Check out a few of my Atahualpa based sites:

Vacation Rentals: http://www.papasaloha.com/
Air Tours: http://ellisonair.com/
Land Surveyor: http://eco-land-llc.com/
Steel, Aluminum, and Fabrication: http://www.weldair.com/
Vacation Rental/Private Accommodations: http://www.russian-river-house.com/
Photography Gallery/Portfolio: http://www.paviilax.com/
Parenting Blog: http://www.utterlyobvious.com/
Online Tobacco Shop: http://www.alaskansmokeshop.com/
Auto Detailing Website: http://www.morrisautodetail.com/
Chaga Sales: http://www.alaska-chaga.com/
Documentary Filmmaker Site: http://www.pawproductions.org/
Labrador Trainers (dogs): http://www.lastfrontierlabs.com/
Author Website: http://www.shirleykurthschneider.com/

Critiques, comments, compliments, and questions welcome.

Papasaloha- lovely...nice big font, simple navigation. I like it. Put your CSS and JS external (ATO at the very bottom) You want your content to be as close to the top of the page as possible.

ellisonair- very nice. What is the script font you use there?

eco-land- also nice, you have a very friendly design style. I like your use of backgrounds

online tobacco shop- lose the birthday thing. All anyone has to do is lie to see it anyway and other tobacco shops don't have it. Anything that stops people from seeing your site IMMEDIATELY will more likely send them away. http://www.pipesandcigars.com/ does not have it for instance

Overall, very good work!

@wskdigital. Nice work - Have you considered using Themeframe? I think you'd enjoy it

Here's one I put together using Atahualpa for "15 Now Tacoma," a collective of worker, religious, and activists in the Pacific Northwest port city of Tacoma (located in the far northwest part of the USA). It's only a few days old, and I will be adding more material.

I also did the artwork.

Here's the link: http://15nowtacoma.info/

Regards,

Alan OldStudent
The unexamined life is not worth living—Socrates
Gracias a la vida, que me ha dado tanto—Violeta Parra

Hi Alan,

I like the fact that you have a larger font size, it makes for easy reading, however, your lines of text are too long. 75-80 characters is optimal and your lines (inlcuding spaces) are 115.

This can be fixed by increasing the width of your sidebars. And while you are at it, decrease the size of the Widget title so you are not "yelling" at people. I make my Widget titles 1 em not 1.6 or whatever the default is, which is pretty ugly.

I would likely make the length of the drop down menus wider, too, to see if I could fit the topics on one line not two, without making them way too long...perhaps you have already tried that.

And lastly in ATO at the bottom, make your CSS and javascript external, so that your site content is closer to the top of the page.

Good luck with your initiative!

Hi SharonJ

Thank you so much for your comments, as well as your best wishes for our initiative. Looking at your bio, you're definitely a professional, and I'm an amateur, self-taught, with some holes in my graphics and website design education.

• Regarding the menu, a few of our core activists wrote me to say they had trouble looking at the menu on their devices, and they suggested eliminating the drop-down under the "about" item and moving them to the bar. Here is what she said:

  It would be better if the "about" tab at least directed the user to one of the two pages listed in the dropdown menu. The dropdown menu is very hard to navigate on my android phone, and I keep coming upon a "page not found" page. Is there any reason that the "about 15 now" and "about prop 1" couldn't be on separate tabs? It's not as if we're presenting a lot of complicated information. Otherwise, looks good--well done!

  She had a good point, although I worry that the need for more menu items may make the menu bar crowded as we add more items in the future.
  
  
• Your suggestion of making the widget titles 1em instead of 1.6em was spot on. You're quite correct. It is a big improvement. Following another suggestion of yours, I made the CSS and Javascript external, but on my computer, I saw no difference.
  
  
• I like the idea of making the text lines shorter, but I'm hesitant to make the side bars wider. I'm afraid that people who look at the site on a device may find that the wide sidebars shmush up the center column too much. I'd love it if you could suggest how I could shorten these lines without widening the sidebars. I had set the width of the content as a percentage in ATO>Style & configure LAYOUT>Layout WIDTH and type (FLUID or FIXED) to 80%.
  
  Do you think it would be better to go to 75% or smaller? What other means could I take?
  
  
• Another core activist complained that he could not see the menu bar on his small device. I checked my site on my iPhone and my iPad. It looked okay on the iPad and terrible on the iPhone.
  
