MacReview

Design

I had three main goals for the latest design of MacReview. If you’re curious...

My first goal was to make MacReview attractive and easy to navigate. This makes for a more enjoyable experience for the visitor. I kept the layout and graphics simple so they wouldn’t distract from the content. I put the three most often used links (home, alphabetical, category) at the top of the page under the MacReview title. I put the least often used links (contact, about, design) at the bottom of the page. I also repeated the top links at the bottom of the page so visitors wouldn’t have to scroll back to the top to access them. Please note that Internet Explorer for Mac (and Windows) doesn’t adhear to several Web standards, so things may not display properly or simply won’t look as good as they will in a standards complient browser like Safari. So why haven’t you switched?

My second goal was to make it easier to update. This makes it a more enjoyable experience for me. I previously used images for software titles and ratings. I will now be using text. This will save me time and effort as I add new titles. I specified (Adobe) VAG Rounded Thin for the page headers and software titles. If you have it installed in your system, you will see it. If not, you will see either Veranda, Helvetica, or your browser’s default san-serif font, depending on what is installed in your system.

My third and most important goal was to switch to standards based Web production using XHTML and CSS. Which simply means I am dividing the content of the website from the design of the website. The content of the website is in XHTML (Extendable Hypertext Markup Language) and the design of the website is handled by CSS (Cascading Style Sheets.) This has many benefits including smaller page size (quicker loading), portability (handhelds, text readers, etc.), and easier design updating.

Icons

You may be wondering what those three icons at the top right side of the page are for. Together, the three icons represent Macintosh software in general, and individually, the three ways which Mac users have received software throughout its history.

The 3.5 floppy was the original method of delivering Mac software. Unfortunately, floppy drives were slow and installing major applications often meant inserting multiple floppies.

The CD-ROM effectively replaced the floppy as a delivery medium and was a welcome departure. As applications and content libraries grow ever larger the CD-ROM is being replaced by DVD-ROM in many cases.

As high-speed broadband access has become increasingly popular, the Internet (or Web) has become the standard delivery method for updates and upgrades, or even the sole delivery method for many publishers.

I hope you enjoy the new design. Let me know what you think.

Mark Starlin

MacReview

Design

Icons

Links

W3Schools Online Web Tutorials

css Zen Garden