Using 3rd party web templates?

G-Money

Hello,

I'm thinking about getting into web development to try and earn a few extra euro's. I work in IT and I have a good knowledge of software and hardware and I have done some coding in VB and C# in the past.

I guess the two main obstacles that I have intially are that I have no skills or talent when it comes to the actual graphic aspect. I know what I think looks nice but when it comes to creating nice graphics and colour schemes, I just have no ability in that area.

The 2nd obstacle I think may be that I've never been trained as a developer or anything so I know there's lots of concepts I don't necessarily understand, such as OOP. It goes without saying that my knowledge of building secure websites would be almost zero.

I suppose I'd like to hear from a few others who've been in a similar boat. I guess if I was creating a website I could track down some sort of 3rd party/royalty free template and use that. But I can't shake the nagging feeling that it's the easy/unskilled way out. Do many other web developers use ready made templates?

Regarding the technical side I'm not so worried about. However obviously if I had to create some sort of e-commerce site, then things could get tricky.

I'm pretty sure I could easily create some sort of basic website. However even creating something with say some sort of expanding menu structure or drop-down list that changes other content, could be difficult.

Thoughts?

Cheers.

whizgremlin

Hi grandmaster,

Reading your post it seems to me that your coming up with alot of ideas as to why you shouldnt do something and how you wouldnt be good at it! As a webdesigner myself I did think what you have thought at the very beginning but when I look back now I'm sorry I never did it sooner! Don't fall into that trap, go for it, you seem like you have a good head on your shoulders and you're into IT, webdesign isnt that hard really, its primarily code and it looks like thats your area..

From the design side of things, that can be tricky, but its also easy to workaround, like you said you can always obtain website templates or whats better, grab yourself a copy of Photoshop, play around with it, get some tutorials - its not that hard to pick up, your inspiration can be instilled from other creations i.e. website templates...

You cant learn everything and the way the web works now theres always something new to pick up and new standards to ahere to... there are loads of people out there who probably know less than you and are going for it, why cant you? If you have the intellect to look at yourself and weigh up what you need to do and where you need to go with it then you're already in the running...as for the e-commerce/menu elements these are pretty straightforward and nothing to be worried about

URL: http://www.dynamicdrive.com - just have a look at all the menu options and galleries etc you can avail of there, they are all free and basically copy n paste...you just need to be armed with a few more resources to get yourself on the right path, if a client is looking for something a bit more high-end then you can brush up on some code or find a tutorial.... the point is stop thinkin about what you can't do and just go for it, if it works, fantastic, if it doesnt...just try til you do get it working :rolleyes:

G-Money

Nice one thanks, I'll check out that site this evening.

When it comes to software packages to use, what would be worth looking at? I've heard of Cold Fusion but my limited research seems to suggest its for specialised back end server work, I could be wrong. I've heard a bit about Dreamweaver too and have a trial version. It seems ok but again, I don't know how well it stands up to other products.

I think the other common denominator between these two is that they are extortionately priced. I know there are other "sources" for these products but I'd rather keep it all legal and above board.

Any suggestions?

whizgremlin

grandmaster wrote: »

Nice one thanks, I'll check out that site this evening.

When it comes to software packages to use, what would be worth looking at? I've heard of Cold Fusion but my limited research seems to suggest its for specialised back end server work, I could be wrong. I've heard a bit about Dreamweaver too and have a trial version. It seems ok but again, I don't know how well it stands up to other products.

I think the other common denominator between these two is that they are extortionately priced. I know there are other "sources" for these products but I'd rather keep it all legal and above board.

Any suggestions?

there are lots of programs out there, its easy to get confused and end up having 101 programs for 101 different things! My advice is to get into Dreamweaver to start you off, and get Adobe Photoshop also, once you have those two you can add on programs as you go along.. Alot of people are not fans of dreamweaver some opt for frontpage IMO i think its very good if you dont know the code or want to generate a few pages very quickly it does the trick nicely....as you will find out the programs you will use will vary depending on what your design needs are...

