My woodturning website needs an overhaul, please help!

Hello Steve,

For a tips page I think using the brief descriptions you have now are quite informative, e.g., 'Dry Grinder Wheel Maintenance' or 'Super Glue: Tips and Tricks'.

Put just the brief descriptions on an index page with 2 (or perhaps 3) columns. That way the long scroll down is limited somewhat. No pics on this index page.

You may also consider an option for those folks still using dial-up and have either low res pics or no pics.

A search function is a good idea but can be a bear to set up with spelling skills being somewhat varied.

Always a hard question... folding or drop down trees are the usual answer, but they can be cumbersome for the user.. You also have to divide the topics into main and sub headings/topics, which is a lot of work for you..

I've been pretty unhappy with search features, but if your site is designed around them it can be very helpful.. they sort of need a site that was built in topic-oriented pages that stand alone to make them searchable... or at least for a usable result to come up.. The usual result is a list of local URL's that when clicked on MIGHT come up with a page that's understandable or relevant on it's own...

Something that I've noticed several times on your site is that you have some very good photos, the euro pen tutorial, for example, that are very small.. Personally, I'd like to see larger pictures there or pictures that enlarge when clicked on, so I can see what you are explaining... a picture of a pen at less than actual size, especially on the notebook screen in the shop, doesn't show much detail, especially on things like "how did he say to do that tenon" or "what are those tiny things he says you can use for mandrels?"

I build and maintain pages for a living, though none as complex as your site, and I can honestly say that I sure do prefer the time that I spend making shavings..

Try to have fun with it, Steve... It will drive you even crazier if you don't..

mac

Please remove splinters before emailing

Hello Kevin,

Thanks for your advice... :-) I'm thinking of keeping the basic format, but maybe expanding the libraries as the amount of articles grows. For example, Tips 1, Tips 2 etc. That way, each library would not be too long and you could categorise each library easier. For example, Tips 1 could be General Turning articles. Tips 2 could be Finishing etc...

We're look> Hello Steve,

Hello Mac,

Thanks for your comments...

I agree that the search function on most websites is less than adequate. I'm not sure how to make a decent search function, but I'm looking into it...

Redoing the photos is on my list of things to do for sure... I'm still learning Photoshop CS3E, so that has been the hold-up... HTML can give you grey hairs for sure... Even when you think you've got it perfect with IE, or Safari, someone using Opera, SeaMonkey, Flock, Netscape or Firefox may say something is out of whack.

I now try to debug using no less than seven browsers, to try and make everything work across all platforms. It can be a bear at times getting everything right... Learning Flash was *real* fun as well... That's another kettle of fish to debug across several platforms. :-0 Take care and all the best to you and yours!

In message , Steve Russell writes

Steve not sure if you got my private email on the subject of your re-design, but here is a solution to your image sizing issue and its free

There are also many pieces of software for bulk file renaming but one i like to use is Namo by but this one cost a massive $29 - They also do a bulk image processor

Hello John,

Thanks for the link... I got your PM, but I have not had a chance to reply. I've been up to my ears in alligators, whilst trying to juggle three Stihl

066's with 48" bars... Well, it seems like that anyway. I'm so busy these days I need three more of me. :-) I will send you an email this weekend. Thanks so much for help> In message , Steve Russell

In message , Steve Russell writes

Hi Steve no problems. Now juggling 2 bowl gouges, that would be a feat :)

mac

Please remove splinters before emailing

A couple of minor issues on the site.

Menus The color contrast is not optimum, the rollover hover highlight is decent but the non-selected menu items are of low contrast for color blind individuals.

The menu items, because you used graphics instead of text, are blurry. The red of the outline is bleeding into the text characters. Since you're not using drop shadows, try converting to two color before the final jpg or gif output for the menus. Converting the colorspace should help to keep the edges of the text characters sharp. The best compression process will depend on your graphics package(s). I find "Video Preview" and "Pen Turning", and "Writing Pens" the blurriest, but all the menu and site graphics including the title are of poor quality.

Use more contrast or graphic definition for "current page" menu item state. The white for "current page" state can get easily lost in the low contrast menu. That's probably why "Writing Pens" still has inconsistent colors for it's menu states.

"Writing Pens" has the "current page" color for it's non-selected state. "Boiling Wood" has black as the "current page" color instead of "white".

Use a web system with "skins" or "themes" to provide high-bandwidth, low- bandwidth, non-javascript, or alternate language versions of your site.

All pictures should have thumbnails and be click-able and zoom-able. The size of most pictures on the site currently would be considered the thumbnails.

Add as many pictures as your bandwidth can afford.

Start categorizing now using metawords and google custom search.

If you don't want ads and don't want to pay $100 a year that's ok, just don't publish or add links to the search pages. The format changes for your pages will still be the same using another package (PHP,Perl,Yahoo, etc.) You can test the pages yourself using google w/ads and when you finally find and set up the search app you'll have all the pages already tagged. There are a number of free search apps available and many scripts to produce static index pages from keywords. Category and index search is simple once/if you go to a CGI based website using a sql backend. PDF printable downloads for all tips. This provides embedded branding and reduces traffic. Dual PDF's should be produced, one with no or highly compressed graphics and one with best graphics. Add a voting or rating system for tips. Use weblogs to report and rate tip usage. Use a local ad engine to promote "most popular" and "low use" articles. Metrics from ad system can help determine articles to retire or re-rank, naming convention impact, etc. i.e. If nobody goes to a page, maybe no one can find it. But, if you advertise the "low use" page to 10,000 people and no one clicks on it, maybe it's not a valuable page or it may have a bad title.

I prefer sites with over 1000 pages to have all forms of indexing and search available. Content categories, a cross reference index A-Z, and full text search.

Hello Joe,

Wow, lots of good info, thanks! I only understand about half of what you mentioned, but that gives me a lot of new things to learn. :-)

I use a special program (template style) to create the website. I have some control over some aspects of the design and no control over others... Right now, I'm trying to learn Dreamweaver, so I can control all aspects of the design and navigation.

You gave me lots to think about, thanks! Take care and all the best to you and yours!