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Site Name: Sea of Stars
Owner: Ani
Reviewed by: Georgina
Reviewed on: 19th November 2008
Site Name
Wow, what a pretty name! Sea of Stars – creative, sounds great – the alliteration makes it a breeze to remember.
Coding and Validation
Wow, your CSS only has 3 errors when I run your site through the W3C CSS validation service. Better fix them!
Firstly, for your link attributes, twice, you have written 470000 without the #. You need that hash as you’re using a hexadecimal code. So add that in!
Next error – you have:
display: normal
And to avoid having an error, you should have:
font-weight: normal
Your CSS is also embedded and would be better if you included it in a separate file called css.css or something with a .css file extension. You can make that by saving your CSS in a Notepad document – when asked to save, type: “css.css” (with the quotation marks).
Then you will need to use a code on your page to call on the CSS file:
<link rel="stylesheet" href="css.css" type="text/css">
That’s all for CSS, and would you believe it, your coding has only 3 errors as well! Take a look for yourself at the W3C markup validation service. Well, you’re missing a few things:
- Doctype
- Character encoding
- Your opening <head> tag.
By running your site through the validator, I have concluded that you need to stick the following information at the top of every page:
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"
"http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd">
<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8">
<head>
Now there’s just one tiny error.. you have the following on your homepage:
<img src="banner.jpg" width="179" height="714" style="border:0px; position:absolute; top:0px; left:0px;" alt=""/>
Get rid of that backslash before the end tag. That’s only used in XHTML, and you’re on HTML 4.01. So don’t put extra backslashes where they’re not needed.
Well, there’s really no major problems with your coding! You did quite well here!
Browser Compatibility & Usability
Navigations should be Navigation. The navigation is clear and stands out well.
The site looks great in a wide range of browsers according to Browsershots.org. Thumbs up for the compatibility and the navigation!
Text is easy to read – well done!
Layout
I really like the layout. It’s really simple and easy to navigate. I like the image on the left. It really suits your site from what I have looked at so far – especially your site name. I wouldn’t say the anime is ‘stunning’, but it’s obviously not one I’ve seen before. Anime really amazes me in some ways
I have to congratulate you on setting the height and width of your divs to auto. This means with whatever resultion someone has, it will resize to fit. The only tiny problem is that the image doesn’t change. So on a small resolution there’d be a bit of unnecessary scrolling, and on a bigger one, possibly a large gap beneath the layout. The image is of a reasonable height, though.
I don’t have much more to say about your layout! Your CSS matches the layout except for the links. The background on hover is purple and doesn’t go with the layout. Consider changing it to #BBCFF0, which is a colour from the anime girl’s dress. That would match better.
Content
Your homepage is set out quite nicely. I don’t think I have many complaints here.
Site
Your text here looks really squished. When I look at your coding you don’t start the paragraphs with <p> like you do on the homepage. When you compare the pages, the margin changes. Use the paragraph tag on this page – it will make things more tidy.
Also, space out the sentences. Instead of putting one line break, end the paragraph and start a new one, like this:
Well, Sea of Stars first started out as a crappy wallpaper site called Anime Mirror.
Over time I learnt some codings and got a little better at graphics, it got renamed to Anime Manga Mirror and there was then some crappy Avatars on it.
![]()
Finally, I’d got acceptable skills at graphics and downloaded a Tomoyo premade premade layout and totally revamped the whole site.
Going through some of your spelling errors now:
codings should be coding
and there was then should be and then there were
I’d got should be I acquired
inbetween should be in between
CardCaptorSakura should be CardCaptor Sakura
Eventually I finally should be Eventually I
piczo should be Piczo
aswell should be as well
Http should be http
acctually should be actually.
A very interesting story, I should add! You’ve been through a lot of site names! It would be nice to see some of these sites like Freewebs and Piczo as links to the actual sites.
Ani
You ALSO need to fix the page margins here by using the paragraph tag.
teh should be The
Not a lot of information here
.. As a result your page has a lot of black under it and the Navigation looks like it’s slapped on top of the content div. Consider adding more to this page – sometimes visitors will want to find out more about you. Otherwise, merge this page with ‘Site’ under the heading ‘Owner’.
I personally like reading about people =)
Fanlistings
Nice page, but the buttons are all squished. Put them in their own paragraph. As the buttons are all different sizes, I suggest you try and have them all the same size, or put them as links. Most importantly, spread them out.
