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Web Design?

Started by peterperv, March 04, 2004, 06:51:59 PM

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peterperv

I'm in the process of trying to get a web site together - to come into the 21st Century and join the rest of the cultured world.

The problem is, I don't know how. The limited amount of experience I've had regarding web sites was back in my school days - where I made an unnoficial school site, taking the piss out of people with special needs and calling a teacher with a glandular problem a "fat bastard". - This site looked amateurish, considering it was all written in HTML.

Nowadays, technology has moved on - and I've got no idea what's what. We've got XHTML or summat, CGI scripts, Java...etc....it's a chuffing headache. I've got no idea where to start. PLUS the fact that during the course of the day, I've not really got that much TIME to start a web site.

Are any whores budding web site designers? Or does anyone know of any companies that do good designs for a reasonable amount of cash?

If anyone can help, could they please PM me.

Ta muchly.

splattermac

what is the content of your website?

online shop,

database of information

personal / fan

your art?

etc

Kingboy_D

I'm good at the old front end of websites, but I know shit all about databases/online shops. That's why I'm not working at present. Whats it for?

daveytaylor

Depends what you want the site to do. If it's dead simple and about your wanking or your dog then just stick to HTML and a bit of Javascript for some fancy functionality. People will shout about ASP, ASP.NET, CGI, XML and all this other stuff but if you are telling the world about your fucking rambling hobby then you don't need that shit, nor the expense that comes with it.

If it's an online shop then before you do anything think about how you are going to market it. Jungle.com threw £13,000,000 at that problem and still lost.

peterperv

OK - first thing's first - I ain't selling much, apart from myself. But not in that sense - so I can't really spend much money.

Here's the story.

I'm a radio presenter/producer/technical guy - and I want basically a web site that promotes ME. I know that there's someone on the boards who has a similar web site - all I need is a web site that promotes me and basically says what a great guy I am. With MP3 clips of what I do available to download/stream or whatever - the usual muggubins - I don't know what other people use.

That's one half of the site - I want the other half to promote my music. I've written loads of songs and I want to promote them too.

That's it, I think...

Rubbish Monkey

I'd say give it a go yourself. I enjoy a good tinker on dreamweaver, and found it, on a basic level easy to use... (layers, rollover images, behaviours) and you don't need to learn html. In fact since i started using dreamweaver i have forgotten all the html i used to know.

If its going to be more of an online cv id say keep it clear and simple.

If it was me having doing it, i would probobly try and set it out like a album cover or something. Look around at simlar sites with simlar content or simlar styles  to what you got and put your own slant on it. You could even have a butchers at  some of the other whores's web sites to give yourself a few ideas. Just dont  bung in loads of animated gifs, sound effects and avoid making it look like one of  Stevie Wonder's Hiwaian shirts.

peterperv

...but surely it takes an age to get to know Dreamweaver? Isnt the GUI hard to get into?

And I've heard a lot about Fireworks - what the hell's that?!

Cerys

Nah, Dreamweaver's brilliant.  It may seem daunting at first, but then it suddenly clicks.  That's where I created my site, using HTML and Javascript, and I'd done bugger all computer-wise since GCSE Computer Studies sixteen years ago.

Go on - just do it.  You know it makes sense.

Abbie

Peter - find a site you like the a layout of.  Go to "View" and then "Source" on your browser.  Copy the contents of the file into Dreamweaver or (my preferred option) Frontpage.  Then make amendments where neccesary to suit you.  Technically copyright theft, but you got to learn right?  And this is the most effective way to do so IMHO.

I'm working on a new site, the layout of which was stolen from Tim's bosses website.  However, when i've finished tweaking it...subtle changes will make it look quite different.  On scanning and changing the code, i've learn't quite a lot about how it was made to look so good in the first place.

Another option is creating a web blog....do a search on Google.

Also check out http://www.arachnoid.com/arachnophilia/ for a basic HTML editor.

hoverdonkey

Quote from: "peterperv"...but surely it takes an age to get to know Dreamweaver? Isnt the GUI hard to get into?

