Can this site be saved?

April 24, 2008 12:38 PM

Webdeveloper Mefites, I come hat in hand. I enjoy design and created a site for my medical practice in iWeb. Now I realize it stinks in Explorer. Is there an easy way to remedy the situation? If not, what's a reasonable amount to pay someone to save me from myself?

Please help. I'm feeling like a total dolt. I put a lot of work into my creation. I thought I'd checked things out in Explorer as I went along but this morning I had another look, and it's not pretty.

Here's what I've done so far: I did a bit of searching, and soon realized I may be out of my league in trying to translate CSS to something IE understands.

I posted this as a job on MetaFi Jobs but haven't had a bite.

So . . . can I clean up this mess myself? Or (more likely) do I need help? And if so, what's a fair price?

posted by pammo to computers & internet (15 comments total)

I think a link to the site/work in question would be quite appropriate here. Please? Now I'm curious...
posted by amtho at 1:50 PM on April 24

Just glancing at the code and the different browser interpretations, part (if not all) of the problem is differing interpretations of the z-index property. I've never used iWeb so I'm not sure how it builds pages but the design you've created is probably going to be difficult as long are you're using a WYSIWYG web editor since the layering needs to be exact.

My recommendation would be hiring someone to build the page from scratch based on your design. Pricing depends entirely on who you get to do it -- you could maybe find a student or someone looking to build a portfolio would be willing to do it for a few hundred bucks. You could post it to Craigslist or one of the many rent-a-freelancer sites like Odesk or Elance.
posted by camcgee at 1:51 PM on April 24

amtho -- I found the link on the MeFi Jobs listing. Here is the site in question.
posted by camcgee at 1:54 PM on April 24

Oh, it's linked from your MeFi Jobs listing... here
posted by amtho at 1:55 PM on April 24

If what I'm seeing in Firefox is representative, on first glance, it should be do-able without resorting to z-index at all; the design itself seems fairly simple. I agree with camcgee; have it re-done in simpler HTML and it should be fairly solid.

Some design tuning might help, if you're open to that. There are a couple of greens that look slightly odd near each other...

(Thanks for the link; I figured it out, obviously, but I appreciate the note)
posted by amtho at 1:59 PM on April 24

Err... that's a LOT of inline css. You might want to try pruning that down a littl so you cna tell whats going on, putting it into class or a seperate stylesheet.

Weirldy it looks like you have a seperate stylesheet for IE - some detection is maybe going on, and hurting rather than hindering?
posted by Artw at 2:19 PM on April 24

So like most WYSIWIG Editors one of the issues here is that you have far more HTML than you need to get this layout, so while you might be able to fix this via CSS its a simple enough layout/design that you should be able to fix this easier with a complete rewrite.

You've basically got a 3 column layout with some additional breakup of the header and footer.

http://www.neuroticweb.com/recursos/3-columns-layout/

Check that out it might get you going in the right direction if you want to take a stab at it on your own.

Otherwise I'd say this should be <>
A really good HTML guy should be able to bust this out in a day - maybe 2 because you've got some distinctions on each page.
posted by bitdamaged at 2:20 PM on April 24

Thank you for having a look. Sorry not to have posted a link to my site, I didn't want to appear to be self-promoting.

The site looks truly abysmal in the IE on a brand new Dell with Vista (for some reason I can't find the version of IE in Properties).

I will now go in search of a freelancer . . .
posted by pammo at 2:25 PM on April 24

I'm guessing that would be IE7 (the one with tabs).
posted by Artw at 2:27 PM on April 24

So there's multiple things to consider here.

1. Any fix would probably be a band-aid over a broken leg. As pretty as this site is, it's not terribly functional. And since your target market is not the 18 year old eagle-eyed MySpace teen who can tease text out of a multi-colored background, you should probably consider 'toning' it down a bit. Older eyes require gentler handling.

2. If you're serious about your business, you should consider getting away from your mac.com/name/doctor.html URL and into your own domain name. The former projects a less-than-professional face on the web.

Email sent.
posted by unixrat at 2:32 PM on April 24

Ah, I see that it's a bit of a placeholder until you moving into the other domain.

Ignore #2.
posted by unixrat at 2:35 PM on April 24

unixrat, totally agreed (with both your points).

1. The site looks placid on my Mac using safari or firefox. That's certainly what I was aiming for. In IE, you're right, it looks closer to a bad MySpace page.

2. I have a domain name, I was just using .mac as a placeholder.

What I'm thinking now is maybe someone could take what I've done as a loose template and create something anew. And hopefully it won't cost me a fortune.
posted by pammo at 2:40 PM on April 24

unixrat, I think I got your email. If so, you'll get my reply, and we can keep talking that way. Thanks everyone.
posted by pammo at 2:48 PM on April 24

Also, I hope you don't feel like the time you spent on it was a waste. You've done a very nice job with the design, styling and choice of images. When you talk to the freelancer, you'll have a good grasp of what's involved in website design, be in a better position to outline what you want, and also understand what the designer is saying. For a website designer, it's great working with a client who has some understanding of what's involved vs someone who's completely clueless.
posted by junesix at 2:55 PM on April 24

ummm... in the first instant after the images loaded, I thought the guy was holding a dagger to the woman's throat. Just sayin...
posted by PercussivePaul at 10:19 PM on April 24