scouthtml.com

I just started this site about a month ago, and am looking for some comments on it.

ScoutHTML

My biggest goal at this point is to get some participation in the contributions and the forums, so I've tried to make those options as visible as possible, without it being too distracting. I'm open to both criticism and praise.

I like your banner image a lot. Your colors are also very consistent and logical.
The navigation below the headings doesn't seem to stand out. You may want to think about changing the colors slightly, or maybe even bolding the text or turning it into an image-based nav pane. Your target audience seems to be amateur developers, and these people generally prefer flashy sites.
On your header, just below the ads, you may want to take off the links to your other sites and put them on some sort of "About" page since not many of them have to do with the subject matter at hand.
I also noticed that at the top of your reference library pages you have a color key. This isn't very visible, and you may want to think about table-izing it or making it stand out a little more and maybe shrinking the text, so that it doesn't take up so much space at the top.
As for concerns about discussion, you've got the "You are not just a reader" thing on every page, and I think that makes it clear that it's a discussion site. Will people actually contribute? Probably, if you can lure in individuals as wordy and pretentious as I am.
Good job and good luck with it.

I like it - quick to load and easy to navigate

the other guys seem to have concentrated on your design, so i'll take a peek at your code.

it's good that you've opted for a div based design, but there seems to be rather a lot of divs about the place.

when creating a list like your menu, don't use divs with a 2px padding, use an unordered list <ul>, it's much simpler and the code adds meaning to the content. When creating a normal list of items, use an ordered list <ol>

Also text should be grouped and organised using the <p> elements, not a whole load of <br /> elements

also try to replace your titles with proper title elements, <h1><h2><h3> etc... and then style them using css.

All of these things add meaning to the structure of your code.

i like the site, and the design id move your google ads lower down if it was me as i hate seing ads as the 1st thing on a page it gives the impression your main focus is to earn money and not help the user

But i like the design layout and speed it loads,
also it might be an idea to move your css to a proper css file rather than include it on your page, it makes editing your site easier in the future as you only have to change 1 file and ive also heard that it will help you in some search engines as your content to code ratio is higher...not sure how true this is though.

Thanks for the comments, everyone. Just to let you know, pretty much everything you see is generated using PHP software I developed, so a lot of the strangeness in the code you see is generated by that. Of course, I can change much of that bumpy code kind of easily. (If you were to see the code earlier, you would have wondered why I had a bunch of blank CSS properties, for example; I fixed that mess :P)

I checked it using Netscape and Mozilla, too. Opera crashes on my computer, though, so could someone tell me if it works there?



Uh oh, I was afraid someone was going to do that.



Yep, I mean, what's an HTML Tutorial site for if you're going to teach them the wrong way and use tables?



I agree, and will try to get that done.



I was actually thinking the same exact thing just before I submitted this site for critiquing, and I think it would fit much better just below the sidebar.



The CSS is dynamically generated with PHP, so redesigning for each file is not an issue.

As for the search engine comment, I think you're thinking of how far down the bots will look into your file before truncating it and moving on. That's a valid point, although I think it might skip style sheet data. (or it should, anyway)

As the CSS always seems to be the same (correct me if you will) then why have it dynamicaly generated? You would save cpu usage and probaly file sizes, you would also cut down on load time, even though your site loads very quickly anyway.
I like your site a lot, I have already registered and submitted an article

It's not for my benefit, per se, but I was developing the software for some of my clients when they do not wish to pay me to maintain it, yet want to easily maintain it with little HTML skill. The CSS is generated using a form they can use to tweak what the website looks like. Also, I might use it for demonstrations, incase the clients want to see what the site might look like if I make some color adjustments right there at the meeting.



Thanks, I received it, although I have to wonder why you're linking users to other websites to learn CSS.

Just as further reference really, theres only so much that anyone can learn from an individual site, you can edit thoose links out if you like.

Just one thing i noticed is the main section and tutorial headings dont line up. maybe they arent supposed to, but it just looks wrong to me. Maybe the navigational link should be below the heading.

Otherwise this site looks great.