The Grove: The Inn on Harlee.

Just took over the website duties for a local bed & breakfast, and the first draft is now online:

http://www.grovebandb.com

Basically, I've just copy/pasted content from their old site for now, until I can get my act together and either refine what's already up, or come up with new stuff.

If anyone's got any hints, tips, suggestions, and/or criticisms about what's already live, please let me know.

Thanks!

 

I just spent a few minutes browsing it with K-Meleon, looks fine to me; I think everything works, the only things that I didn't notice that I would expect to were a map/directions and some typical or seasonal menus.

Nice work.

EDIT: Found the map , in the 360 deg view; the www.marionscchamber.com for the city under area info isn't found by opendns currently though.

EDIT 2: The 360 link to the website still points to the old one, what an improvement yours is

 

Yeah, I'm still waiting on more content from the owners as far as how they want to handle directions, new pages for menus, packages, history of the place, new pictures and info about the pics, etc.

The old site will probably cease to function at the end of this month - we're in the process of contacting the virtual tour, reservations, reviews people, etc. about updating their links.

We're also going to get some aerial photos of the grounds (there are several buildings here - it's almost like a colonial village), and I'll probably do some image maps with them.

Thanks for the tips - keep 'em coming!

 

I think its nice,nice and tidy It mimics or is similar to many of the bed a breakfast type websites I've seen,even the large ones.

The company title/logo seems small to me at 100% zoom in IE and firefox,I guess that's just a taste thing.

 

Great advice.

Copy the logo - they were adamant about keeping that logo, because it's on their letterheads and the wrappers for their vehicles. It does need to be bigger, though - I also just realized that the logo.gif and the flowerd bar-thingy graphics don't have the same background color as the page, so I need to work on them anyway.

I think they have brochures - I'll have to check.

Awesome concept about the food/recipes thing - that's cool! I'm going to bring that up asap.

Thanks, guys!

 

They have run cooking classes, mainly using Revolutionary War period utensils and methods. In fact, the whole theme of the place is centered around Francis Marion (our town is named for him: Marion, SC) - the innkeeper is a huge buff, does all the battle re-enactments in the area, dresses up like Francis Marion for local tours and museums, etc. The Grove itself has a Francis Marion parlor full of authentic memorabilia. Hell, he even hand grinds the grits for the breakfasts, and uses original 18th century woodworking tools to renovate the buildings!

Trust me - we've just scratched the surface. This is truly an awesome place. I'll check to see if they include knick-knacks in the rooms - good idea.

 

New version is online. Things I've added:

1. New javascript slideshows, which I'm in the act of customizing for the individual pages.

2. A CSS 'popit' menu for the Accommodations page link on every page - the menu in turn shows links for the individual rooms.

3. Various sundry formatting changes.

As always, any critiques (positive and/or negative) are welcome.

http://www.grovebandb.com/index.html

 

Hey, Laura.

That's a very good question. Basically it's preference. I normally define my main tables - in this case, it's 800 px.

If I define as a percentage (such as 80%), however, the page looks like this. That might look okay for a res like 1024x768, but if someone's running something like 1920x1080 on a widescreen monitor, my formatting is pretty much destroyed.

It's a constant problem, trying to write for different ratios and resolutions. Maybe I'll poke around, try to find a silver bullet.

Thx!

 

Yeah I think it looks good

I agree with Laura that was my first observation that the page was too narrow.

I've gotta be honest I'm not into the blue background,it looks cheap like one of those brick texture packs you could get for paint programs. or a web page stencil.I would consider a multi tone single solid colour with something like grove logo's on either side in black or slightly off colour so they can be read but as Laura said that's just a taste thing.

I swear to god I've not planned this or seen this page before but I looked at a few hotels and the Ritz has similar to the way I'd do it,the only problem with the ritz is the gold emblems on either side they look tacky,they should be negatives or something.

http://www.theritzlondon.com/

I don't know how much time you have to do it or how good it has to be,I could carry on suggesting different things until you get bored coding them:-D

 

Yeah, I was forced to use that background - owners' preference. Maybe I can sweet talk them out of it.

