It’s almost that time of the year again; a new layout is due! But I’ve been debating on what to use. I’ve been using iframes (a frame in the website scrolls, the rest of the site stays stationary) for the past years because I think it’s click-friendly, and it allows me to be artistic with the rest of the layout. But it also kind of makes it hard for people who have smaller screen resolutions to browse, especially in the gallery. I have been thinking about this or this kind of layout, where the important things are on one page. It is less graphic-intense, a bit more professional, and allows for a less confusing hierarchy of webpages. But it scrolls a lot and it is a little harder to be creative with the layout artistically without sacrificing ease of navigation. More advanced alternatives are flash and more difficult uses of css and javascripts, which would both require the users’ browsers to be up to date to view the site properly and require me to learn a lot more in those areas before I can do anything decent. Opinions?
Oh and
This sketch was from December or November if anyone remembers from Mecha Penguin… The lineart was done over a span of 3 months because I just have sooooo much time to draw what I want to draw. I won’t be finishing it anytime soon seeing how the school term is coming to an end (I have to study hard to make the scholarship worth it! oh and the scholarship was 15000 a year instead of 15000 in total… so it’s 45000 LOL ”’orz) and I am slightly behind on the pace I want to go at for my manga. Expect it in may or something!
{ Lana }
i like your current lay out better then either of those as well =P
{ zs }
Maybe you can still have the gallery inside the iframe, but have the image open in a new window when clicked upon to be viewed.
Having a big gallery is also a pain to load when all you want to see are thumbnails[so you know which to click].
{ Shilin }
to zs: I can make it take less space by making he menu fonts smaller and the side image smaller. I’ve tried that and it sort of worked on a 800×600 if I reduce the size of the iframe as well. I am thinking of using a separate page for the gallery display so I can show bigger images without being restrained in the iframe (so I can afford to make the iframe smaller)
to me I always feel like this kind of iframed pages are more personal whereas the other kind is more professional… I am always torn between the two since it is more like an endeavour than a job, but I don’t want to give the newbish impression either
=[
{ Non-Halcyon }
I like this layout… it’s warm and friendly! lol Sometimes the single page sites with everything in reach at the same time seem a bit… clinical? I remember stumbling across your site in its second incarnation and going on a little voyage of discovery It’s nice to have little fun features that you have to hunt down. {stalks back and forth with a protest board} lmao!
{ zs }
Quite hard, given that your menu bar occupies probably half or more than half of an 800×600 screen, but if you could, it`d be great. I like this kind of iframe layout, and had the intention to actually do something like this for my own site, but I sort of lack the technical know-how to do it.
As for whether or not to keep this or switch, it`s a judgement call. I`d say you`re trading off ease of navigation[you don`t need to scroll to switch pages with this layout] for something new.
The other layouts don`t really allow pages with a lot of text content I think, unless you can plop a small iframe box in the middle for blog posts or something.
I`d think that the other two pages you listed out are more friendly to 800×600 in that you don`t need to scroll to the side as much if there`s no content there, just space.
{ Midorishina }
KEEP THE CURRENT LAYOUT!!! D: I prefer this to the other two layouts because it shows more of your creative side. And also it’s easy to navigate through. XD So, DON’T CHANGE IT D: Keep the iframes!
Blackbird/Veloce? Once again? YAY! XD; I’m still deciding who Veloce should go with lol. Blackbird = Nice firey relationship + she’s a cute little uke~~ Keritzel = KERI + VELOCE BLUSHES!!! + OMG she’s one hot seme!! (WTF?)
BTW, congrats on your scholarship~! Study hard KK??? But don’t until you’re depressed and pressured!! >O *prepares pencil for more cheer-up pics*
{ Shilin }
yeah it is…. since I build all the options graphically, even the text links. if I keep using iframes like this though, I will try to use a new method for certain pages so it will fit on 800×600 as well. (the current website doesn’t, but only 10% of the surfing population has resolutions of lower than 1024 in width)
If I can make sure that the small resolution people won’t have to scroll horizontally, should I still use iframes or the ones I listed?
{ zs }
Ops, forgot to say, keep the music option there. It`s really shitty when people have music on their websites and you can`t turn it off[it`s only irritating when it`s on by default]. And nice choice of music.
{ zs }
The current layout is *very* graphic intensive, and I`m of the impression that those with smaller resolutions will also be affected by lower bandwidth and hence won`t have an easy time surfing your site.
And the picture looks very incriminating for the guy.
{ Kathie }
I personally like your current layout. It’s very artistic (as you said) and plus it’s really easy to navigate and understand. Very… organized I guess you can say.
Dang you’re good at drawing emotions. :O And congrats on your scholarship!