Peter Leonard said:
Hi.
I'm 12 years old and very new to HTML. I'm mad about football and I've
started a site all about my local club. Would someone please suggest any
improvements I can make - I'm sure there are lots - but please don't get too
technical.
Sure:
1. Don't have a Java applet on the front page, or even when it's
unnecessary.
It doesn't matter how "cool" it looks, you can do without it.
2. Background music = bad, no matter how much you love the tune. I like
having music in the background when I surf, but I prefer playing music I
already have, just like many others. Also, having unlicensed music on your
website is breaching copyright. Look into music licensing with the record
company that published the song.
3. Change the red background on the voting page to something less
"screaming".
4. Keep a certain level of design conformity on your website, ie. don't have
a completely different look for each page.
5. You might want to add a headline telling visitors which website they're
on, as well as a link back to the welcome page on your left hand menu.
6. Large text all over a page ("Osset Town" link) isn't good, even if you're
trying to use up all the space. Stick to one size for headlines (you may
have different sizes here, depending on the importance of the headline -
think newspapers) and another size for normal text.
7. Guestbook has the text to the RIGHT of the text boxes, which will confuse
many visitors. Your fans are less likely to be from a country that has the
tradition of reading from right to left (such as Arabic countries). Also,
"Click here to send your message" is totally unnecessary.
8. If you're going to have a counter, you should seperate it further from
the other text (in this case, the links on the left side).
I use Microsoft frontpage as my editor because it's free and on my PC now.
Microsoft FrontPage isn't as free as you think it is. I do think it's a part
of the Microsoft Office package, which makes it commercial (and paid-for)
software.
Also, it's not the only free HTML editor out there. brucie has a long list
for you in a seperate reply to your post. I prefer EditPad Lite myself, but
then again, I also prefer coding by hand.
While you're at it, look into the learning method suggested by Woolly
Mittens in a seperate reply. It's close to the method I learned HTML myself,
and I hand code myself now. I've even risen to the level where I can see
HTML code and render it in my head (ie. see a preview in my mind without
saving it to open in a browser).
As Woolly Mittens suggests, "dissecting" code made by others (such as
FrontPage or Dreamweaver) and altering it is a good way to learn. That also
goes for script-based programming languages (JavaScript, Perl, PHP, ASP,
etc).
