Very visually good looking Site! My connection at the moment is far too slow to allow me to trawl thru the site - the current overloading of the net due to viral Spam attacks is no doubt responsible for clogging the channel to my particular Internet Super Goat Track!

I won't comment on the choice of colours, fonts, etc, because that is a personal thing, and having studied some formal design concepts, it is most likely that my erudite comments will be taken as personal attacks, rather than experienced advice ... if anyone really is interested in studying such concepts, is is beyond the scope of this thread.

I peeked at the code - Agggh! (to quote Charlie Brown!)

Word can be so clever: I once had a friend email me a 4Kb chunk of HTML code which he found on line - which was for a single line -- of "-" characters. It was from a scanned document, and Word and the Scanner S/W had conspired to -
AFTER setting default FONT NAME, SIZE, COLOR, etc for the whole document (setting specific defaults for that document)
then go on to set every attribute for EVERY "-" character on the line, FONT NAME, SIZE, etc, etc, then reset it individually for each attribute after each character..... :-) And the COLOR was different for each character, by only a number or two... :-)

A Single "HR" command could have done it easier, even if one didn't add attribute things like width, etc...

I noted that 3/4 of the page code size was Word specific inclusions which overrode the perfectly acceptable HTML defaults to produce almost exactly the same effect.

The picture is in the special "Word Picture Mungling Format" :-) where it is embedded in the thing, not necessarliy in the most compressed and efficient format for transmission, instead of the normal internet standards (.jpg, .gif, or the newer .png which most older browsers can not handle) - so if you like to browse with graphics turned off to speed up a slow connection, Word *****s you up.... :-)

I don't object the use of CSS formatting stuff, but I have to often ask WHY?

If the document is intended to look pretty, and display the sort of poetry that depends for its effect on the exact layout, then go for it!

If you just want to display information, then consider that is what HTML in its original concept was designed for, and there were lots of defaults built in to allow the automatic flowing of text across the available area, readable fonts, relative sizes. etc. It just takes a while for some of the concepts to click.

Non-standard extensions were added by MS & Netscape to pretend that HTML was word processing and visual publishing software, rather than simple text (information) displaying s/w.

So what I'm on about, is if you use the HTML DEFAULTS, instead of specifying everything you will end up with smaller, faster loading code. Of course, you will then have to learn and understand some at least of the technical side of generating HTML documents, and you may not want to do that. Some web authoring s/w is good in this respect as it really tries to do things in an HTML efficient way - most MS products, unfortunately have the "Bloat disease"...

Enough ranting...

Robin
P.S. I suppose, I should not hide my personal efforts, having opened my mouth...
(now where did my foot go.. mmmph mmph)
The Fooles Troupe have a web site
The Virtual Fooles Troupe
The Virtual Fooles Troupe
The Most Popular History On Show! (about 200 pages worth of assorted Tom Foolery - although Tom is no longer with them, having now gone on to bigger and better things...)
A witty, humorous romp through the Comedy of the Elizabethan and Medieval Theater
You can help The Fooles rehearse their next show!
Their Dwelling is now online too...
They now have a discussion list with special links...
The Virtual Fooles Troupe