Damn, that's a nice Ritz site! Puts mine to shame...:-o

They're using jQuery, which I need to learn. Hell, I'm having to learn CSS and javascript as I crawl along - baby steps. Plus, it's obvious that they use some sort of generator - probably costs $1000. I stumble along, writing all of my code by hand...

Thx for the input - keep it coming!

( @Tim: I knew I should have excluded Rikky from this thing - I'll have to figure out some server-side stuff to keep him off my back! :-D )

 

All bells and whistlesFancy dancy crap moving everywhere:-D

Just block me:-D Only problem with blocking people on vbullitin is you still know they've posted something but you just can't read it.

 

@ Laura:

For example: change your resolution to 1024x768 and view Rikky's Ritz link - the site's formatting/spacing goes down the tubes.

One day soon, HTML5 is going to start making its way into websites, and resolution-specific formatting is supposed to be one of its features. I can only hope.

@ Rikky: j/k, man. Besides, I'd rather have you in front of me than behind me.

 

I agree really,it does have that homely none threatening I can probably afford to stay here without a platinum card look.

Unlike the Ritz...

 

I just checked the homely definition and apparently can mean unattractive or something,over here it means roughly the same thing but it isn't a negative connotation it just means similar to the home,not cold or corporate.

http://www.answers.com/topic/homely#ixzz1GaOS0dgb

E.g The Ritz site is the opposite of what I'd consider homely,it looks big brazen,lavish,cold and corporate,where as The grove site looks more like a family run home away from home with polite personal service ect.

It isn't used over here to infer a negative connotation at all,I can see how someone would use it that way though to describe something lacking in culture or taste.

Is that what you meant?

 

Homey or homely or hominy - I appreciate all comments.

I've taken the width issue up with the owners - they're adamant about keeping the main center panel with side borders, but they have authorized me to widen the center panel some (up to 860px). I'm in the process of doing just that.

Thanks, guys.

 

Ok, new version is up and running with the following changes:

1. Center panel has been widened to 860 px.

2. Slideshow pics have been resized to 600x320 px.

3. Disabled the slideshow thumbnails (except on the Photo Gallery page) - you can still stop the slideshow or go to an individual picture with the semi-transparent arrows.

4. Each room has its own slideshow (still working on this).

5. Did away with the popit menu - I liked the way it followed the mouse, but it was just too jittery when coming in contact with the CSS button color change. Instead, I've written in normal side and drop menus.

6. As per satrow's earlier concern, the Area Attractions button now has a slideout or slidedown link to a Google map.

Among other things, I'm working on events calendars, both for local area attractions and for events held at The Grove.

@David: they loved the idea, have already ordered branded stationery, and are working on coffee mugs and hand towels with the logo.

Thanks for the input, everyone. This is a work in progress, so any comments are always welcome.

The Grove.

 

They had a 360° video link, but it was taken down because the pics were outdated. Thx for the links, David - they both look promising.

 

Looks good. I think the name should be a bit bigger, and maybe a different font and color, other than that, looks pretty nice.

OT, but why do they advertise each room has an iron and ironing board? Ironing is not on my vacation list. :-D Or do they punish you if you show up for dinner with wrinkled clothes... I have heard of places like that.:-D:-D

 

@ David: I'll contact the owners, see if they'll contact the Kilburnie people about the link. Thx.

@ Fred: I agree about the logo size, as others have mentioned. I'll see what I can do.

As far as the iron/ironing board and the font/colors: I'm just the worker bee - I code what the bosses tell me to code.

Who knows - maybe it's comforting to somebody to know that the rooms are equipped with weapons of some sort.

 

Just added an aerial view image map of The Grove. For now, the links point to the photo gallery - the owners may wish to expand to other pages later.

(@ David: the Kilburnie link is fixed. )

 

Aerial photo is a very nice touch, it confirms the reality of the place - unlike many adverts that paint a fantasy.

Some of the photo's are almost enough to sell the place on their own; I think the info bar currently detracts from these by further separating/detaching the viewer from the view, any way you could make the bar auto-hide after xx seconds? Or only show on mouseover?

 

Good point. Because I don't want to totally decompile the script, I can't build a mouseover for the info bar, so I've split the difference. The index and the common pages now have no info bar, the room pages have info bars but no thumbnails, and the photo gallery has it all. I think that's a nice mix.

Thanks!