  I found out that the Jetpack mobile widget ruins my site on small devices. It rendered much better on my iPhone when I turned it off. I hate to test stuff on my iPhone. Keying in stuff into the iPhone is a hassle for me because I have a movement disorder (as well as cataracts), but I managed to see what he meant. After turning of that widget, it was much better.

Again, thank you so much for your advice.

Regards,

Alan OldStudent
The unexamined life is not worth living—Socrates
Gracias a la vida, que me ha dado tanto—Violeta Parra

Making the CSS and JS external will not change the look of the site, Google just likes you better if you do that.

Speaking of Google, I use Google Fonts, Google Analytics and Google anything else I can find for plugins. Google is still the king and Chrome sucks. The more Googlier you are, the more they like you.

to make the lines shorter in the content, again go to ATO to Style and Edit Centre Column and the default padding is
Default: padding: 10px 15px;

Try making it 10px 25px 15px 25px; and see what happens
this page will teach you all you need to know: http://www.w3schools.com/css/css_padding.asp

I always set my width at 1000px or 1100px and then I use a plugin called WPTouch for mobiles. There may be better plugins out there, and would like to know if there are but this would be great for now

I also never use Jetpack, it takes up a lot of space and you will never be using all 36 or whatever it is plugins. I download the plugins I need only.

You can change the word Activities to Help Us and lose the dropdown there, too, you have LOTS of room on your navigation bar.

For someone who describes himself as an amateur, you are doing a fine job.

Thanks again, SharonJ, for your help and encouragement.

PADDING
I played with the padding and eventually settled on this:

ATO>Style & Edit CENTER COLUMN>Center column setting>padding: 10px 33px 15px 33px

That gave me lots of white space, and it looked good.

JETPACK
There are a few things I like in Jetpack. I disabled all the other ones, and I assume (perhaps foolishly) that inactive parts will have little or no resource overhead.

ACTIVITIES DROPDOWN
I decided to keep the dropdown under "Activities," as we have a lot of activists attending picket lines, demonstrations, gathering signatures at churches, leafleting malls, participating in telephone banks, and so on. We even do doorbelling. Then there are fundraising activities. Our collective is quite involved in the community, and I'd like to have that part there for posts encouraging folks to participate. We're a pretty active and fairly large group.

WPTOUCH
I decided not to use it. Now that I got rid of the Jetpack mobile plugin, the site looks okay on my iPhone with its tiny screen. Both the header and the site background are scalable, owing to code Juggledad and others posted elsewhere in this forum.

AMATEUR: Thanks for your kind words, SharonJ

I figure I'm a good amateur, but an amateur nonetheless. I know some HTML, a bit less CSS, and precious little about Javascript and PHP. It seems to me that a firm grasp of those is essential if one is to call oneself an expert. I have a bit of a flair for graphic design, but I compare myself to my daughter, who graduated from the San Francisco Academy of Art with straight A's. I use Xara Pro, Paintshop Pro, Corel Painter, a bit of Photoshop for my graphics. But it takes me a long time to complete these projects.

I'm not ashamed to own up to my ignorance and am willing to ask questions and learn.

Regards,

Alan OldStudent
The unexamined life is not worth living—Socrates
Gracias a la vida, que me ha dado tanto—Violeta Parra

Great! The other Google plugin I use regularly is Google Sitemap.

Google Analytics,
Google Fonts
Google Site Map

I also use WordPress Backup to Dropbox and back up my site every 2 weeks

and for the month of December I use
WP Snowfall

Also, Akismet and Bad Behavior for spam control

Good ideas, Sharon.

I use the Duplicator plugin by Life In The Grid for backup. I maintain a WAMP on my local computer and back up every few days. I test the backups in the WAMP. I also have several other sites and use Duplicator on it.

I developed the site you've been helping me out with on my WAMP and it took me 10 minutes to upload it to the web server at BlueHost. I use Duplicator because I have had other backups fail me, and I can test every backup pretty quickly.

I'll be sure to check out the Google items you suggested.

By the way, I think we live in the same corner of the world with just a wee border between us.

Regards,

Alan OldStudent
The unexamined life is not worth living—Socrates
Gracias a la vida, que me ha dado tanto—Violeta Parra

What EVER made you call yourself an amateur??? I don't even do that!!!

Happy New Year, Alan.