As for trial versions, this can be really handy when you are just starting out, you can try the products out before you go ahead and purchase, take advantage of this and have a look around for web authoring programs or WYSIWYG (What you see is what you get) Editors i.e. code and design view... http://www.download.com or http://www.tucows.com are very good sites to browse through... hope this helps...goodluck!

Axwell

whizgremlin wrote: »

Alot of people are not fans of dreamweaver some opt for frontpage

No professional or aspiring web designer would go near Frontpage, someone messing around with their own personal site maybe.

OP to be honest before you go jumping in at the advice above and getting into Dreamweaver and Photoshop you should go look at the basics of current web coding. Considering your background you should find it ok going through it and be able to then move on to the design/graphics part.

I would suggest primarily have a look at www.w3schools.com and read up on html, xhtml and css. Avoid using tables and look at how divs and css are used now for better standards design. If you prefer video tutorials take a look at lynda.com which requires a subscription but is very good.

For coding by hand a lot of people use notepad++ as dreamweaver can be a bit messy with the way it represents divs etc, also hand coding is a better way to learn than using WYSIWYG editors a lot of designers would say.
As regards the the design aspect have a look on the web for some css templates and mess around with those, look as cssbeauty and zengarden for some ideas of what can be done. There should be enough in all that to start you off and give you plenty of reading material for the next while.

whizgremlin

Axwell wrote: »

No professional or aspiring web designer would go near Frontpage, someone messing around with their own personal site maybe.

OP to be honest before you go jumping in at the advice above and getting into Dreamweaver and Photoshop you should go look at the basics of current web coding. Considering your background you should find it ok going through it and be able to then move on to the design/graphics part.

......

:rolleyes: I was not suggesting to use Frontpage, Ive never used it...I still stand by Photoshop and Dreamweaver to get you started - why struggle to start off, you can easily pick up the code as you go along and of course the more advanced options like tables/css/xml will come into affect once you have the basics, but from a pure learning/beginners point of view using Dreamweaver to start off makes sense as you can code and see whats happening also as you go along - it all depends on the individual and their learning capacity - As for Photoshop, this is also the best graphics program out there, Adobe have a load of superior programs and whether ur a beginner or expert they are a must have.

From my own background ive only ever used metapad/notepad to code my sites and occasionally opted for dreamweaver for various reasons...and being an accomplished webdesigner the advice I offered is sound and relevant and in the best interests of the OP, there is no need to be persnickity about things... we're supposed to be here to help :rolleyes:

G-Money

Thanks for the replies so far. I'll check out those resources you mentioned. I know myself though that I don't enjoy spending hours reading material and I'd much rather get stuck in. I have an idea for a site that I've been thinking about developing so I'll use those things to help me along.

whizgremlin

grandmaster wrote: »

Thanks for the replies so far. I'll check out those resources you mentioned. I know myself though that I don't enjoy spending hours reading material and I'd much rather get stuck in. I have an idea for a site that I've been thinking about developing so I'll use those things to help me along.

best of luck grandmaster, let us know how you get on! Happy web designing!

AARRRGH

PHP is a very easy language for web development. You can totally ignore it's OO aspects as well.

A great book is PHP & MySQL Web Development by Luke Welling.

herya

Maybe you don't need to learn and offer everything at once? If your experience is more on the development/programming side why not to team with a designer who can also take care of the visuals and front end code while you develop applications and work with databases.

It is very rare that one person can do it all, from professional logo/graphic work and rich multimedia through front end to complex database driven development. If they claim they can do it all more often than not it's lousy or at best mediocre work on some of those fronts.

