Avalonstar

My dream... has come true.

James, I really appreciate you taking the time to review my site. I guess the important thing when it comes to semantics is that you give it a try. I tried as hard as I could, but there are some things I did not want to give up in the name of that.

I tried my hardest to get it to work in IE, but I'm probably missing about 5000 hacks to make it look perfect. But as long as people can read an enjoy the content, I'm happy.

Again thanks, and I welcome any comments and criticism. I'm driven by your comments and strive to continousouly improve.

Awesome work! :)

Semantics matter, but shouldn't be taken out of context. They shouldn't prevent you from making a website in the first place, and they definitively shouldn't be the cause of missed deadlines, etc.

If you have the time and the patience, they're great. If not, there's room to cut some corners. :)

Congratulations once again Bryan. Great to see your site making it around the galleries. Your design truly does deserve all the attentions.

Congrats. Time to read your article on Semantics. Good job Bryan and good review James Archer.

It's got great design and semantics, which is why I gave it an 8. But The headlines and such are a little too cutesy to be my think. I understand and appreciate the fact that it's his personal site, but the crazy names for navigation elements and headlines detracted from the experience.

i have to disagree with you kristopher, the headlines and navigation wording sets it apart from other sites, and is a nice breath of fresh air and originality.

Well, thanks for the 8 Kristopher. I guess I meant for the headlines to make the site a little more personal. I didn't want to just put links like "about" and "portfolio". Even if it made you smile once, I did my job.

If anything, the headlines make the site look like a complete joke, and I like it that way.

I agree with what evan said earlier about the headlines. This is one of the first personal website posted one these css galleries that I've actually clicked through completly.

Great details and a fresh layout... I like it ... it's a easy 9

Great job Bryan.

Hey Bryan, it looks awesome!

J&W was great, good luck with your future endeavors

- Aron

By far the best looking xhtml-markup built website I've ever seen...bar none!

This isn't just a website - this is a work of art. This isn't just one man's obsession with perfection - it is an epic of skill and talent.

I'm giving this site a perfect 10...because I haven't seen any other sites on the web that even come close to this grade! And I'm bookmarking it, and visiting it regularly until it drives me totally insane (in a nice way!)

James - good post.

Bryan - this site is hot and you're setting the standard that many other sites should aim for (or aim to surpass).

Simply stunning,

I feel that what makes this site remarkable is the way he shows the user all the options on the first page and still makes it interesting and gorgeous.

The navigation is also a nice thing wich makes the reader want to continue reading. Wich many websites actually forget to lay any effort in.

in short, amazing. I have been a lurker for a while (although posted in the forum a few times) but this one has force me out to comment.

Well done mate.

it looks great, but also a little borring.. only the startpage is more exciting..

what is also not soo good..

-borring icons (seen on soo many sites.. simplebits..)

-very hard to read the content... too small font-size, to much words on one line

-static width... perhaps you know that the wb isn't static

-why the headlines (http://avalonstar.com/colowhatsit/) as image? and also very bad, that this is only seeable with the stylesheet -> no readable in screenreader..

-an error in the featurettes.css, an warning in the style.css..

-bad code.. very "div'y"..

-and last but not least, i don't like your "ironic" / "sarcastic" style on the site, and in your comments in the code..

so it was only enough for 5points.. and again, the site looks great, but not "my way" of good sites :)

mfg

hn

PS:the actual site is a litte better than you last..

Hanna - can we have your own website url for a comparison to Avalonstar?

#waiting #

Some of the points you've raised are valid (albeit nit-picking) and other points seem to be just a difference in personal taste (which is fair enough).

I still think this site deserves a full-blown '10' - and it is the only site I've seen on here to warrant that result.

Matt, while I don't agree with all of Hanna's points, the "Critics must be accomplished in the skill they are criticising" style of argument is merely a rhetorical device that has no actual logical purchase (although, obviously, it has some emotional hooks). It is not necessary to be able to do better in order to point out flaws in someone else's work; there are many film critics, for example, who are not themselves filmmakers, and we don't think the less of them for it. Indeed, if they are good critics, we applaud their clarity, and thank them for enriching our experience of a film as well as helping us to hone our own critical faculties. They put into words what we may merely have felt. A critic needs to know what they're seeing, and be able to express that, but they don't necessarily need to be able to put it into practice.

