RV Rebuild Website - Online soon - Input?

[BobsYourUncle]

Hi everyone.

Years ago I had my own website to illustrate and describe the process of rebuilding an old TT from the frame up. It was very popular and I got a lot of great feedback from people all over the US and Canada.
I took the site down a dozen or so years ago for reasons beyond my control.

I posted a thread a few days ago asking about a website vs a blog.

I decided to go for it. I bought a Domain, signed up for a Wix account and started. Easier to use a WYSIWYG site than try to code it on my own.

I have launched the preliminary part of the site, one page with what will be the basis of my Home Page on the new site, with Under Construction and stuff on it, and a little explanation at the bottom.

I'd like to know how it looks to users with various different devices. What looks great on my 17" laptop may not necessarily look OK on your phone or ipad. There is a place in the Wix software to format it for a mobile device. It'll take some trial and error to get it right. I will likely post from time to time asking for users to critique it and let me know of any issues they can see.

When I am all done, I'm hoping it can be a useful resource for the RV community.

It's going to take some careful planning to make it useful for everyone, I have to organize the tabs and try to make it all easy to navigate. I'm a little rusty, it has been 15-16 years since I built a website so bear with me.

Another thought I have is to dedicate a section for tech tips and little articles or something. I'll consider that. I have written lots of little tech articles over the years. It would be nice to have a resource location for all of it.

It will have no ads, and no commercial side to it. I am paying for everything myself. There will be a place where users can contact me.

Anyhow, check it out, let me know what you think of my venture. I put a link in my sig too.

RV-Rebuild.com

[BobsYourUncle]

Gjac wrote:
Bob, your web site looks good on my 17in laptop.

Thanks for the feedback, I sure appreciate all of it.

[Gjac]

Bob, your web site looks good on my 17in laptop.

[BobsYourUncle]

Well!!!
Am I ever tickled pink about todays efforts! :B:B

It has been a lot of years since my old website was up. I do remember a lot of it, but obviously not all of it.
I kinda wanted to more or less duplicate the old site here, but in todays more modern format.

I hosted my own site on a dedicated old computer I had in the garage above my workbench. I have always kept it in hopes that I could one day put it back online again.

This morning I dug it out of the garage where I live now after it has been in storage since I moved to Calgary in 2013. I brought it into my office, dug out an old PS2 keyboard, mouse, some cables and a monitor. Hooked it all up and it started right up. Password... Oh Oh! Got it right on the second try and got in.

Wow, Windows 2000!

Launched MS FrontPage, fiddled with it a minute and there was my entire website. Yahoo! - I'm a happy camper.

I reviewed it and I am blown away by how extensive it was. I completely forgot how my work I put into it!

Now, how do I save internal HTM files.... Got a piece of PDF freeware I downloaded and installed it on the old server.

About 4 hours later, I have printed off my entire website to PDF, every page along with pictures, everything so I can see how I originally had it.

I'm so impressed with myself I can hardly spit! :B

I now have the whole thing in PDF on my laptop, to refer to as I do my new build. I won't have it finished anytime soon, thats for sure.

Gotta rethink this whole thing. I'm seriously considering putting a lot of the same text in I had before, as written in 2003 through 2007 or so.

[BobsYourUncle]

2 many 2 wrote:
Bob,

I first started reading RV.NET in 2003, I remember the original thread and would check in every morning to see how the progress was going.

Anyone that has not seen it, is NOT going to believe it! I am really looking forward to seeing all that incredible fabrication again!

Wow, Thanks! I wasn't sure anyone remembered! 🙂
See my next post here...

[2_many_2]

Bob,

I first started reading RV.NET in 2003, I remember the original thread and would check in every morning to see how the progress was going.

Anyone that has not seen it, is NOT going to believe it! I am really looking forward to seeing all that incredible fabrication again!

[Darryl_Rita]

Pulls up fine on Android phone. The device determines the page layout, not something you need to set. Have fun.

[noteven]

The site looks good on my PC laptop today Friday.

Are you sure it will work with everything standing still like that? "lol"

[BobsYourUncle]

frankwp wrote:
Looks fine on the 2 monitors that I tried, a 30" & a 19" in portrait mode. BUT, the font, colors, etc really look like a 15 year old website. Quite jarring to look at & not very attractive.

Please do not take offence, this is meant as constructive criticism. Thank you for putting the site up & I'm looking forward to seeing the fully functioning product.

No offense taken, I appreciate all comments, good or bad.
I find the standard fonts such as Times New Roman, Arial, Courier and others drab, boring and hopelessly outdated. I wanted something with a bit of life to it and cheerful, easy to read.
The background needs to be light and pleasant. Dark colors are horrible for website backgrounds. Very hard to look at.
I am totally open to suggestions for fonts and colors if my choice is not appealing.
Feel free to elaborate on the colors and fonts if you like.

