Ste's Website Project - Saxperience

Ste · 19th November 2007, 16:43

Well im building my own site, or should i say i have been for a while. Anyway i want some advice on what to include/how to include it so im putting a poll up.

Choose away

Gallery - A basic webpage with no effects, just lists of images sorted into categories and loads as you go
Gallery - A fairly basic flash object that doesn't require scrolling, you just click and go but takes a bit to load at first
Overall Design - Basic, loads fast and is aesthetically pleasing to look at.
Overall Design - Clever IE some interesting effects, but needs to load and is a fucker to update
Overall Design - The menu, Basic, looks good does the job no effects
Overall Design - The menu, Fairly simple but has a few effects but will again be a fucker to update
Forum - Should i include a forum, one single category of general chat?
Forum - SHould i just use a message board?
Information - Lots of text, lots of pictures but takes a bit to load and abit of reading.
Information - Hardly any text, shed loads of piccys but takes a bit longer to load

SNewham · 19th November 2007, 16:49

What's it going to be about? yourself?

Ste · 19th November 2007, 16:52

Yea, all me and my interests n shizzle. Roughly 40 pages.

SNewham · 19th November 2007, 16:54

I'd make it quite basic with a gallery and a blog. There's not really much point in a forum I wouldn't have thought. Have a look through mine for some ideas though

http://www.scottnewham.co.uk/

scott

Ste · 19th November 2007, 16:57

You're site is almost a mirror of my old one, exact same style.

I want to pull away from that style as i found it too time consuming to update as my graphics took a fair bit of time on photoshop to create, i want to simplify it but it still has to have the pro features because i dont wanna look like a noob tbh

Ideally i was thinking some cracking backgrounds that can stay as they are and i can compile my page around them so updating is easy and i dont have to do too much on the graphics side after the initial setup.

Ill get some designs on photobucket when i get home to give you a better idea of what im rambling about.

Alex^p · 19th November 2007, 17:08

http://www.simplephpblog.com/
Good little blog script, easy to set up and mantain.

Ste · 19th November 2007, 17:09

Quote:

Originally Posted by Alex

http://www.simplephpblog.com/
Good little blog script, easy to set up and mantain.

Cool. THink ill have a play with that.

Still enjoying the S

?

Alex^p · 19th November 2007, 17:22

Yep, got a week off atm so i'm hoping the weather will clear up and my credit card will arrive

Harv · 19th November 2007, 17:32

what programs do you all use if you dont mind me asking

. I want to get into 'building' websites but in college all we get to use is Macromedia Dreamweaver and it seems a bit 'pap' really.

Cheers guys

EDIT: i would go for 'Overall Design - Clever IE some interesting effects, but needs to load and is a fucker to update'. I dont mind waiting for things to load really - if there cool then its all good

Ste · 19th November 2007, 17:33

Quote:

Originally Posted by Alex

Yep, got a week off atm so i'm hoping the weather will clear up and my credit card will arrive

mmm Credit Card

Quote:

what programs do you all use if you dont mind me asking . I want to get into 'building' websites but in college all we get to use is Macromedia Dreamweaver and it seems a bit 'pap' really.

Dreamweaver is good but its more of a compiling tool. I use dreamweaver to create my sites. One thing alot of people get wrong is that they use their HTML editor to create the site by adding googled graphics and other stuff in to make a collage of stuff.... Dont do that. get the graphics you want in you're head and take the photos you need then;

For cracking effects like on Snewhams site use Photoshop. CS3 Is the latest version, CS2 is the older but still very popular, the rest are shit, the only way to pick it up is to stick at it, try Chopping some cars to start with. Theres lots of tutorials on the web too that can be done in about 5 minutes and give you a great understanding of the program.

Macromedia Flash (Adobe) - This is pretty hard to use when it comes to making proper motion animations as you need to learn action script. If you are doing basics then you can use this program and 'borrow' bits of code from some tutorial sites but this program will take a fair bit of time to get used to.

Harv · 19th November 2007, 17:42

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ste

Dreamweaver is good but its more of a compiling tool. I use dreamweaver to create my sites. One thing alot of people get wrong is that they use their HTML editor to create the site by adding googled graphics and other stuff in to make a collage of stuff.... Dont do that. get the graphics you want in you're head and take the photos you need then;

For cracking effects like on Snewhams site use Photoshop. CS3 Is the latest version, CS2 is the older but still very popular, the rest are shit, the only way to pick it up is to stick at it, try Chopping some cars to start with. Theres lots of tutorials on the web too that can be done in about 5 minutes and give you a great understanding of the program.

Macromedia Flash (Adobe) - This is pretty hard to use when it comes to making proper motion animations as you need to learn action script. If you are doing basics then you can use this program and 'borrow' bits of code from some tutorial sites but this program will take a fair bit of time to get used to.

Cool cool. We had a go at Dreamweaver but as you say - we were just gettting googled graphics etc. Will have another go at it - do use codes or just try and do layout by clicking and dragging stuff etc?