As for Avalonstar, it's not my thing, but it's very well done for what it is, and the accessibility niggles are just that: niggles, not huge gaping

...flaws. Thought I had a few characters left, but obviously not. Apologies for overrunning. ;)

Well, I know my site isn't for everybody, but I do appreciate a good criticism. However, every one I've seen is by some person who is not "man" enough to show off their own site.

Okay, so my site's boring, back it up, show me a site that's not. My content isn't for everyone.

The SimpleBits icons? Dan said himself that they looked beautiful with my site.

Hard to read content? Well, I have gotten no other complaints on it, but show me where it says that I need a certain amount of words per line.

Why attack me for static widths? Look at half the sites on Stylegala, why don't you go ahead and criticize them about "static widths."

The sarcasm? Well, a person with a sense of humor would appreciate it and realize that not every personal site has to be so stiff.

I appreciate the comments, but if you're going to comment and say something like that, I would be happy if you could cite other sites to back it up. And if some of these problems really get to you next ti

... next time, email me about it, I'll be glad to talk about whatever quirks you have about my site there. :)

(Really need to fix this character counter thing...)

Horaah Hanna, what a wonderful observation you have made, your a girl after my own heart i like you writing style. Will you be my friend becuase i don't have any either.

Really, there's no need to "bitch" each other over.

Everybody has their own opinion, and there's no need to "back-up" their point. We aren't writing an essay here.

If someone doesn't like a website, then accept the fact that they don't like it. End of story. Don't cry over it.

eeee... a flame war on stylegala? come on now, i thought we were above this sort of thing. or maybe i dont read enough comments... sure hannah was critical of bryan's work, but her writing style leaves alot to be desired.. justifiably ruffling zee feathers. but still... flame wars are for video game forums.

Valid XHTML 1.1? That's nice. Just too bad so many people are still clueless about the fact that XHTML 1.1 should not be served as text/html [http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml-media-types/] but has to be served as application/xhtml+xml.

Ben,

Well, hey I'd love to be all compliant and stuff, but design is a little more important to me. If you can solve the problem of the background-color not going all the way down the page in Firefox, then I'll gladly serve it as "application/xhtml+xml".

Or.. do you not know how to fix it.

I'll be honest, I dont like it.

I was turned off to it on the first page - it looks like its full of ads, which as a frequent web user my brain tends to automatically block out, leaving me with not much else on the page.

Nothing about the front page really tells me what it is or what its about.

The grey background is also funky and not always the same height... not sure what thats supposed to be doing.

The text needs to be darker, what screen resolution do you have? In 1280x1024 the small font and poor contrast is hard to read.

Its yet another blog /groan and not one that jumps out and says read me! Maybe thats just the hard tor ead text again...

overall I'd give this a 'meh'

Thanks, at least you were honest. :) Can't be out there to wow everybody.

At first glance Iwas catched with this cream color, Layout and rounded tables looks great, but little coke there is where between header and header background, just this little thing need to be finished.

Nice site.

The blog pages are neat, It's really great work. I love the avatars on the right with the name in blue.

I find some negative points : the text of the menu lacks contrast to me, if you see what I mean. Perhaps different colors will looks better to me. In the same way, the "AVALONSTAR (EST 2000) VERSION TWENTY " is not enough readable for me.

Except these point, I find the site nice but I think one or two modification should make the site more pleasant to read. Congratulations anymore.

Sorry for my poor english.

It's a nice clean site, perfect for the exposure of your stuff

At first glance Iwas catched with this cream color, Layout and rounded tables looks great, but little coke there is where between header and header background, just this little thing need to be finished.

I like the layout and colors ... the only thing I sort of dislike is the images used to categorize all of the recent entries. Seems like a smaller icon or color change would be a bit more subtle and not distract visitors.

It's great work - Very nice, website it is one example of create xhtml and CSS there respect norms W3C. Good use of spacing the elements and clear background.

Mr Maszyny Budowlane