'm learning how to manipulate Dreamweaver. And I am sure glad a learned a little code rules, cause this program is JUST as frustrating as all other things Adobe. I add to the element style and it don't show up in the live view, so I go into the css file and see the background color DID NOT change. So I had to do so manually.

anyway, very small progress. Many things to refine. 

If you please, just point your browser to my testing domain and see if it looks OK. I have to run around the house now and test it on different monitors and OS's and browsers. But I do not have a mac.

My intent was to stay very much similar to the old design, for recoghnition, but to lighten it up - air it out. And to change the text on the landing page. 


anyway, url of test is

www.warch.com


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## chrisn (Jul 15, 2007)

" Wall covering installations by Bill" is a little fuzzy on my machine


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## daArch (Mar 15, 2008)

chrisn said:


> " Wall covering installations by Bill" is a little fuzzy on my machine


DAMN, and you don't even drink. 

But thanks. Yah, I gotta go with a gif for that. It's on the list.


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## DeanV (Apr 18, 2007)

Having an issue with this line "The properly chosen wallcovering will give a home more ambiance than simple, painted walls."


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## NCPaint1 (Aug 6, 2009)

DeanV said:


> Having an issue with this line "The properly chosen wallcovering will give a home more ambiance than simple, painted walls."


Right, its wallpaper, not soft lighting, smooth jazz and a bottle of wine. 

Instead of ambiance maybe put character, style, charm...etc etc.


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## DeanV (Apr 18, 2007)

I was more thinking paint is always superior to wallpaper......

-says a painter who does not hang paper.

Sent from my T-Mobile G2 using Paint Talk


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## PatsPainting (Mar 4, 2010)

Not sure changing this - http://www.warch.com/images/head-790.jpg to a gif will help. all that will do is reduce the colors.

was the image done in photoshop? or does it have layers? if so send it here and I will try to fix it up.

Also, this is not really advice, but I gave up on trying to please the people with ie 6.0 - that is by far the worst browser ever. If you do a search many web people are doing the same thing.

Looking good Bill, Glad you took this route. Oh one more thing. Something I wish I did. but before you keep going, change your picture names to be SEO friendly. Example - change "head-790.jpg" to "Boston Wallpaper Dude.jpg" It's just easier to do it as your building it then to go back later. 

Pat


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## daArch (Mar 15, 2008)

thanks Pat,

the head pict was done with Paintshop Pro. (photoshop is Adobe, and I've expressed my opinion of all things adobe many times). It was a green background with text on top. It's orig format is gif on my real site (billarchibald.com). I had to diddle with it for this test page, don't know why I converted to jpg . . . . brain fart?

Good idea about rename, also all pix will have appropriate alt text.


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## daArch (Mar 15, 2008)

DeanV said:


> I was more thinking paint is always superior to wallpaper......
> 
> -says a painter who does not hang paper.
> 
> Sent from my T-Mobile G2 using Paint Talk


I THOUGHT that's what you meant, but you drew out a good suggestion from NC. I think I'm liking "style" better.


And remember, I'm not trying to SELL paper, just trying to encourage the reader to perceive their decision for paper IS special, it is a great design choice, they should hire a person worthy of their home, and I am that person.


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## PatsPainting (Mar 4, 2010)

Was a pain figuring out the fonts you used. How's this?

first one was just done in photoshop. the 2nd one was your original

Pat


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## daArch (Mar 15, 2008)

PatsPainting said:


> Was a pain figuring out the fonts you used. How's this?


Yah think ??? I hope I have my notes somewhere, 'cause I can't remember. I have NO idea how you found the right ones :thumbup: :thumbup::notworthy:
And then I'll have to figure out the sizes I used. 




> first one was just done in photoshop. the 2nd one was your original
> 
> Pat


The original from my new test? or from billarchibald.com? 

It looks a LOT better.

I'll hafta open up the vault, pull out PS, and scrape of the mouse droppings. I really do hate PS. It is such a pig.


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## PatsPainting (Mar 4, 2010)

If you can let me know your email addy, I will send you the files.