You have a good grounding in programming, I'd concentrate on this now. Get to know PHP or ASP and how it ties with XHTML first, leave graphics and CSS out for now. There are loads of freeware developer's editors available, Dreamweaver (in hand coding mode) could make sense too. Stay away from FrontPage, it's an embarrassment

There are good templates to be found too, the only thing is you need to have enough taste to choose them well and enough skills to customise them perfectly to your clients needs. Most templates hurt your eyes because there is no thought at all behind this process or the customisation is extremely crude.

Axwell

whizgremlin wrote: »

:rolleyes: I was not suggesting to use Frontpage, Ive never used it...I still stand by Photoshop and Dreamweaver to get you started - why struggle to start off, you can easily pick up the code as you go along and of course the more advanced options like tables/css/xml will come into affect once you have the basics, but from a pure learning/beginners point of view using Dreamweaver to start off makes sense as you can code and see whats happening also as you go along - it all depends on the individual and their learning capacity - As for Photoshop, this is also the best graphics program out there, Adobe have a load of superior programs and whether ur a beginner or expert they are a must have.

From my own background ive only ever used metapad/notepad to code my sites and occasionally opted for dreamweaver for various reasons...and being an accomplished webdesigner the advice I offered is sound and relevant and in the best interests of the OP, there is no need to be persnickity about things... we're supposed to be here to help :rolleyes:

If you are an accomplishing web designer then please dont be calling using tables as advanced, tables are obsolete and bad design practice and should be avoided unless being used for tabulated data and nothing else. CSS isnt advanced and is now the basic standard of web design along with xhtml is creating any website from scratch apart. We are here to help but if you are going to give bad advice then its hardly help. OP as i said above check out w3schools.com and lynda.com for a start and go from there once you have your head around that. Photoshop and Dreamweaver are down the line for you to be honest, also have a look at the various CMS options out there with templates such as Wordpress, Joomla and CMS made simple which can save you time on design and let you focus on coding. But as someone else said maybe hooking up with a designer and maybe focusing on your development would be a better option also.

whizgremlin

Axwell wrote: »

If you are an accomplishing web designer then please dont be calling using tables as advanced, tables are obsolete and bad design practice and should be avoided unless being used for tabulated data and nothing else. CSS isnt advanced and is now the basic standard of web design along with xhtml is creating any website from scratch apart. We are here to help but if you are going to give bad advice then its hardly help. ........

:rolleyes: i knew you were going to go on about that...but u know, i dont have to prove anything to you, my work speaks for itself as does all of my happy clients.

in addition; for the record i hate css and i love tables :cool: you seem to have an axe to grind Axwell with ur holier than thou approach to this thread, instead of attacking people why dont you offer positive comments.

And as the OP stated, he would rather not spend time going through research material and is getting stuck in, which is the right attitude to have, and best of luck to him...for me this is case closed on this thread as I have no desire to further fuel your rant

Axwell

I have no interest in your work or your clients nor have I an axe to grind. I have given the OP plenty of tips and advice one of them being avoid using tables as its bad design and obsolete in web standards. If hes going to learn then why learn bad code and design from the start, do it right and learn the right way. Just because you like tables doesnt mean its the way to go, it fails validations, its bad design and fails web standards. It is a well known fact that xhtml and css are far better and tables should be avoided. Im not going to get into a big debate with you over it as there are loads of threads on it. But for the OP if you are going to get into this business avoid tables, simple as.

herya

Axwell wrote: »

But for the OP if you are going to get into this business avoid tables, simple as.

+1.

Apart from data presentation of course, which is what tables are intended for. CSS is not perfect by any means but table layouts are useless as they generate heaps of unnecessary code you need to waddle through to update some small thing.

OP you may want to try something like this - it's a simple tutorial that teaches you how to code a basic CSS styled HTML page:
http://www.w3.org/Style/Examples/011/firstcss

There's more where this one comes from.

G-Money

I think I'll start out by creating that site I have an idea for. It doesn't have to be fancy and finding a half decent template and allowing the user to filter some data on it will be enough.

