I guess this could go in quite a few sections on the forum - as some of you know, I'm the owner and webmaster of clevelandskyscrapers.com - and it had been in dire need of a revamp. The old version was put together in 2000 with my meager knowledge of HTML and frames. It did the job for a while but wasn't mobile-friendly, was tedious to update, etc.

 

 

I finally got to a point where I was able to transfer the framework onto Squarespace's template - I think it's a lot cleaner, obviously mobile-friendly, etc. I'm still adding content (especially in the Buildings 200' and under section) and getting other ideas but I was hoping some of you might be interested in taking a peek, kicking the tires, let me know what you think (positive or negative)

 

clevelandskyscrapers.com

 

 

Thanks!  :-)

No more Akron and Youngstown love? :(

 

Otherwise, love it.

Nice redesign, I've always thought the site was a great resource since I stumbled upon it years ago.  I did notice two little things you may want to fix.  First, when I click on categories (i.e. "Skyscrapers 500' and over"), the page listing the buildings doesn't have a banner image at the top of the screen.  This happens for each category when I view it. 

 

Second, the front page banner image cuts the top off Key and Terminal Towers in my browser.  I realized that's because the image is set to match the width of the browser window without changing its height.  I have a wide screen so the image is essentially zoomed in so that the top is cut off.  I hope this explanation makes sense, not sure if there's anything you can do about it.

Looks awesome!

Really clean look.

And this is a really great photo for a home page...!!!

 

One comment is that maybe there are too many CAPS for one space.

Just a thought.

Great job MayDay!  I can still recall when I stumbled upon your site back in 2001.  It is actually the site that led me to Urbanohio.com in 2004.

Looks great!

Thanks guys!

 

@ColDayMan - all in good time; I'm still getting the Cleveland sections up to speed

 

@ryanfrazier - yeah, I'm debating on what I should have as those sub-section banner images. For the home page, I'm wondering if it would help if I added some blank space to the top of the image?

 

@ChiCleveKid - that's how the template I selected lists the sections but you're right - I'm going to check with Squarespace to see if they can tweak that.

MayDay--i've always liked your site. A few points:

 

New one looks nice and clean.

 

But didn't the old have non-photo information---with words discussing the buidling, identifying the architect, year of construction, etc? If you've kept it, its not readily viewable in the new site. That information was meaningful and good to have.

 

Also, what I liked about the old site---you could click on a category (say buildings over 500 ft) and get a list of all buildings in that category. but now, there is no submenu. if you want to see all the buildings in a category, one has to go back the main page and hover over the category and then scroll down and do that as many times as there are buildings in that category. Clicking on "CLEVELAND SKYSCRAPERS - 500' AND OVER" for example doesn't go anywhere. At least not when using Chrome.

 

Hope this is helpful. And thanks for maintaining such a great resource.

 

 

 

 

Nice work. Looks good

Nice work. Looks good

Agreed!  (This Cincinnatian just bookmarked the site for quick reference.)

I'll wait until you have more content up to comment further. Otherwise, it looks great. Much improved.

 

Nice.

Are the Halle, CAC Bldg and the 1010 on there?

Or did i look too fast?

Thanks everyone!

 

@Pugu, good point and something I debated; I might make a "this section includes..." header for each section.

 

@Clueless, those fall under the 'coming soon' category :-)

looks good - if you still can maybe add a section of screenshots of the original version too for historical purposes/fun?

The first three things I saw that could be fine tuned.

 

The header photos are a bit grainy when seen at 1920x1080 on a 27" monitor.

 

On a desktop browser at 1920x1080 the home page isn't long enough to justify a scroll bar, and so as is the convention with browsers these days the bar is hidden. However, when you scroll over "200' TO 350'" the list is long enough to extend the page and reintro the scroll bar causing all of the text to re-justify to the new center.

 

On mobile (5 and 7 inch devices running at around 1920x1080) 30-40% of the time when I'm trying to select a menu item I bring up the magnifier, because the browser isn't sure which menu item I was attempting to select.

Nice work.  The orginal site, or The Orange and Brown Report (I forget which exactly) is what started me over here.

Thanks again everyone for your feedback - some more thoughts:

 

"looks good - if you still can maybe add a section of screenshots of the original version too for historical purposes/fun?

 

The original was there for FOURTEEN years... it had cobwebs thicker than silk dupioni blackout drapes. I'm not a native Clevelander, so I keep the sappy nostalgia to a healthy minimum :-)

 

"The header photos are a bit grainy when seen at 1920x1080 on a 27" monitor."

 

Over the years, I've sent out more 'cease and desist' communications than I'd care to count. The images look decent on my desktop setup and my iPad Mini - I don't see any reason to go higher-res than that.

 

"On a desktop browser at 1920x1080 the home page isn't long enough to justify a scroll bar, and so as is the convention with browsers these days the bar is hidden. However, when you scroll over "200' TO 350'" the list is long enough to extend the page and reintro the scroll bar causing all of the text to re-justify to the new center."

 

How would one go about fixing that, or more specifically... is that one I send along to the help desk at Squarespace?

 

On mobile (5 and 7 inch devices running at around 1920x1080) 30-40% of the time when I'm trying to select a menu item I bring up the magnifier, because the browser isn't sure which menu item I was attempting to select."

 

See my reply to the previous question :-)

 

 

Ohh wow, of course wasn't even thinking about the copyright concerns.

 

For the tapping it can probably be mitigated in the SquareSpace tools by adjusting the size of the text, and the vertical spacing. Maybe a half a line more spacing if that is an option they give you. I know you're awesome in the what looks good/right department, so whatever you feel you can get away with. It occurs to me now that messing with this may in some way exacerbate the scroll bar problem.

 

Regarding the scroll bar one I'd try the help desk, and see if they can help you get it so that the list displays in more than one column, or maybe they know of something else to try. The solutions I can think of are less than elegant, or involve creating more pages to service just three categories of Skyscrapers/Skyline/Proposed.

 

 

Yeah, I try to find the balance of a nice image that shows just enough detail, but isn't so large that I'll be seeing it on a billboard because someone ganked it without permission. As far as the other suggestions, I can definitely look into that with the help desk - a lot of it is probably template defaults but it sounds like they can do tweaks without much hassle.

Thanks again everyone for your feedback - some more thoughts:

 

"looks good - if you still can maybe add a section of screenshots of the original version too for historical purposes/fun?

 

The original was there for FOURTEEN years... it had cobwebs thicker than silk dupioni blackout drapes. I'm not a native Clevelander, so I keep the sappy nostalgia to a healthy minimum :-)

 

 

whoa two snaps and a twist? :) actually i referring to webpage history in general not that its about cleveland. you know, the look of older layouts, fonts, etc. gets lost. as with the buildings, i thought you might be into internet history a bit too thats all.

The new version looks quite nice!

 

//////

-(This is on the site while using an iPhone) When I tap to see the skyscrapers 200' to 350' listing, a little menu thing pops out. Cleveland has too many of these buildings for the entire list to show on my screen, and when I try to scroll/move down the list, the menu disappears right away.

I'm not usually one to 'toot my own horn' but I thought this was pretty neat - Cleveland Business Connects has an article about me and the site :-)

 

http://cbcmagazine.com/2014/06/24/etrends-website-keeps-tabs-on-cleveland-skyscrapers/

 

Also, thanks again for the recommendations, I'm working on making some tweaks.

Looking Dapper Don as usual...

 

Congratulations on being profiled.

That's really cool

Congrats!

Really cool Mayday.