Creating a website

triggerthat · 10 Feb 2006 at 14:19

Hi guys,

Going to create a website for a youth centre and they like the look of this. What's the best approach in terms of implementing? HTML? PHP? I want something that is straight forward to create, and mostly easy to update.

Been looking at some templates, but am not sure if that is cheating.

roboffer · 10 Feb 2006 at 14:37

Whats your background? Do you understand what HTML and PHP are and their differences?

To make it easy to update it will need some sort of content management system behind it, really depends on what you know as to what the best solution is.

iCraig · 10 Feb 2006 at 14:45

triggerthat said:
Hi guys,

Going to create a website for a youth centre and they like the look of this. What's the best approach in terms of implementing? HTML? PHP? I want something that is straight forward to create, and mostly easy to update.

Been looking at some templates, but am not sure if that is cheating.

You do know HTML and PHP are totally different right?

You dont create a site in either, you create it in HTML, the PHP is parsed before the HTML and helps with functionality.

Depending on the frequency of updates, content managed PHP sounds like a good idea to me.

triggerthat · 10 Feb 2006 at 14:49

roboffer said:
Whats your background? Do you understand what HTML and PHP are and their differences?

To make it easy to update it will need some sort of content management system behind it, really depends on what you know as to what the best solution is.

Have only done HTML. Was thinking of doing everything in frontpage.

iCraig · 10 Feb 2006 at 14:59

Thats not too bad. But make sure you use the code view to hand-code the site rather than use frontpage to add elements and layouts in etc.

roboffer · 10 Feb 2006 at 14:59

triggerthat said:
Have only done HTML. Was thinking of doing everything in frontpage.

Personally, I think this is beyond your current skillset. You can make a number of pages in frontpage that other people can edit, but it will not turn out as nice as the site you linked to.

You really need to have some sort of data source be it a db or xml to feed this to allow non techinal people to edit only what you want them too.

Id start by learning some PHP if you are serious about this.

triggerthat · 10 Feb 2006 at 15:09

Unfortunately I don't have too much time, especially to learn PHP.

Any recommendations?

ClearChaos · 10 Feb 2006 at 15:50

dreamweaver + contribute is worth checking out if you dont have time to learn a scripting language

php or asp can be used to integrate some fairly nice online editors(fck or htmlArea for example) but you will probably need to pay someone to get hooked up

triggerthat · 23 Mar 2006 at 20:10

Hi guys,

Well we don't have to code the whole website. Mainly just the index page and a few others. The clients want a website similar to the one I spcified. Would everything have to be done in tables for the layout?

Any web applications recommendations?

punky_munky · 23 Mar 2006 at 20:51

When you say they want one similar to the link do you mean in style or functionality?

Beansprout · 23 Mar 2006 at 20:56

triggerthat said:
...The clients...

What's your job?

triggerthat · 23 Mar 2006 at 21:43

punky_munky said:
When you say they want one similar to the link do you mean in style or functionality?

Just the style only.

triggerthat · 23 Mar 2006 at 21:44

Beansprout said:
What's your job?

Oh its a small project for a charity (Youth Community Website). We just call them the clients.

punky_munky · 23 Mar 2006 at 22:04

OK, you will need to know HTML + CSS and be competent in Photoshop or some other graphics package to make something that looks like that.

8BaLL · 24 Mar 2006 at 21:31

Yup css is the best way if you know or learn on how to use photoshop you can do pritty much everything in there then i would then edit it in Dreamweaver easiest way.

triggerthat · 30 Mar 2006 at 12:31

Hi guys,

Well the clients want something like the website posted above. Am trying to design a top banner like the above but am having no luck.

Anyone have any good design skills?

iCraig · 30 Mar 2006 at 17:46

Would everything have to be done in tables for the layout?

No. You would style elements properly using CSS. Well at least, thats what you should do.

iCraig · 30 Mar 2006 at 17:47

triggerthat said:
Hi guys,

Well the clients want something like the website posted above. Am trying to design a top banner like the above but am having no luck.

Anyone have any good design skills?

I don't mean to sound rude, but why did you accept this "client" when you obviously don't have the skillset to complete the task.

Learning as you go along is all well and good until they client gets impatient and they realise that you're out of your depth.

Gman · 30 Mar 2006 at 20:30

like the others have said I realy think you should think about giving this job a miss. You can still do the site but do it in your own time, learn html, css and php don't take the easy route and use frontpage to drag and drop tables and images etc your only cheating yourself.

Sadly I blaim the clients, often you'll find clients have no real idea as to whats involved in creating a website, most think we just use some sort of template programe a bit like publisher and we can knock something up within hours.

GlasgowTitan · 30 Mar 2006 at 21:20

I have just started making a website for a uni sports club I'm in. I have NEVER used photoshop before but in the last 4 or 5 days I have learned the difference between the rectangle tool and the rectangle marquee tool (just). I have managed to make a pretty nice layout (I think so anyway

) and have begun adding content to each page now. Nearly my whole site is made in Photoshop, with Dreamweaver used to do a few links and things. Considering I have never done anything like this before I think it can be done.

I have made extensive use of a couple of website though, namely Good-Tutorials.com and Pixel 2 Life.

If you take things step by step you can build a decent looking website given enough time.