As for pairing with someone to do graphics, one of my sisters is very talented when it comes to graphics and they seem to have a much better grasp of graphics and using graphical software than I do. So I could certainly use that to my advantage.

I had investigated getting into web development a year or two ago when I was unemployed but in the end I found a job so it went onto the back burner. I have a couple of books about web development so I'll dust them off and get started. I think I have one on PHP and another which discusses CSS and stuff like that.

Now I'd just like to make a bit of extra money seeing I got a pay cut a few months ago. I'm also looking at it with an eye to the future as well. I also indirectly got in contact with someone who wants a website created so that might be worth investigating. I think though at the start I'd offer to do the work for free in order to get the experience. It would be a small site so it might be good training.

Axwell

Definitely if your sister already knows her stuff in that area use that to your advantage. Have a look at XAMP if you want to host php on your own machine or WAMP if you want to use Asp if you are going to go down the root of using some development coding before having to buy web hosting and putting it up there.

ve

I couldn't agree more with everything that Axwell has said on this thread. What bothers me about individuals offering professional web development services (design is a seperate issue), is that adhering to standards is considered "fancy" or "unnecessary", which is definately not the case. Using XHTML to structure content and CSS to manage presentation is the way it is supposed to be done, right now, not next year or the year after.

OP, you may be used to writing code, and you know there are many ways to produce the same user experience. Some ways may be more efficient than others. If you wrote me a simple application to do some trivial task, how you present the user interface to me is seperate from the actual application logic and unless I can see your code I can only take a guess at how you put it together. It could be extremely inefficient from a resource consumption perspective, and although the user "sees" the same thing doesn't mean that it's the equivalent to a more efficient piece of code. We do not evaluate software based on screen shots of the user interface, because there is a lot more to it than that. The web is no different. It is possible to create a desktop application in Java or C# that looks the business, but after 30 seconds the application crashes or it actually does damage to your machine or [insert here long list of things that could go wrong]. Again these things could not be conveyed by purely making a visual assessment of the UI.

So this idea that web development is about producing something that someone can instantly validate based on "how it looks" is absolute balls. Human eyes are not the only thing that will interact with websites, so conforming with standards is not difficult to do, but is absolutely essential. The problem with the web industry is that it's easy to get in to because it's easy to get away with doing things to wrong way. Sure if your customer's can't tell the difference between a solid and terrible implementation then of course you will have "happy customers", especially if they're just looking at the "design" and not the code.

Now I'm not saying for a second you deliver a website to a client and open up the source code with smug look on your face, because to them they will probably not be interested or even care. But what happens when their site doesn't render and/or function properly in a new web browser and they have their customers or friends telling them that their website is pants. Do you think they will be turning around and saying to them "ah sure cross browser compatability isn't important". I'm sorry, it is expected to work. Developing to standards is the best way to come closest to meeting this expectation in the present day and as we move towards the future with more and more browsers and net access devices becoming available.

So back to you again OP, don't rush, learn how to do it right. Don't use a WYSIWYG editor. If you are used to looking at code, don't give up on it now. When you use WYSIWYG editors you more than likely will have to go back and make modifications to the generated code by hand to make it standards compliant. Personally I think WYSIWYG editors should be used to create content, not content structure/design.

To all the people who ignore standards, your days are numbered and you will have to ditch your obsolete ways. Personally I think it's only a matter of time for browsers to evolve to the point where they will more obviously penalise non standards compliant code bases, at which stage half of the service providers in this country will disappear. Some will upgrade their skills, but the longer you spend doing things the wrong way, the harder it is to learn the right way. That goes for anything. Web development is a technical subject, although people are getting away with treating it like Desktop Publishing. We have much more control and concerns when developing web pages properly than we do with traditional desktop publishing tasks. E.g. compare the methods used to author a word document to that of developing a web page. For starters we "author" a word document, we do not "develop" it.