It's quite intimidating posting my little blog here, but I have loved this theme since I found it 4 years ago. I can change more things in Atahualpa than any of my other friends in their paid Genesis themes. I have learned a lot of html, very little CSS and that's all, but I'm still learning.

Here's my blog:

http://teachingwhatisgood.com

I'd love your thoughts and suggestions!

I have nothing to suggest. It is a very friendly looking website, with simple, obvious navigation, font is easy to read. If I were a young Christian mum, I would be delighted to find you. Congratulations.

On the Beauty Series page, I would like to see the series broken out into the five you mention. I might only have time to watch or read one at a time. Otherwise you have one download link at the top and and a long, long white page.

I also am impressed about how you stay on top of your comments and reply to many if not all of them.
Way to go to engage your followers!

SharonJ, wow, thank you so much!! I'm so glad you mentioned that about the Beauty series. I set that up before I really understood about setting up menus. I switched the menu link to the landing page I had already created on the series, this way the readers have the option immediately to choose which one to read.

Thanks again for your critique and help! Blessings.
Kate

I have used Atahualpa for two of my personal sites:

AnneTannes Tuin (AnneTanne's Garden) and
Mindful ouderschap (Mindful Parenting)

For a local society I made letsmol.be.
And 't Rode Labyrint (The Red Labyrint) is the site for a small center for personal development owned by a friend of mine.

I think that - although AnneTannes Tuin and LETS Mol have a similar setup - the four sites together show the versatility of the theme.

Anne's Garden is lovely. Excellent photos. Lots of white space. The only thing I can advise is to go to Atahualpa Theme Options, down at the bottom and make Javascript and the CSS external, so that your content is closer to the top of the page.

Mindful Parenting, in my opinion looks rather gloomy. That is a matter of opinion, however. What is not a matter of opinion is the colour difference between the text and the background is too close for an accessible website.

Enter your url here: http://www.accesskeys.org/tools/color-contrast.html and it will tell you where it needs improvement. Best wishes!

Thank you for your advice Sharon...
I started working on 'mindful parenting' only today, so I'm very glad with your comments...
(You were probably the first to see that site...)

Ann

You are very welcome. I am happy I found that site to which I sent you the link. I was looking for another site and found that instead. Much more helpful.

http://www.wholehearted.com.au/

Visually very strong, but exactly what was requested.

http://gallery.heinrich.id.au/

And my gallery while I am at it.

I noticed that I originally posted these in June 2013.

Wholehearted, has had a few refinements since then but is substantially unchanged. Most recently font size tweaks, quote box widget added, new css for the block quote, social buttons added.

While I have a few plugins I like, the hosting for this site disagreed with some of them and so I had to find different ones that worked with the hosting and provided required performance and functionality.

My gallery is still using Atahualpa, however the style and gallery engine are completely different. eCommerce is part of this site but its not enabled. I'm fairly happy with it but it needs some new content and TLC.

Nice and bright, Keith. I like that you have named the pages something more searchable. Caring is named community-clients. That is good, but cr-programs means nothing and that would not help you much. The only other thing I see is that your Javascript and Css is internal. Change that to external in Atahualpa Theme Options right down at the bottom.

My only other concern is that on my computer, anyway it is slow to load. The screen goes white between page loading. I checked it with Pingdom's Website Speed Test and it says your home page is 1.3MB and takes just over 5 seconds to load.

Try it your self:
http://tools.pingdom.com/fpt/

Hi Sharon and thanks for taking time to check it out. Its slow for a range of reasons but mostly I think its the hosting. Its pretty awful at some times. Many of the plugins I prefer to use don't work and making the JS and CSS external breaks the website.

How is the gallery performance at your location by comparison?

Keith

That is peculiar that external CSS and JS would break your site. You might post a thread about that and see what Juggledad says. All sites of mine are external. I have built easily a couple of hundred, 99% of them with Atahualpa.

The gallery on your other site works well and quickly. I prefer galleries that have the option of saying what the image is, but that is just my personal opinion based on nothing in particular.

You are a good photographer. What city is this?
http://gallery.heinrich.id.au/#gallery/1930/1707

Thanks for the kind words Sharon. The image shows the Story Bridge, Brisbane, Australia.

The gallery does have image titles, I've just been too busy (lazy) to go back and title and annotate them. One day for sure though.

As for Wholehearted, its with a budget host, with the server locked down for maximum security so far as I can see. I've tried to talk to the host about it and they aren't interested in troubleshooting. It really does stop the site working if you go external.