And I've heard a lot about Fireworks - what the hell's that?!

I started learning Dreamweaver about four weeks ago having had no knowledge. A few hours of playing and you are up and about and then its like anything, the more you practice and push buttons and ask 'ooh what does that do?' the better you get.

Then it's just about your design skill and imagination. Whether I'm any good or not is not for me to say.

splattermac

you've done a nice job on numb considering you said you've just picked it up,

here's a bookmark or two

http://hotwired.lycos.com/webmonkey/ about web building

http://www.estats4all.com/ for recording page hits once you get it up and running

http://www.bluevertigo.com.ar/bluevertigo.htm loads of stuff here

http://www.flashkit.com/index.shtml flash tutorials if you want to put something fancy on your site like streaming mp3s

Rats uses Swish for his flash, so you might prefer to go down that route, it's very popular because its supposed to be more user friendly and has pre-coded shortcuts

terminallyrelaxed

I can also attest to the ease of using Dreamweaver - I started as novice yesterday and have successfully built my (very, very basic) site today. I  now have the structure and pages up there to add to and muck about with, and its already seeming very easy.

Matthias

Quote from: "Abbie"Copy the contents of the file into Dreamweaver or (my preferred option) Frontpage.

How can any sane person prefer Frontpage to Dreamweaver??

I've been building sites for years. I use Dreamweaver/Fireworks to make the sites pretty. At work I host the websites on a Win2000 server (not my choice) and use ASP to code the online databases. My personal site is hosted on a Linux server and is database driven.. I use PHP for that.

You can get great results with Dreamweaver and it is quite intuitive. Fireworks is great for site design and I recommend you try to get to grips with both. They're very easy to use.

If you want any javascripts, go to HOTSCRIPTS. It is usually as simple as cut and paste with very little configuration needed. I'm pretty crap at Javascript, but it doesn't matter when there are so many free scripts out there.

Have fun.

Kingboy_D

As I'm currently 'between jobs' I'll offer my services to bash one together for you, for a small price of course ;-). PM me if you're interested.

peterperv

OK...whacked up a basic site.

Now my next idea is to implement a forum - similar to this one. No idea why. So, I've got PhpBB, whacked it on my site, etc...etc...but when I try to run it I get a 501 error, which I've never had before.

I could be wrong, but I think I'm starting to delve into the complex world of programming languages like MyVSQ or summat like that.

I got no idea what's what. Can anyone help? I've read on the PhpBB manual that some web servers don't want to use it. I'm on oneandone.co.uk - does this accept these...things....scripts? whatever they are?

fanny splendid

What package do you have?

I think you need to have the business package to be able to use PHP with your hosts?

Rubbish Monkey


Matthias

If you're sure your webspace is set up for PHP scripts, make sure your scripts reside in the correct path. Some providers only allow scripts to be executed in a certain directory.

I use COMPILA. You can run your PHP scripts from anywhere, it's cheap and there's unlimited bandwidth.

peterperv

I'm only using the personal service - as I'm not a business (and on a pretty shit wage) I can't really afford the business service.

And remember - I'm a complete amateur - running PHP Scripts? It's all greek to me...

fanny splendid

Well to be honest, the best people to ask about oneandone.co.uks hosting policy is to ask oneandone.co.uk themselves. I just went to their site and had a quick look around.

Maybe it's best to not bother running a Phpbb message board, if you don't know PHP, and aren't willing to learn?

Try using one a web based one, like Rubbish Monkey recommended?

hoverdonkey

Quote from: "splattermac"you've done a nice job on numb considering you said you've just picked it up,


Cheers. It's very addictive - tinkering and stuff to improve it as you get better yourself. It wasn't really set up to be a fully fledged website, more an online portfolio of what numb will be, but it's taking on a life of it's own.

My hosting company (dataflame  automatically set up my php message board without me knowing a thing about PHP, although I've worked a bunch of stuff out for myself with regards to changing little things. Depends on how good and helpful your hosting company is I s'pose, but I can recommend these guys.