I am tired of being made feel like I am being pedantic and engineering excessive complexity, when all I am doing is evolving with a technical trend for the good of the WWW. All I can say is God help the "desktop publishers" of web development when we reach Web3.0, where we will be really forced to seperate information from presentation.

Best of luck. If you have any questions I am more than happy to help when I can. If I can give you any advise, please take on board what I have said and do what Axwell has suggested by looking at the likes of http://www.w3schools.com . You might not have a masterpiece in a week, but what you will have is knowledge you will not have to ditch and replace in the near future.

pontovic

The above post was excellent and should win post of the month. I echo each sentiment.

You should check out the following links:

-- http://www.sitepoint.com
-- http://www.alistapart.com
-- http://www.24ways.org
-- http://www.iwf.ie

Pixelcraft

Great post VE

Eoin

Axwell wrote: »

I have no interest in your work or your clients nor have I an axe to grind. I have given the OP plenty of tips and advice one of them being avoid using tables as its bad design and obsolete in web standards. If hes going to learn then why learn bad code and design from the start, do it right and learn the right way. Just because you like tables doesnt mean its the way to go, it fails validations, its bad design and fails web standards. It is a well known fact that xhtml and css are far better and tables should be avoided. Im not going to get into a big debate with you over it as there are loads of threads on it. But for the OP if you are going to get into this business avoid tables, simple as.

As herya said, they are absolutely fine for displaying tabular data. This does not mean that they will fail validation, or that they are obsolete (as in deprecated).

A validator has no real way of knowing if tags are being used semantically, so a page like this will validate.

[html]
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE html
PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN"
"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"&gt;
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml&quot; xml:lang="en" lang="en">
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=utf-8" />
<title>Virtual Library</title>
</head>
<body>
<table>
<tr>
<td colspan="2">header</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>nav</td>
<td>content</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td colspan="2">footer</td>
</tr>
</table>
</body>
</html>
[/html]

Now, I completely agree that it's very bad practice, but I am just mentioning it because:

1) tables do have their place; using them semantically does not mean they are deprecated.
2) don't solely rely on a validator to check that your (x)html is usable

AARRRGH

herya wrote: »

Apart from data presentation of course, which is what tables are intended for. CSS is not perfect by any means but table layouts are useless as they generate heaps of unnecessary code you need to waddle through to update some small thing.

I mostly agree.

1. Tables have their place. As you say, for data presentation.
2. 99.999999% of internet users won't know or care if your website uses a table based layout instead of a CSS based layout. I agree CSS is better in the long run from a designers perspective, but to users it makes little difference. Also, in my experience, table based layouts tend to be more browser-proof than CSS layouts.

Pixelcraft

AARRRGH wrote: »

2. 99.999999% of internet users won't know or care if your website uses a table based layout instead of a CSS based layout. I agree CSS is better in the long run from a designers perspective, but to users it makes little difference. Also, in my experience, table based layouts tend to be more browser-proof than CSS layouts.

Have you ever tried a screen reader on a table based site? I think the percentage of people with accessibility issues is much larger than you think.

AARRRGH

Pixelcraft wrote: »

Have you ever tried a screen reader on a table based site? I think the percentage of people with accessibility issues is much larger than you think.

I think I'd take a chance that somewhere close to 99.999999% of people who come to the average website aren't using a screen reader.

Certainly it's not a major issue and doesn't warrant the passionate TABLES SHOULD BE BLOWN UP response we so often see on this forum.

By all means be obsessive about your website design, but you shouldn't force your obsessions onto other people. If ya get me.

But in general I agree you should use CSS whereever possible.

Axwell

eoin wrote: »

As herya said, they are absolutely fine for displaying tabular data.

Yes I had already made that point anyways in one of my previous posts before the one he responded to.

herya

AARRRGH wrote: »

I think I'd take a chance that somewhere close to 99.999999% of people who come to the average website aren't using a screen reader.