And....yea, i have photoshop CS3 - pretty good at it as i had a summer job using Adobe Illustrator and became pretty good at that then went onto photoshop. Been using it a while now. I will have a look at some Dreamweaver tutorials buddy

.

I'll try rep you but i'm pretty sure i have to spread the love

Alex^p · 19th November 2007, 17:45

Cant beat swish for creating quick flash sites.
http://www.swishzone.com/index.php

Ste · 19th November 2007, 18:23

Quote:

Originally Posted by harvmate

Cool cool. We had a go at Dreamweaver but as you say - we were just gettting googled graphics etc. Will have another go at it - do use codes or just try and do layout by clicking and dragging stuff etc?

And....yea, i have photoshop CS3 - pretty good at it as i had a summer job using Adobe Illustrator and became pretty good at that then went onto photoshop. Been using it a while now. I will have a look at some Dreamweaver tutorials buddy

.

I'll try rep you but i'm pretty sure i have to spread the love

No problem.

When i first started using dreamweaver i got into all the coding but then realised its not really needed...

So i just litterally drag drop and move around until im happy. Dreamweaver can be a bit of a fanny when it comes to layout, but once you get the gist of how the tables n shiz work its cool.

Certain things require scripts but for the stuff im doing you can do more than ok with dreamweaver & Photoshop.

Jungle_Jim^m · 19th November 2007, 18:28

harvmate you can also use macromedia fireworks to create basic animation and effects, as ste has already said dreamweaver is really there just to compile all the parts of the site, most of which will be made in CS3

vidal · 19th November 2007, 18:30

Ste, (and others)

If you are not bothered about validating code, why not try NetObjects Fusion - it truly does what it says on the tin - fully WYSIWYG, there are copies on many covermounts these days. Current version is 10, although the older versions do have the majority of the latest version's functionality.

V.

Brooksy · 19th November 2007, 23:03

hmm... i use dreamweaver, photoshp, illustrator, flash, some c4d, imageready,
but its mainly photoshop and dreamweaver which are the best deal to using html sites.
if not use flash, m no expert on it, had a years expereince with it actionscripts but prefer gd old html.
i used dreamweaver and photoshop mainly for my site www.hantscc.co.uk
i have done loads of other websites for other people. in the stage of making my portfolio site for after uni next year.
but being a lazy arse hard to keep happy with one idea in mind.
Best advice, get an idea and stick with it and get it done asap. leave it to linger and you'lwant to change ur ideas or creations... happens to me all the time.. so i never get anything done.

dannyjay · 20th November 2007, 00:22

I chose;
Overall Design - Basic, loads fast and is aesthetically pleasing to look at.

Because I think thats what a site about your self should be. Nothing over the top, easy to navigate and quite pleasing to the eye.

At the moment I'm making mine, using Frames/Divs&Layers. Tables & forms are a great way of making websites, but seem to bring up a million errors for firefox, so I've gone for the harder to update approach, Frames and Layers. But there much easier to drag and drop.

I'm keeping it very simple, abit minimalistic if you will but I'm not a fan of sites, as an example brooksys as it takes to long to load up, and that bugs the hell out of me! But thats just an opinion, actualy being a web designer as my job I come accross them all, and I will always pick the easy to navigate, and pleasing on the eye, yet not over the top, proffesional looking web sites.

James · 20th November 2007, 18:22

I make everything in notepad and upload, Trial and Error, OLLLLD SCHOOL way.

Macromedia is cool though, use that on the laptop but never got round to downloading it for the pc.. I have had the pc about 2 years so that's a shit excuse really lol..

Frames are a great way to cut loading times down Ste, if you can use them and keep the site looking good I would advise doing it. There also very easy to update.. Make sure you use CSS and include the files to cut down shed loads of code.

srcnix · 21st November 2007, 15:43

What do you plan to use the site for? Showing of your skills in web design? Then throw everything you have at it. If it is just an information site about you I can't recommend much above a blog, they're such a brilliantly designed concept.

I personally prefer fast loading, plain websites, for example www.srcnix.com, not many updates recently as I have been so busy but still shows the basic concepts I look for in a fast loading website -- Mainly XHTML and CSS, a bit of JavaScript and runs on Moveable Type which is developed in Perl.

Regarding frames, I don't agree with them being nice, if anything I think they make websites look tacky. Then again, this is my own personal preference however the majority of the designers and developers here where I work will agree with me and do everything they can to get around using frames.

The only time I have used a frame in the past two and a half years is to get round having to refresh the page on a file upload script I have developed. Instead I point to a hidden iFrame which refreshes and runs some JavaScript to do further actions on the containing page. I haven't used frames anywhere else.

If you want to use frames because you want fast loading content then I suggest looking into Web 2.0 and XML HTTP Request (AJAX) for loading content without the need to reload the page design when moving from page to page.

Just my 2 pence.

djrem · 21st November 2007, 16:27

html. some scalled down images and a group package for anything fiddly:

www.voguefm.co.uk

thats what i did