Pat


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## daArch (Mar 15, 2008)

Thanks Pat !

bill AT billarchibald DOT com

I just found my notes, Edwardian Script bold and Baskerville Old Face Itl Bold

and the Norfolk is Bodoni 

or something like that. There's a whole lotta experiments indicated

I may be changing the size, though, to fit the new header better. as I said, what I had up is just a test to see if it appears decently across platforms. The two monitors I am using disagree on colors.


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## daArch (Mar 15, 2008)

Jeepers, as I read these notes, it looks like the capital W and I were one typeface and the "allpaper" and "nstallations" another.
Even different sizing for the W & I. 


I think I got carried away.


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## PatsPainting (Mar 4, 2010)

Sent them, I only had one of the fonts right.

Pat


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## PatsPainting (Mar 4, 2010)

daArch said:


> Jeepers, as I read these notes, it looks like the capital W and I were one typeface and the "allpaper" and "nstallations" another.
> Even different sizing for the W & I.
> 
> 
> I think I got carried away.


same here - the I was a few sizes larger then the w

Pat


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## daArch (Mar 15, 2008)

I will admit, for all the difficulty that I have with adobe products, they do deliver quality, although Rome was built faster than me learning how to use DW and PS to build my website.

Thanks Pat for the help and the font files. That vijaya font is much cleaner than the Bodoni MT for those letters.



Chris, I think you should be able to read the header better now


While I was at it, I enlarged the header and the fonts to fit the wider format I will be having than the old site.

so you don' need to scroll up www.warch.com

(now watch this test site get higher ranked than www.billarchibald.com from all the traffic :blink:  )


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## chrisn (Jul 15, 2007)

Yea, that fixed it.:thumbsup:


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## mosby (Mar 23, 2012)

I like the clean look. Great job! Only thought is that the bold, italic should probably be reserved for headers.


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## daArch (Mar 15, 2008)

Thanks

Which bold italic? in the text of the landing page?

If so, as your eyes get older, you will understand  :whistling2:


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## mosby (Mar 23, 2012)

All of the front page text is bold italic. Generally that's considered less readable.


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## daArch (Mar 15, 2008)

could you read it OK ?


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## PatsPainting (Mar 4, 2010)

Mosby makes a good point Bill about the bold, btw - freaking awesome you finished it up using Dreamweaver and did not jump on the wordpress band wagon :thumbup:

A nice font that many recommend is Verdana, easy to read for many. Try it out and see.

Pat


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## daArch (Mar 15, 2008)

I am not a huge fan of Verdana in running text, I do not like the letter spacing and the height to width ratio of the letters. And on my monitor I see darker areas where angled letter elements meet - with V, Y W, etc.


The heavier weighted (400) letters and italic was to give what I felt was a better proportion of text to background. It was all a design call, plus easier for my eyes to read, and my target clientèle does not have young eyes. 

I will test normal weight and non-italic and see what I think.


I could NOT jump on Wordpress because my server has php version 4 something, and the newer Wordpress requires 5 something. Dreamweaver is so non-intuitive, that is was easier typing some code like <br /> than hunting down the button to click. (yes there is a keyboard shortcut, but my brain can't remember more than about 7 of them)


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## daArch (Mar 15, 2008)

DAMN IT, now you guys got me playing with fonts, sizes, and weights.

Why I oughta .......

seriously thanks for the feedback. I'm resistant to agree right away, but I will test out different styles and see what I think. That is the beauty of CSS. Tweaking style sheets is just too easy.


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## RH (Sep 7, 2010)

I use a Mac and it looked good. This was just a single test page correct?


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## daArch (Mar 15, 2008)

Dan, the warch.com is a single test page.

the whole new site went up last weekend at www.billarchibald.com complete with 47 town pages

And I am already making changes.


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## daArch (Mar 15, 2008)

OK you, "make more work me" people 

I changed the font on the landing page. I went with Georgia 17 pt. The 17 looked a little heavier and easy to read. 

IMO.

remember the actual site is http://billarchibald.com/ not the test page at warch


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## PatsPainting (Mar 4, 2010)

I like it better Bill, just seems a bit more relaxing to read. The Georgia font I think represents newspaper fonts.

What about adding a border or something to the main photo on your home page.

Just fooled a bit but maybe something like this? Just an idea that's all

Pat


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## daArch (Mar 15, 2008)

Pat,


Although a nice touch, I'm thinking it doesn't relate to much to paperhanging, and also, I have enough distractions.


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