Thanks for your input.

[frankwp]

Looks fine on the 2 monitors that I tried, a 30" & a 19" in portrait mode. BUT, the font, colors, etc really look like a 15 year old website. Quite jarring to look at & not very attractive.

Please do not take offence, this is meant as constructive criticism. Thank you for putting the site up & I'm looking forward to seeing the fully functioning product.

[BobsYourUncle]

mgirardo wrote:
It looks fine on my 27" Monitors at 2560x1440 and the laptop's 17" screen at 1920x1080. On my phone, a Motorola One 5G-UW, the photos look fine stacked one after the other, but the font size should be smaller.

-Michael

Thanks for the suggestion.
I reduced the font size on all the bottom text.
I left the header alone.

If you refresh your screen it should be smaller now. Don't want to make it too small so some need a magnifying glass to read it too!! :B

[BobsYourUncle]

MrWizard wrote:
Bob it fits good and looks good, on my 10" Lenovo android tablet, resolution is 1920×1200 using landscape mode,
I haven't checked it on my 17" HP laptop
But I know it's only 1440 wide, and the site as is, will be too wide and require side to side scrolling
LaptoPS TVs and pc displays, are physically huge compared to tablets and phones, tend to be higher structural quality, and pricy , and replaced less often, so that many of these items , remain in use for many years, and consequently have lower resolutions than most tablets and phones
A 1400 ? Wide webpage will reduce side scrolling for most users and still look good on smaller devices that have higher resolutions,

You can have higher resolution pictures resized or displayed at lower resolution and enlarge to original resolution when clicked on by a viewer

One of the challenges I am facing is finding a happy medium that works on most devices.
All the newer ones have a much higher screen resolution, which makes all the difference in the world. I would hazard a guess that the average person doesn't really understand screen resolution and what it does. Change to 640X480 and it will be way off the screen, forcing side scroll. But then take my 17" laptop that I am building this thing on at 1920 X 1080 and everything looks small with lots of excess room on the sides.

There is a setting in the Wix software where I build the site in normal desktop view, and stay within the suggested boundaries they have in the work area and it should format properly to most devices.

There is a further setting to format it for mobile so it will work on phones and tablets.
But what I don't know here is how it determines if you are on a desktop, be it a PC or Mac, or if you are on an ipad or a phone. Somehow it gets determined by the device I guess. Some sites I visit have a button click here for mobile.

You shouldn't have to side scroll to see any site - that is very annoying!

Last night I fixed the vertically stacked text that says Coming Soon. I opened it on my phone and it reverted back to the way it was. I'm sure I saved and published it... I just re-did it again.

You mentioned the pics and the sizes. I will look at that too. I didn't pay a lot of attention to it when I first set it up. One of the many things I have to refine. But the picture of the old trailer is a huge crop of a larger one, and it is saved as only a 77K file, at 640X477, small. I cannot find the original pic at 1.5 megs or whatever it was.

Thank you for your input. It really helps! 🙂

I will keep playing with it and tweaking the settings etc.

[mgirardo]

It looks fine on my 27" Monitors at 2560x1440 and the laptop's 17" screen at 1920x1080. On my phone, a Motorola One 5G-UW, the photos look fine stacked one after the other, but the font size should be smaller.

-Michael

[Homeless_by_Cho]

BobsYourUncle wrote:

Homeless by Choice wrote:

How do I determine resolution? "Do you know what res it runs at?"
LeRoy

Right click on your desktop, no programs open, then select Display Settings"
A few items down it will say Display Resolution"

My 17" Win 10 laptop runs at 1920 X 1080. This is likely why I had it so far out of whack the first time. It looked perfect on my screen!

Thanks, here is what I have:
1366 X 768 (Recommended) and Landscape

[gbopp]

This is a great idea. I'll be following.
The information will be helpful for current members doing a rebuild or repairs on their rig.
And, we often see new members who bought a unit that needs work. A video about rebuilding/restoring will help someone decide if they want to attempt the project.
Keep up the good work!

[MrWizard]

Bob it fits good and looks good, on my 10" Lenovo android tablet, resolution is 1920×1200 using landscape mode,
I haven't checked it on my 17" HP laptop
But I know it's only 1440 wide, and the site as is, will be too wide and require side to side scrolling
LaptoPS TVs and pc displays, are physically huge compared to tablets and phones, tend to be higher structural quality, and pricy , and replaced less often, so that many of these items , remain in use for many years, and consequently have lower resolutions than most tablets and phones
A 1400 ? Wide webpage will reduce side scrolling for most users and still look good on smaller devices that have higher resolutions,

You can have higher resolution pictures resized ôr displayed at lower resolution and enlarge to original resolution when clicked on by a viewer