Web Site Development

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SyBorg
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Web Site Development

Post by SyBorg » Mon May 01, 2006 5:01 pm

Having acquired myself some prime real estate (thanks Kieran :D) I want to do some development to get the most out of it. In the past I've developed web-sites in a variety of ways, from html in notepad to wysiwyg with Dreamweaver. To be honest though, I'm lazy :zzz: .
So, how do I get a good looking site with the minimum of effort?

Oh, and needs to be free :lol:
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Post by Neo » Mon May 01, 2006 5:19 pm

Oh, you've opened a can of worms here SyBorg :o, because everyone has their favourites when it comes to web design.

I like to use a combination of things - notepad, Frontpage Express etc. Dreamweaver is out of my price range and many of the other apps I've seen go a little OTT on templates etc. Let's see how quickly I get flamed now :uhoh:
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Post by Shotokan101 » Mon May 01, 2006 6:02 pm

Word of Warning Sy.......

[Edit by Kieran: Removed attachment, was a repost of THIS POST and was also OT]

.....sorry just couldn't resist :oops:
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Post by Kieran » Mon May 01, 2006 6:17 pm

A can of worms indeed mate ;)

Web Development I like to subtly distinguish from Web Design. The latter being the beautifying of webspace, the former being the code that drives it and keeps the pages coming to the user on request.

My forte would have to the the former (although I do both for money and have happy customers so can't be all that bad).

Editor wise, I'm old school. I use a browser for testing (both Firefox and Lynx to make sure both pretty and text only works ok), lftp to upload/download files from the web, emacs as a text editor, and an SSH terminal for any database work I might have to do. And that, my friends is it. All code, no GUI ;)

That doesn't mean to say you shouldn't go GUI, but remember that its only web design you can do in GUI form - web development is strictly code based. When choosing an editor for GUI web design, you can pretty much have your pick. Just make sure that it doesn't use proprietory HTML/Javascript code in its output *cough* FRONTPAGE *cough* as it will fail the W3C validator and not make firefox users happy (although microsoft will smile at you as you hand over the cash and then refuse to answer your support questions unless its a cut n paste response anyway I digress :))

Suffice it to say there are many ways of achieving the same thing, and you should use whatever you find easiest. I'm always on hand to help with code, of both HTML and php/SQL in nature so don't hesitate to ask :)
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Post by Steve » Mon May 01, 2006 11:20 pm

I am pretty new at web design, but looked at Frontpage and Dreamweaver MX (suite of products) at the time. I'd have to agree, Frontpage has loads of templates which are good if you have no imagination (like me) but have to say I preferred the Dreamweaver offerings, which had FTP uploading etc built in.

I found the results were more widely compatible with Dreamweaver and the tutorials for a begginer were thorough.

From personal experience only, I recommend you give them Dreamweaver a try. I have not however tried any linux applications, which may offer a more cost effective solution, assuming you're honest and don't steal your software.
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Post by Kieran » Mon May 01, 2006 11:29 pm

Steve wrote:I have not however tried any linux applications, which may offer a more cost effective solution
Linux is great for development generally, but its a hand coders world really; there are no GUI HTML creating programs AFAIK.
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Post by Steve » Mon May 01, 2006 11:34 pm

Not sure if I'm talking out of my er, well you know.

Dreamweaver allowed you to create in a graphical way, but you could see the code it generated, at the same time, after the event, or even the other way round I think.
i.e. create code and see the graphics devolop at the same time etc.

I liked it, but as I said, I was (and still am) inexperienced.
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Post by thechief » Mon May 01, 2006 11:38 pm

Kieran wrote:
Steve wrote:I have not however tried any linux applications, which may offer a more cost effective solution
Linux is great for development generally, but its a hand coders world really; there are no GUI HTML creating programs AFAIK.
There is NVU (for both Windows and Linux): http://www.nvu.com/

I don't know how good it is ....
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Post by Kieran » Mon May 01, 2006 11:38 pm

Steve wrote:Dreamweaver allowed you to create in a graphical way, but you could see the code it generated, at the same time, after the event, or even the other way round I think.
i.e. create code and see the graphics devolop at the same time etc.
It allows you to see the code and create graphics etc. at the same time, yes. Problem is it tends to take a disliking to any code you add manually (HTML that is) and it plays around with it when you go back to GUI mode

If you want to program php and do GUI HTML stuff though, I have heard it is supposed to be pretty handy for that (not that I have ever tried doing that)
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Post by neilius » Fri May 12, 2006 5:07 pm

If you want a really quick/easy way to get a site up and running, with being able to actually edit the site on-line in your browser via a browser-based editor running server-side, you might want to look into a Content Management System or CMS for short. There are quite a few out there and my favourite happens to be the Free/GPL'd Joomla, at http://www.joomla.org. You can find a whole bunch to actually play with and test at http://www.opensourcecms.com. I like using this tool because it means I can edit my site anywhere that has a web browser - no need for hefty apps like DreamWeaver although you could write Joomla templates in it etc.

Regards,

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Post by Kieran » Fri May 12, 2006 5:16 pm

That is good advice neilius :)

In addition to those suggestions; If you want a blog to go with your wise, you can use WordPress as a blog and CMS combined. For those who want a CMS with their phpBB board I have one of these if someone wants the code.

<shameless_plug>
For those interested in a custom CMS solution or custom skins for existing CMS systems you are welcome to contact me ;)
</shameless_plug>
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