And use paragraphs here. Margin’s squished.. you get the drift.
Spelling errors:
acctually should be actually
fl’s should be FLs or fanlistings
loph should be love
Alot should be A lot
fl’s should be FLs or fanlistings.
A little error here in your navigation after Resources – it says Resources/a>. You forgot a tag in your coding.
Sea of Stars Mail
This is a separate site so I won’t be reviewing it. I’m not sure what this is but it shouldn’t be in your mail navigation.
T.O.U
Now here.. your first rule under ‘Layout rules’ is not aligned with the rest. Use the paragraph tag.
Same for “~Ani” at the end. Here are a few errors:
Teh should be The
Direct Link should be direct link
Dun should be Don’t
blogger should be blog site
acctually should be actually.
Nice fair rules
Avatars
The second line needs to be paragrahped, it’s out of alignment.
see the what should be see what.
Most of these avatars are okay. You should also credit your image source, unless you drew or made the anime characters yourself.. but I am assuming that your credits page includes them.
PNGs/Renders
Naturally these take a while to load because they’re so big. Good job on them though. But I wouldn’t say it’s such a great idea to redistribute these because I don’t think you made the actual graphic yourself.
character // series should be character, series
dimentions should be dimensions.
Tutorials
Only one tutorial here..
might should be may
The brush you choose does not really matter; as long as it’s easy to cover large areas with, any brush is sufficient.
Not a bad tutorial; add some more sometime
Div layouts
Doesn’t look bad. The image quality could be improved, as well as the coding. The div is not aligned properly, possibly because I don’t have the same screen resolution as you. And your CSS is embedded – better if it’s not.
Consider making some more of these – improve image quality and make sure the layout looks good in all resolutions. That’s the problem with divs when you’re actually trying a centered layout..
Iframe Layouts
Link ‘Rules’ to the rules list.
Jibberish should be Gibberish
dun should be Don’t
its should be it’s
Song won’t end should be Song Won’t End
LOPH should be LOVE.
Iframes aren’t really the way to go. They annoy the hell out of search engines. The layouts look okay though – some just look a little empty because there’s not really a layout background, just a plain one.
Wallpapers
You don’t really need to say ‘Please read the rules first!’ twice! ‘Please read the Rules first! Newest rules are at the top’ will suffice.
Under Sunny Sunny Happiness, anime should be Anime
Under Butterfly, some should be Some
Under Dark Maiden, Preivew should be Preview
Under Sailor Stars, Preivew should be Preview
Under Choose your Destiny, Donwload should be Download.
A little error here in your navigation after Resources – it says Resources/a>. You forgot a tag in your coding.
All of these took quite a while to load and some didn’t load fully. Maybe you should upload them again or take a look yourself.
From the small parts that loaded, I don’t really like most of these wallpapers – they are creative but don’t look thoroughly appealing.
Resources
Well done on crediting what you used as well as the site!
used should be Used.
Obsidian Dawn does not have a link, although this may be intentional. None of the links under brushes (except for Angelic Trust) have the little margin the rest of the links have.. use your paragraph tags here.
The Reminiscent Designs link points to a 403.
Upcoming
It’s nice you include these ideas so visitors can expect something!
alot should be a lot
Will should be I will
find around exactly should be find exactly
soon~ should be soon…
Stationary should be Stationery.
Originality & Creativity
I can’t say there was much originality. I do like how you’ve done your layout, though, I haven’t seen anything like it – at least not for a while.
I can see lots of creativity in layouts and things, but you need to improve on your actual quality of graphics and such.
Organisation & Errors
Organised fairly well. Some pages could be moved or merged with others. Your homepage could do with a little more organisation. Your affiliates deserve to be at the side under your navigation or something.
Several spelling errors already mentioned. Very minimal broken links, but most images such as wallpapers and PNGs timed out or finished loading but the image was incomplete.
You will need to upload these wallpapers again, I think.
Overall Comment
Ani, you’ve got a well-kept site, and your graphics are of fairly good standard. You desperately need to fix those wallpapers. I think your icons are a lot better than your other graphics.
Your site needs a little more organisation – keep your paragraphs consistent and such. Work on optimising your graphics – don’t make large file sizes.
And how can people contact you? Do you have a guestbook or a message board, anything? How will people affiliate with you? This kind of thing is needed!
I don’t have many suggestions.. you just have to fix up a few things!
