Thanks to all the "beta testers"! It looks for most people as if the software side is pretty solid, barring a few expectable glitches involving resizing the content for different window sizes and so forth.
In case it helps anybody else who's revising a website, I'll briefly run through my thought processes:
-- I understand the viewpoint of the people who felt the header design and color scheme were too "cartoony." At the same time, since I'm
not trying to use this site to sell photos or promote myself professionally (it's strictly an exercise in gratifying my vanity!) I resisted the idea of being TOO conventional. This is always a balancing act. For example, I love the look of
this site... for
them... but it would be too stylized for
me. On the other hand, I don't need to be as generically "dignified" as a typical
wedding photography site -- I can afford to be a bit quirky.
My compromise solution was to cut the header height back to 60 pixels (vs. 120) and simplify its graphics. I'm still keeping my red line (hey, if a red line is good for Nikon, it's good for me!) and the image of the Ranger 9 spacecraft, which is there because it has metaphorical significance for me. But the shorter bar makes them less overpowering, and gives me more content height as well. I also went to a lighter background for the main "stage" area to make the thing look less somber.
-- I fixed the drop-down main menu so it's visible, rather than hidden, when the site first loads. That way I won't have to worry about people not realizing there IS a menu! This also lets me use the gallery as a "landing page" for people who actually are looking for the blog. (Which reminds me: I'm holding a party for all my regular blog readers in the phone booth across the street! I hope both of you can come!) The menu still hides if you mouse over it and away. Of course, some people may never do that and then ask why the menu overlaps the photos. But you can't please
everybody!
-- Visibility is also a trade-off for the navigation buttons below the photos. I realize they're going to collide with the photos at some screen sizes, and an option would be to have them stay hidden unless moused over. But then users might never realize there were buttons, which would mean they wouldn't know there's a way to stop the slideshow, view thumbnails, etc. So, I decided to leave the buttons continuously visible and just make them smaller.
-- I turned off auto-play for the music; now you have to click the little "Audio" widget to start it. I had forgotten that some people keep their audio turned 'way up, and having music start unexpectedly is legitimately annoying.
-- Speaking of the blog, I've noticed that it loads really slowly no matter how you get to it, even via a
direct URL. I'm not sure whether this is because my template is too complicated, or if my host is just slow at serving Wordpress pages; I kinda suspect the latter, but haven't thought of anything tangible to do about it. If I had a
David Hobby-esque volume of blog traffic, I suppose I'd need to worry about this... but I don't, so I don't. (This may be why Hobby uses a blog-optimized hosting service.)
Anyway, courtesy of everyone's reports, I think I can conclude that most of the software stuff is working reasonably well, at least with modern browsers, and the design has at least reached the "de gustibus non disputandum est" stage, so I'm going to start populating it with content and see what happens!
Thanks again to all who helped. The final-ish version of the makeover is
here.
