City Lights Review

Site Name: Reverie’s Dreamland
Date Completed: March 22, 2008

First Impressions

Hmmm, an anime layout. I don’t love these so much. A tagboard smack in the middle of the main content/update area, a wallpaper smack on the top of the navigation before the pages, and…oh my, the layout looks like it’s made from tables! Yikesy YikesyYikesy.

Layout

I think I’m going to mention copyright right up front so I don’t have to repeat myself at all later. Basically, these anime pictures violate copyright unless you have permission from the artist to use them. Even if you credit the site you found them from, you’re still violating copyright. You can learn more here. This issue comes up in your layout and I’m assuming many of your wallpapers too, so I’m mentioning it here and then forgetting about it. That doesn’t mean you should forget, of course. On with your layout.
I want you to know I’m not an anime fan. This could be part of way I’m not into your layout, but I think there are many other reasons, too. Here comes list time. I’m going to mix up my style by doing Pros and Cons for the layout. I’m going to mix it up even more by doing Cons first.

Cons:
-The name of your site is spelled wrong on your header. Unless I’m missing something big, it most definitely says Rereie’s Dreamland, while I have been informed everywhere else that it is indeed Reverie’s Dreamland. I’m not sure how this happened, but it needs to be fixed. Right away.

-Your layout title text is bigger than your site name text. Bad, bad idea. First of all, I honestly don’t care what your layout is called, especially since it’s something kind of boring, like Variety. It’s like this Peanuts comic I saw once. Linus tells Lucy something random, and she goes, “Now that I know that, what do I do?”. I’m doing the same thing here. Your layout’s called Variety. Now that I know that, what do I do? Anyway, your site title should be bigger. This is more important, it’s more interesting, and it’s just better that way. What if someone not very bright came and didn’t look at the title bar or welcome message, instead focusing on the header, and thought your site name was Variety? Bad, right? In fact, the name of the layout should be tucked away small in the corner of the header or on an “About the Layout” page. Just as long as it’s not where it is.

-You’ve used a hodgepodge of colors, none of which you’ve really matched up or worked with. In the header, you’ve got lots of shades of blue, a random strip of white and some random green, red and purple in the right corner. Then you have a dreary whitish gray color for the sidebar and an equally dreary blue gray color as the main content. A random gray color fills the background.

Try matching up a bit, please! The white vertical strip in the header can go, it’s random pointless and stupid. As for the colors of navigation and main content and background, try to match up with other colors you’ve used in the header to make it consistent and nice looking. It could use some white to make it less dark and dreary.

- In less I am mistaken, you are using tables and DIVs with the styling embedded in your content for your layout. First of all, tables are made for storing tabular data, and so it isn’t technically correct to use them for coding layouts. Plus, it will be easier to change layouts if your styling is all in your stylesheet. How about PHP Includes? They are way easier. Try these tutorials:
Seperating Style from Content
PHP Includes

-Your layout is not centered. Centered layouts are nicer looking and better for people with larger resolutions (so there’s not so much blank space). Try this tutorial: The Centering Cheat.

Pros:
-As anime layouts go, yours is okay. It’s blended pretty well and isn’t too big.

-No iFrames or yucky horizontal scrollbars! Yay!

Content

I’m going to start with your index page & sidebar because you need some sorting out.

Index
Everything here is in the wrong order. Usually for a main section the first thing we want to see is updates. Stick your welcome message at the top of the sidebar. The counter should go near the bottom of the sidebar or on a footer. It’s not nearly important enough to be right at the top of the page. The tagboard is smack in the middle of the page and it looks messy and distracting. Make a separate page for it or make it smaller and stick it at the bottom of the sidebar. Also consider finding a way to put comments on your updates and ditching the tagboard altogether.

Sidebar
The order is a mess here too. Remember to think about priority when you are ordering things. Recent wallpaper probably doesn’t need to be near the top; I’d put the navigation links first and then recent wallpaper.
There are lots of links on the sidebar, and it kind of throws people off to see such a huge list.
The section called “Information” would probably be better if it were named “Navigation” as so not to confuse people. Lots of these pages can be consolidated. You can have one page called “Site” that can include links to “History”, “Reviews”, “Past Layouts” and “Credits”. If you decide to make a “Site” page, your navigation would probably be best organized this way:
Home
Update Archives
Terms of Usage
Site
Contact
Linkage
Gifts

