It's been awhile since i've had some C&C..

http://www.dreamsforsale.net/

Last time i made a post about DFS, i believe all i had was a news script and some crappy forums. Anyway, let me know what you think, rip it apart! :o

EDIT: Also, try it in IE if you use firebird. I tried it in both, and it looks better in IE due to the style on the scrollbars.

Nos.

It looks good, considering that every single site of yours has to have at least two iFrames. Is that a rule from your webhost or something? ;)

The background is nice, and the font/logo is OK, but I dont like the slashes between navigation. IMO, if you have a text navigation, you can use separators like :: or // or || or something, but if its bitmap, you can come up with some better seperators or make buttons or something. Thats just how I feel, though - do what you like.

I dont like the slowly scrolling 'latest posts' box. Its too slow and I cant get the information I want fast enough, and also I find myself watching a lot of whitespace go by...

Hmm, perhaps i should try and just have the latest topics box fixed? That would probably look better as far as cosmetics are concerned, but i won't be able to have more than five topics in there due to the small window size. I dislike the white space as well, and i agree that it is too slow - any faster and it gets kind of jerky, though. I'll mess around with having it fixed and stuff this afternoon.

Yeah, i had afew iframes in the last one i did as well, lol. I don't know - i just can't think of any better way of filling up a content-rich site, and still keep it organized.

I may change up the navigation seperators later on, i sliced it seperately for that reason. It was really just a filler during the photoshop stage, but i never really went back and gave it a second look.

Thanks for the critique, it is much appreciated.

Nos.

I like the site name and the general idea behind it.
To me, you're getting pretty close. I don't feel that it's dreamy enough yet or fits the freedom of mind mantra in the right content area; it feels boxed in. I think you can still achieve the "sophistication" you set out to without these browns and greys and boxes. Taking the craziest dream you can think of and somehow refining it to become spohisticated might be cool. I always have dreams about dinosaurs, I don't know why. If I heard of a site called "dreams for sale" had an awesome layout that depicted good dreams and nightmares together, I'd visit it. A dark drab side and a light good side, which maybe also fits with the philosophies of the site. Or somehow working the cool title with dreams into your layout more. There are so many great directions you could go with this, but I definitely understand if you wanted to stick with something like you have now.

-dave

not bad. Really the only problem i have is the screened background. I used to love screening back images....but learned quickly it doesnt help the image....and it doesnt help the text. Maybe adjust the color from white to a dark gray.........so only a hint of the bg image is visible. Or maybe even a dark sepia tone image (again....leave a little opacity to give a hint of the bg)

i just can't think of any better way of filling up a content-rich site, and still keep it organized

You should just open PS and experiment with laying out content for a while. Then just use php er whatever to make the page. Also limit yourself to necessary info on the front page....then use page numbers to load other (older) info...like archive it or something. Like you have a news item dated: 10-06-2003 10:49. Do you really need that on the front page?? Even though the iframes work ok....they are really kinda killing the site.

The text, to me, is kind of hard to read in my opinion, mainly because the background image has too much contrast, making some areas dark and some areas light. When I'm reading the text, it clashes with the font.

A couple ideas from my head, you can probably make a light version and a dark version of the site (and then cleverly name them Dreams for Sale; Nightmares for Free >:] ).

(oh ... and I couldn't help but notice the Until Death, Valiantly section .. timestamped after my own gallery named even until death, valiantly ... unless by pure coincidence you too were listening to that track in the Breath of Fire IV soundtrack [great game for the PSX ^^;]. Not that I care if they share names, I think it's a great forum title. :D)

just regged for the hell of it, time to see any juicy discussions to hop in on. :D


edit: mm .. read a few of the threads, some interesting discussions going on .. although generating 151x151 magic squares in 31ms is always fun too ... im guessing a math section never really took off? ... :P

LOL, math can go in science.

And yes, i pretty much blatantly ripped the forum title right from your gallery. It's a sweet sounding bundle of text, and it fit, so i used it. Never heard the song, lol :D

I like this idea some of you are having, though - have a light side and a darker side. Perhaps on the same page so it looks contrasting, or maybe have two different "versions" of the site.

I actually thought of the concept way back in October when i had the door opening up to the deep snow outside - i was going to put blood in the snow for the nightmares portion, and it turned out pretty well. Here was the general idea - http://dreamsforsale.net/indexblood.jpg Of course, it looks rather course, i never got around to refining idea because i changed to this p00p brown layout.

Thanks for the commentsSamurai, Rodder, and mo0ch. Very much appreciated. Seeing replies and reading posts here just makes me want to fire up PS and redo the site every time :D

Nos.