Biskie's First Free Template Its wonky but it validates

[biscuitrat 0]

I created this monstrosity after having a funky dream about it. Apparently, my brother had to come calm me down because I was yelling "THE FORMS AREN'T WORKING" in my sleep. Nerdy dreams rock

Anyways, I started with the header image and then naturally I did the nav-bar, then the background, and then the footer. I've never used backgrounds like the content div has before, but I wanted to try them. I think it looks all right. But my pride and joy is the header. While it may look a little big, I've never had a big header on any of my sites before and I wanted to experiment.

Cragllo wanted a few people to send him templates and whatever so I thought this would be a nice start - I have a few more planned including some more techy ones since you guys love those

And it does in fact validate for once which is truly tres bien. Comment/rate/shred/bring me a couple of donuts - this took all night

[truefusion 3]

Wow, that's a very nice layout. Banner's a big tall, but very nice. I'd give it an 8/10.

[electriic ink 1]

Great template. A few questions and suggestions coming up:

The Banner: Nice, but it might have been better (on the downloaders part) for you to put the image as a background and for the text to written using xhtml over the background image just like you did for the Serenity part where text is written on a bg image. That way it's easier for the user to change the banner text.

Downloading: How would I go about downloading it? Do I have too copy and paste your xhtml, create a new directory called images and download them all indivdually. That's a lot of work for me and I may not even know much xhtml (which maybe the reason why I'm downloading your template). I need something fast, quick and easy like a zip which extracts when I upload it to cpanel But alas I cannot find one so I must look somewhere else...

A nice template, well organized, firefox campatible, validates. 10/10 but half a point is lost for each of the reasons above so your total rating is:

 

9/10

[biscuitrat 0]

Oooh the banner idea sounds pretty easy. Yeah, I'm trying to make it viewer friendly :DAnd the download thing I haven't put up yet because I want to make sure the page is error free before I zip it and put it up there. But I went ahead and put text in that area so I could just replace it with my download button later :)XHTML is just revamping html. It's a simple procedure. Your image tags must close themselves by putting a /> at the end instead of a >. Same for break tags. Just a bunch of organizational issues within the code and things like that. I don't have too much of a grasp on XHTML but I use what little I know

[biscuitrat 0]

Updated!Things I've fixed:<ul><li>The header is now editable and looks fairly decent - I borrowed an idea from WP in linking the title of the site to the index page.</li><li>Got rid of some minor code that was uncessary within both pages.</li></ul>If you guys think it's ready to be downloaded, let me know and I'll put it in a zip file for you guys...unless you'd prefer .tar.gz and .rar

[midnightvamp 1]

Ooh... pretty! I like it. I agree with what you were saying about the muted / pale colours. I think it's nicer (more elegant - and easier to look at when you've been staring at the computer screen for *way* to many hours now....Anyway, isn't it fun to get techie dreams. Last night, I dreamed that I had finished coding off this big part of one of my other sites. (I'm trying to redo the site...) Anyhow, when I woke up and realised it was a dream, I was kind of bummed, because now I'm going to have to start doing it all over again. At least I'll have a sort of head start with knowing what I plan to be doing now...Anyway, nice work with the template! I like it!

[biscuitrat 0]

Yay thank you! Hehe, I love my techy dreams. Once I built a house using HTML coding and I was all like "The windows have to be bold! <STRONG>!". That was the goofiest dream ever :)I used to use a lot of bright colors in my sites. You should have seen me when I tried to turn a french country comforter into a website. Olive green on maroon with a side of cream and mauve - it was my worst site ever ><

[nerdy monkey 0]

i like the soft colors that aren't too distracting form the rest of the page, that is something very important that you have clearly mastered. however, i suggest you spice up the nav bar a bit.

[biscuitrat 0]

Will do I wanted to keep it simple at first but yeah, it could use some loving.

[Florisjuh 0]

Very nice and professional looking template, I give it 8 out of 10 :)The only bad points about it are1. I like the more flashy lay outs with much colors and stuff xD2. I dont really like the footer image of your site (the part where it repeats)Your template is Opera compatible too by the way

[Tyssen 0]

I think your header looks a bit odd the way it doesn't fill out the whole area top and bottom (ie you can see the background colour above and below).Your main content area from the nav to the footer is a couple of pixels wider than the header and the footer meaning your right frame border isn't as wide as it is at the top and bottom.I think a thin border on the bottom of your sidebar would be good too.Maybe a bit more padding top and bottom of your content area.

[biscuitrat 0]

I think your header looks a bit odd the way it doesn't fill out the whole area top and bottom (ie you can see the background colour above and below).

Your main content area from the nav to the footer is a couple of pixels wider than the header and the footer meaning your right frame border isn't as wide as it is at the top and bottom.

I think a thin border on the bottom of your sidebar would be good too.

Maybe a bit more padding top and bottom of your content area.

176721[/snapback]

Yeah, it does that on my other site too. It's because of the border on the background. I'll have to fix that.

 

There's a tiny border but it's very light. I'll make it a little darker.

 

And yeah, padding would probably be nice :/

 

K, I'll make the nav bar changes, and fix the gap in this next update.

[biscuitrat 0]

Done! It's also up for download. I think you guys should be content with the results!

I also moved it: http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/

Enjoy <3