Community site undergoing update - Help required adding new features

[SR2006]

Hi all!

Just discovered this community area today; it all looks pretty cool.

I have been helping to run an Italian community organisations website now for three months.  It is currently undergoing a 'sprucing up' and we are looking to add some new features.  I am hoping that this is the right place to come in order to get the answers to my many questions.

One of the things we are looking to do is offer an online ticketing system so people can buy tickets to our events over the web; I was wondering if anyone else has had any experience doing this and could offer any 'wise' advice.

We are also looking to generate a small amount of income by selling advertising space for a small amount to local companies etc.  I was wondering if it is possible to upgrade the exsisting banner advert system in Joomla! so you can have 'skyscraper' ads and more than one ad on a page etc?

One of the more important things I am looking to doing is placing a static piece of content on the homepage of the site.  This is because some of the feedback I have had is that people do not know what the organisation is about until they click through the links to the 'About Us' section.  So I am hoping that I can get an excerpt from this and place it statically on the homepage with a link pointing to the main static article?

Finally I would like to know if anyone knows if there is some sort of directory component/module?  We are looking to create a kind of local directory where local businesses/services can list their detials under certain categories so people can search through and obtain their details.  Any help on this would also be great.

Thanks in advance

PS The site is www.peterboroughitalians.org.uk

[Chinaman]

Had a quick look at your existing site, and on initial look, to me, it is not inviting, so I would suggest a quieter front page, with "a bit of room" to allow people to feel they are not being bombarded
Just my $0.02AUD worth (non italian)

[corrado444]

Chinaman was very kind and tactful. The site is not the worse I have seen by far, but not the prettiest either. "Not inviting" is actually a good term for it. Looks like you need some professional help with the design and layout.

As per your questions, there are contrinbutions for the ticketing and event system. Take a look at the "Extension" area of this site. There are also other banner systems in the same place. as far as the static text, create a module and insert a new module position published only in the frontpage where you can place any content you want.

BTW, I am Italian born and raised, living in the US (california) but I am originally from Rome. Good luck with your site.

[severdia]

Check your site in different browsers... Attached is an image of what I see on the Mac.

Some design tips:
1) Consider using a second complementary color. Orange is complementary on a color wheel, but try adding a secondary color.
2) Your menu bar is the same color as your background color. Consider using a different color.
3) Consider using the light blue color only for rollovers and highlights.
4) Give some more "white space" in your header. Your logo needs some empty space above and below it.
5) Consider reducing the font size of your headlines. Creating a font hierarchy is an important part of design (For example, having all headlines be a consistent font, size, and style...all body text should match up, etc.) Right now, "About PIO" and the article titles are different sizes/styles.

In the U.S., there's a ticketing servive that a lot of non-profits use:

http://www.brownpapertickets.com/

Since it seems you're in the UK, you probably can't use them, but there might be a similiar service there.

[SR2006]

Thanks for your reply there severdia; I think that you have raised some very good points.

Unfortunately at the moment I am writing my dissertation for my degree so have little spare time, but do plan to make some changes as soon as time becomes available.

Check your site in different browsers... Attached is an image of what I see on the Mac.

I do know about the Mac issue and this is top of the 'to-do list' as soon as the time becomes available.  As for testing accross different browsers I do test using Firefox, IE and Opera using various different versions of these browsers as well.  Unfortunately I wasn't able to test on Safari as I did not have access to a Mac at the time of implementing the design, but now will be taking full advantage of my Sis Mac Book Pro

Consider using a second complementary color. Orange is complementary on a color wheel, but try adding a secondary color.

Where in the website would you look at using this secondary colour?

Give some more "white space" in your header. Your logo needs some empty space above and below it.

Consider reducing the font size of your headlines

One of the reasons I haven't done the above is that on monitors with higher resolutions I was worried that they would become too small; would you say that this is an issue?