French Owners Direct Website.

[FOD]

I am looking for comments on our new site which advertises holiday rental properties in france. http://french-owners-direct.com

The site has two main parts - the public site which you look for properties to rent and the owners area where owners enter their properties details, availability and rates.

There are three offers, a free one, a free one with extras and the one we are after - a full website with own url, email forwarding, and a choice of styles (styles are not complete). The full website offer is the one we are after and we will well discount it at first.

Nothing is charged before publication so you can play and preview all you want.

Payment processing is via a noChex merchant account (with european card acceptance)

As I started on the site using asp some time ago I will wait to convert to aspx until the I need a re-write (because of the problems in sharing session variables).

Aspects I am very pleased with is with the property availability (http://french-owners-direct.com/showavail.asp?Property=4) (by just using css and bookmarks). run the mouse over it.

The site functionality could well have other uses.

all comments most welcome.

David.

[Carl Shepherdson]

Very good, the only suggestion I would make is dump the Times New Roman it's probably the worst font on the planet in my opinion. :D

Nick and myself have developed a few property related websites with admin back end etc.

[Cris]

Hi, Informative site but IMHO looks a bit crowded on the front end. Personally I would allow a bit more spacing between the entries.

[andysears]

Nice informative website. Think the logo and 'Holiday home website directory' text look a bit bland.

Also a bit cluttered, could do with some more contrast. Border each entry in a bit or maybe contrast the title bar of each entry so you can see where one entry starts and another finished easier.

[FOD]

Hi Carl, Mostly the font is Verdana, where did you see the Times New Roman (perhaps Verdana is in the same family?)
The property display is very variable and styled by the choice from 10 sytle sheets (some need work on them) so what you see depends on the property (and which offer it is).

If anyone needs maps then I was quite pleased with microsofts free offering (rather like google earth but with driving directions etc). http://holiday-homes-france.com/map.asp?property=1001

Thanks for the comments.

[Carl Shepherdson]

I see Times New Roman all over the site.

[AlphOmega]

Check your style sheet, its using browser default font due to an error in the css

body { font-family: font-family: Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 9pt; margin:1px; padding:0; background: #E5F0FF;
}

[FOD]

Many thanks css now fixed (I think MS Expression did that - I see it's now shipping - must get a released version)

David.

[RayWhite]

Hi David,
I have just seen your post and looked at your site. You have a couple of features that I am trying to get for a site I am writing. Relax it will not be in competition to your site. Firstly you have a facility for new people to register online and then you have a section where registered people can access specific pages.
Would you mind telling me what programme or code you used to achieve this?
It will be a great help.
Thank you,
Ray

[FOD]

Hello Ray,
My site is quite simply constructed using classic active server pages, using vbscript - logged in users are simply identifed by session variables (after checking that the remembered session ID is the same a that the browser returns). All data comes from a MS SQL server database.

If I were to redesign it then aspx (with Visual Basic) would be a better way to go as this has better interactivity and can be better structured.
Is all you want to do is access control ? If so that is very easy - I can send you the code to do that.

David.

[RayWhite]

Hi David,
Thank you very much indeed for your very kind reply and offer to send me some code..
Any help would be very greartly appreciated.
What I am trying to do is allow members to sign up on the site, submit their details such as name, address etc, and select a password and username.
Then once I have accepted their membership application they should be able to log into the membership only pages using their username and password.
I am comfortable codeing in HTML but this is a bit beyond my experience.
Thank you again,
Ray




Hello Ray,
My site is quite simply constructed using classic active server pages, using vbscript - logged in users are simply identifed by session variables (after checking that the remembered session ID is the same a that the browser returns). All data comes from a MS SQL server database.

If I were to redesign it then aspx (with Visual Basic) would be a better way to go as this has better interactivity and can be better structured.
Is all you want to do is access control ? If so that is very easy - I can send you the code to do that.

David.

[sladmin]

Hi David,

I use basically the same as you but I use a MySQL DB. Also I use access levels stored in a database. I find this may much easier to handle because you can add as many access levels as you need.

If anyone wants to know how its done you will need to put some code in your login page) then let me know ;)

[RayWhite]

That would be greatly appreciated. My email is rwhitetlc@aol.com
Thanks again
Ray:cap:

[FOD]

Ray,

I am having problems sending you example files (possibily because of the filetypes)

will try posting a zip here.

have a good look and I guess you will have lots of questions.

David.

[RayWhite]

Thanks,
I downloaded it and ended up with a PHP file.
When I opened it I found a CS NewMedia login page and stylesheet.
I assume the necessary code is in there somewhere.
Can you point me in the direction of the relevant lines of code.
Ray

[FOD]

I can't understand how you got a PHP file or a CS New Media login page.

in the Zip there were 3 css's, one js, and serveral asp's (also some inc's).
you did download the zip ?

Regards,
David.

[RayWhite]

Thank you. Sorry to take up all your time. Originally I downloaded the "New winzip.file.zip" and ended up with the CSNM stuff.
This time I opened it instead and it looks as if I have the right files.
I will 'play' with them this evening.
Many many thanks,
Ray

[FOD]

I have been playing with some alternate page formats.

This one has customisation for IE (it uses VML is the browser is aware).

http://french-owners-direct.com//ShowProperty1.asp?Property=4&ss=0

I am using IE 7 - can anyone tell me if you see the VML drawn headers with IE 6 please.

Can I have some comments on the page please - (the last parameter is an override of the owners chosen format and can be varied between 0:9)

http://french-owners-direct.com//ShowProperty2.asp?Property=4&ss=0

will display the page without VML.

David.