Artcar Nation

[pmcd9]

Hey everybody, I want you all to check out my latest project.  It's an online magazine for artcars  I'm calling it Artcar Nation.  Guess what guinea pigs, you are are my beta testers.

If you are so inclined, please look this site over and check it out.  I need to know if everything is working properly.  Are the pages loading correctly, are the links working, etc. 

I'd also like to know what you think of it.

But please, don't post it to Facebook or other social media.  Not yet, anyway.

Thanks!!!

[pmcd9]

The only thing that's not entirely finished is the feature article that I need to write.  So ignore that gibberish.

[side_show]

What a fun site!  Very cool.  I think it's genuininly going to be great magazine site and can see you did a lot of good work on it.  The feedback below is just that, so please know I think it's fantastic and this is just my two bits.

Feedback:

I notice is that, at least for now, the search function doesn't seem to work, like I searched "psychic" because I knew there was an article on The Artcar Psychic, and it says "no pages were found" Not sure if that's just because it's not live yet though.  Other than that - things seem to function - the links and pages I checked all seem to load correctly.

A suggestion I might make is that it would be ideal to be able to click on the contenders for the next ACOTM and see a larger image, or for you had a way to just use a larger image instead, and maybe even include a little blurb about each car?  Right now, with the photos being so small, it's really hard to see details and determine which car I prefer.  I voted for Chewbaru to test the function, and it worked, but I actually can't see enough detail on any of the cars to really tell what they're about in such small images.  I have no idea why Chewbaru is called that for example - is there gum stuck to it?  Images of Chewbacca?  No idea from that small pic.

In Art Car Story Time, you may want to italicize your introduction, or use a different font for it, that way the intro is differentiated from Natali's story for clarity's sake.

In the Mrs Jones article, in tip #7  "question" should be pluralized.

In both the article and the form for sending requests to the Artcar Psychic, the options (especially in the drop down on the form itself) are confusing - there needs to be some clear explanation of what these options are - Dipstick Dictionary?  No idea what that is.  Tarot (Car-ot) reading - is this a reading about a car or about a car owner or both?  Palmistry?  Wait how is that possible?  And why is there an option to upload a picture?  Is that to send in a picture of my palm?  My car?  No idea.   It's all a little unclear to me, as is the Big Al blurb itself, starting with the Christ stuff... what other Christ?  I think that paragraph needs editing, or at least to be broken up instead of being one big lump of text.

[pmcd9]

Thank you so much for your input Smells.  Yikes, I totally forgot to fix the search function.  Oh boy!

The other things you've suggested are all good ideas.  I agree about the size of the images on the poll.  It's a limitation of the software I went with for that.  I may have to change that, but probably not before launch.  I can probably add larger thumbnails and short bios on the acotm home page as a stopgap measure. 

By the way, it's called Chewbaru because it's covered with teeth.

Definitely italicize the intros to the columns.

Thanks again.  Does anybody else have anything to say about the site?

[CortJstr]

The social media icons at the bottom look really fuzzy to me.

The 2nd item in News has a "more" link that doesn't go anywhere.

I feel like in the news items you need more separation for the byline. Either another blank line or a slightly smaller font or something.

[jaydub]

The other things you've suggested are all good ideas.  I agree about the size of the images on the poll.  It's a limitation of the software I went with for that.  I may have to change that, but probably not before launch.  I can probably add larger thumbnails and short bios on the acotm home page as a stopgap measure. 

Could you make the thumbnails launch a bigger picture in a new window if you click on them?

[pmcd9]

The 2nd item in News has a "more" link that doesn't go anywhere.

Thanks.

Could you make the thumbnails launch a bigger picture in a new window if you click on them?

Maybe, but the code is very dense and mostly javaScript which I am not that strong in.  It was prepackaged code and I don't understand it very well.  When I have time I will likely look for a different code package that offers that option. 

[Choop]

The acotm poll webpage code is in a PHP file located at artcarnation.com/scripts/PHPPoll/poll.php - or so it would seem according to my debugger. If you send me the code in that file via pastebin.com I'll take a look at it and send you back a version with some enhancements. I don't do a lot of work for free, but since you didn't ask me to, I'm happy to contribute. (The dense javascript you're worried about just loads the remote page into the browser window.)

I'd recommend a lightbox-type in-document popup - http://lokeshdhakar.com/projects/lightbox2/ - it's more current and whatever.

One recommendation I'd make is to show more articles per page in your News section - you're using a lot of height in your sidebar and leaving the main real estate, the reason for the page to exist, empty. You could easily double the articles per page to six, and maybe fit seven before the document gets longer.

Another: on your Columns page, add this CSS:

Code:

h4 { padding-bottom: 2em; }

This should add some separation between the "Read Latest Column" link and the next article's banner image.

Have you thought about adding a comma in "Mrs. Jones Love Expert" to make it clear that Love Expert is a title or honorary and not part of the dog's name?

[wombat]

Agree about the comma. Also, you need some photos right up top. On my laptop screen I have to scroll down before I see any photos. If you want grab people who don't know artcars, you need the visuals.

Very cool idea. I will look at it some more later.

[jay-ell]

I keep planning to look at this, but I have been checking in on my phone. When I have time to actually sit in front of a computer, I'll let you know.

[wombat]

OK, now that I have more than 30 seconds:

The graphic with the definition of 'artcar' is cool, but it should take up half that much space, and like I said before, you need a photo up top in that space or somewhere.

In Mrs Jones, "Ah your on your first date" that first 'your' should be "you're."  Is "dame" a joke, or did you mean "dam"? "then its back to the dog house" should be "it's."
"No dog like to sit" should be "likes"
spareingly should be sparingly

Or maybe what the hell, she's a dog, she can't spell.... except then she could never make the brilliant analogy "his mobile Walden pond"  and make appropriate quotes from obscure short fiction. Must keep your characterization consistent, after all, and this is apparently a highly educated dog.

I agree that being able to click on the pictures for a larger image is really important. Also, I feel like when I click on your short news stories, they should also include a photo, not just a link to photos. I don't always agree that a picture is worth some large number of words but with this subject matter it is obviously true.

[wombat]

"Artcars in the wild" is a hilarious concept, that should be a regular feature.

Also I really need to see a picture of Fat Rat, the potato pooping rodent, but I am afraid to Google it.

[jay-ell]

Finally on a real computer. Momentarily.

I agree with Wombat that the definition graphic should be cropped a bit. Also, I would move either the "Artcar of the Month" or the "Columns" images up to the right-hand side, where the Calendar currently is, to draw people in and make it easy for them to see and click. I understand that you might have a problem with that because it will move the ad "below the fold," but ideally, that's what I'd do.

I don't have time to look over the content right now, but those are my first impressions.

[wombat]

On this page http://www.artcarnation.com/pages/columns.php
there's a bit of feral computer code above and below the calendar

[wombat]

If Mrs Jones wants to run future columns by a human editor before posting, I'd be happy to volunteer.