History
All through this page you refer to yourself in the third person. This is kind of weird, especially since you use first person for the rest of the site. I suggest you pick first person or third person and be consistent with it. I’d choose first person if I were you; it isn’t as strange and is easier to write in. You have small mistakes through this page, and some things are unneeded, like all the dates and the mention of changing layouts. By the way, the correct spelling is silhouette, not silhoulette. You’ll probably want to link to Anime Purity if it’s still around. Here’s how I think the page would be better written:

Reverie’s Dreamland first started as a silhouette site for anime fans. Since everyone can now easily create their own silhouette images, I decided to stop making silhouette images and close the site. While scanning for a new anime wallpaper for my desktop, I stumbled upon countless wallpaper sites filled with good quality wallpapers containing varieties of effects. Despite the fact that I’d owned Photoshop CS2 9.0 for quite a while, I still thought that managing another site besides Traumerei Gallery was almost impossible due to the time management on the outside world. After researching through another batch of wallpaper sites, I finally fell upon Anime Purity. Anime Purity is a wallpaper site that focuses on quantity rather than quality. However, the owner of Anime Purity did make all of those images on her own. That was what inspired me to go back to webdesigning (though I was inspired in a strange way). This time, it was going to be a silhouette AND wallpaper site. I decided to keep the title, Reverie’s Dreamland. The idea was kept as the same until it was transformed into just a wallpaper site due to no one making use of the silhouette images.
It was during the second month when I decided to add little additions such as avatars and buttons, however, I made sure that visitors knew that the section wouldn’t be updated so often. Since Reverie’s Dreamland is mainly an anime wallpaper site, I will only add the wallpaper categories up on the navigation bar, instead of just a “wallpaper” section.
Later I decided to cancel the idea of adding banners and avatars have due to my time management. I have also decided to only do silhouette images during the summer due to how time consuming it is to make a completed image. I started on a PNG project to help visitors who wants to use them. I hope to make the PNG database just as big as my wallpaper database.

Consider using that. I think it’s more clear, more concise, and more condensed. The three C’s! Most of your pages are straightforward with nothing for me to review, so I’m not going to review them all. I do have comments on some, though.

Contact
First of all, what exactly is the difference between an affiliate and link exchange? They both just seem to be a type of link exchange to me. I’m assuming affiliates are more honored?
In the first paragraph you don’t have complete sentences. “Please read the terms carefully, we all need to think before accepting” is a comma splice I think. Replace the comma with a semicolon. “Fail to follow these rules, you are either rejected or deleted” should be “If you fail to follow these rules you will be either rejected or deleted.”
Everything else seems okay.

Wallpapers
I’m sorry, but I’m not a real graphics or anime person. So I’ll just scan your wallpapers and tell you what I think. I am no expert at all so my opinion won’t count for much.
Besides the copyright issue I mentioned above, your wallpapers seemed well done. Have you considered providing a preview so people can get a closer look before downloading?
I’m going to end the content part of the review by saying that I think all your graphics are amazing and very well done.

Coding
In less I am mistaken, you are using tables and DIVs with the styling embedded in your content for your layout. First of all, tables are made for storing tabular data, and so it isn’t technically correct to use them for coding layouts. Plus, it will be easier to change layouts if your styling is all in your stylesheet. How about PHP Includes? They are way easier. Try these tutorials:

Seperating Style from Content
PHP Includes. Your HTML is not valid. It has 27 errors just on your homepage and you don’t even have a doctype. Most of your errors are easy ones to fix, like missing an alt attribute on your images or not closing tags. Check out these tutorials:
Validating your website to HTML 4.01 Using Doctypes Your CSS also has 30 errors. Lots of times I think you’ve forgotten the # in front of the hexadecimal codes, and there are other errors that shouldn’t be too hard to fix.

Final Rating

Now, at this point, if I were an unfair reviewer I might give you a 2 stars. Why? Because there’s nothing really at your site for me. I’m not interested in graphics and anime, and so I couldn’t be bothered to stay.

But the point of a reviewer is to be objective. And truthfully, your graphics and content are a amazing. Besides the issue of copyright violation, I’m sure those who visit your site for wallpapers and such are very pleased with it. Since you cater to them, I should rate from their point of view.

However, your coding is pretty messy, some of your pages need work, and your layout needs fixing. These things bring you down.

That’s why I’m giving you a three stars. Right now, you stand at average. I wish you luck in working on your site.

Rating: 3/5