Official Luthiers Forum!

Finally got my website updated!
Still have a lot of work to do but I'm pretty happy with it so far...
Using Rapidweaver and it's not too complicated. Still trying to figure out a few things though. Will eventually have soundfiles.
Please have a look and let me know what you think.

http://www.brentrup.com

Thanks!

Very nice, Haans! I love your guitars, and the website is easy to follow and looks great using Safari (on MAC).

Glenn

Haans as a professional web designer I say great job! A picture is worth a thousand words and you make good use of them and they are very professional pictures.

Haans, I like your website it looks great on Firefox. I did notice that loading all the pictures on the shop page took quite a while but I'm not at home so it could be the internet connection.

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

Looks great Haans
I'm looking at it from work useing I.E. and it looks like the pics could be larger its leaving a lot of black space. On the "Guitar Gallery" page about 2/3 of the width is black.
I bet it has something to do with my work place filters.
Other than that it's easy to get around on, very user friendly.
Have you thought about putting a page about you/the builder? I always like to read about the builder

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Say what you do, Do what you say.

I like it Haans. I'm always fussing with image size/quality my self. One thing I noticed (I'm on dialup - IE) is that pages remained (unreadable?) until ALL images had loaded, then the whole page "fell into place".
On my "in the shop" pages in my website, I used a 2 column table to insert pics side-by-side (text next cell below) to reduce "blackspace" & excessive scrolling. This might work on a few of your pages (a table for smaller pics, another for large below)

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Dave
Milton, ON

Looks real good Haans, good use of photos.

Fred

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Fred Tellier
http://www.fetellierguitars.com
Facebook page http://www.facebook.com/pages/FE-Tellier-Guitars/163451547003866

Hans-
The website looks good- nice and simple without a lot of animations, music and other 'junk' to slow down loading.
I don't mind some empty space on web pages- keeping the clutter minimized is good!

Cheers
John

Stunning guitars -

Have you shared your thinking about the unusual bracing concept ?

John

Haans

Looks great, and is easy to navigate. Very informative also.

Bob

Very nicely done, Hans. I did notice a typo: "avialable" on the first page.

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"Building guitars looks hard, but it's actually much harder than it looks." Tom Buck

Looks great, Haans! I'm running IE, but my computer is a dinosaur(as in old). Pages load within 3-5 seconds, no problems. Beautiful work(as always)! Love the "shop tour"!

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Mike

The only thing nescessary for evil to thrive is for good men to do nothing.

Thanks for the input guys & gals! I was trying to not be too wordy and have lots of photos for the droolers to look at. Should be entertaining for players to look at the "purdy pitchers". I'm trying to find a way to magnify each image, and at some point will try to add sound clips.
Steve thanks for finding the typo! Must be the drugs...my "wounds" are a bit better today.

Haans, you should be able to make each of those images a thumbnail on your website. That way when you click on it, it will exhibit a full size image.

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Waddy

Photobucket Build Album Library

Sound Clips of most of my guitars

Waddy, you have to remember that you are talking to a mentally incompetent computer person...Thumbnail? Let me try...POOF! you are a thumbnail. Nope, didn't work...
Filippo, that's the cleanest the shop has looked in 12 years. This is more like it...

Haans, I love your smaller guitars. When I transition to acoustics, that'll be the type I'd like to build. I build electrics now because (I believe) I don't have to be as cautious about humidity as I would with the thinner plates of the acoustic guitars. But I'm really itching to try to build an acoustic.
I think what I'm gonna do is watch the humidity levels this year and try to build in the months where it is lowest. I imagine that is what builders did before there was a thing called a dehumidifier.
Didn't mean to hijack, but your work inspires me. Thank you.

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Mike

The only thing nescessary for evil to thrive is for good men to do nothing.

Nice website. I love the parlor and grand concert. I think a parlor is next on my to-do list.

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Jason Moe
LaCrosse WI 54601

...been there too!
I think what Waddy is referring to is that you can designate any of your images as a "hyperlink" so, when clicked, alarger version appears, either in the same or a new window. (eg You've already sized the pics on your "instruments" page to about 250 pixels wide. Take the original of the first pic, resize it to 800 wide and create a new webpage - no banner - with just that pic in it. Name it and save as a new website page. Now click on the small version and "create hyperlink" {not sure how rapidweaver looks here} and insert the new page address as the link destination. Save. Now clicking the picture should open the big one.)

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Dave
Milton, ON

Just got home and checked out your web page with Safari and IE it looks great. No black spaces, I suspect my employer has sort of filter or what ever blocking part of your page

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Say what you do, Do what you say.

Again folks, thanks for all the critiques! Kinda looks like I would have to tear the whole thing apart to be able to lightbox (wow, new word) photos, so I'm just gonna leave it as is. Dave S, with your way as I understand you, I would have an 800 page site (most of it hidden). I'm just trying to keep it simple with a lot of photos. Comes to a point where you say to yourself "I'm gettin' in over my head!", and you end up spending more and more $$$ trying to get at a solution and you just keep plunging farther and farther down the rabbit hole. Maybe someday I'll try to find someone to do it for me for $$.
I guess sound files are more important for me now, and a friend of mine (who can play anything from Skip James and Big Bill to Willie McTell and Dave Ray with the proper spirit) has graciously allowed that he would play some tunes for the site!

The site looks great, Haans. To me it has the same vintage mojo that is characteristic of your instruments. Nicely done! Looking forward to the soundclips.

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JJ
Napa, CA
http://www.DonohueGuitars.com

No problem Haans.... just trying to help, since you mentioned "I'm trying to find a way to magnify each image".
FWIW, adding links to "blowups" would involve no visible changes to existing pages & frankly, I think your work deserves access to higher res. pics. But, up to you.

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Dave
Milton, ON

I like it Haans. It does the job, showcasing your beautiful work.
Terry

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It's not what you don't know that hurts you, it's what you do know that's wrong.

Thanks JJ and Terry!
Dave, just so you understand, I would do everything you said in a second, but you have to remember that you are talking to a stone. I will just have to find someone to do it eventually...

I thought the stones were gone! Pun intended!

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Waddy

Photobucket Build Album Library

Sound Clips of most of my guitars