I believe that you may be way off base here, as far as I remember the number of visually impaired people in Ireland is high five figures, and probably corresponding figures in the world. Actually many of them spend more time online than they would if they had good sight because their outdoors exploration is limited as are their paper reading options. For these reasons they are also promising online shoppers.

From the commercial point of view, maybe some crappy personal blog can afford neglecting such a user base but a decent professional website - especially selling something - wouldn't probably like to turn them away.

AARRRGH wrote: »

Certainly it's not a major issue and doesn't warrant the passionate TABLES SHOULD BE BLOWN UP response we so often see on this forum.

Somebody also wrote somewhere that we should design with accessibility in mind "because it the right thing to do". Good enough reason for me!

Eoin

Axwell wrote: »

Yes I had already made that point anyways in one of my previous posts before the one he responded to.

I know, but saying they are "obsolete" implies that they have been deprecated, and saying they won't validate, even in a strict xhtml doc, is not correct.

I agree with not using them for layout, despite valid (x)html and CSS not being rendered consistently, but I just think it's important that proponents of web standards don't overstate their point too much.

Anyway, to get back more on topic:

grandmaster - don't worry if your graphic skills aren't great. Being a web developer and a web designer are often two very different skill sets. I've not many people who are both good developers and good designers.

I think the web 2.0 look and feel is bridging the gap a little though, as there's a much closer link between design and functionality, as opposed to the graphic heavy designs of the past. That's all just my opinion though, I'm sure people will disagree.

I only do this stuff on the side, but if I'm doing a site for someone, I will get one of my designer contacts to do a template for me which I will cut up and apply to the site. I recognise I can't come up with a good design myself, so just use people who can.

AARRRGH

herya wrote: »

I believe that you may be way off base here, as far as I remember the number of visually impaired people in Ireland is high five figures, and probably corresponding figures in the world. Actually many of them spend more time online than they would if they had good sight because their outdoors exploration is limited as are their paper reading options. For these reasons they are also promising online shoppers.

Does visually impaired mean you use a screen reader? Not necessarily.

Even if we have 20,000 people in Ireland using screen readers, which I doubt, that's only 0.44% of people. Hardly a major demographic!

I guess I just find the outrage against tables a bit OTT, considering there are hundreds other things which are waaaaay more important, such as creating a nice, simple, friendly design. The important things don't seem to bother people as much.

herya wrote: »

Somebody also wrote somewhere that we should design with accessibility in mind "because it the right thing to do". Good enough reason for me!

Yeah, that sounds reasonable.

professore

AARRRGH wrote: »

. Also, in my experience, table based layouts tend to be more browser-proof than CSS layouts.

Yes and css table-style layouts take 10 times longer to get working correctly in all major browsers and can look different in various browsers. Until browsers are all standards compliant (Internet Explorer !!!!) then you can actually get in trouble with your clients for adhering to the standards.

professore

herya wrote: »

I believe that you may be way off base here, as far as I remember the number of visually impaired people in Ireland is high five figures, and probably corresponding figures in the world. Actually many of them spend more time online than they would if they had good sight because their outdoors exploration is limited as are their paper reading options. For these reasons they are also promising online shoppers.

From the commercial point of view, maybe some crappy personal blog can afford neglecting such a user base but a decent professional website - especially selling something - wouldn't probably like to turn them away.



Somebody also wrote somewhere that we should design with accessibility in mind "because it the right thing to do". Good enough reason for me!

Surely there are screen readers that can read table based sites - tables are as structured as css !!!! This is a de-facto standard.

AARRRGH

professore wrote: »

Surely there are screen readers that can read table based sites - tables are as structured as css !!!! This is a de-facto standard.

I think some people are a bit obsessed passionate about web standards. :pac:

No harm in that really, but I don't think it should make them so angry, especially when failing to follow every web standard normally makes little or no difference to the end user.

herya

professore wrote: »

Yes and css table-style layouts take 10 times longer to get working correctly in all major browsers and can look different in various browsers. Until browsers are all standards compliant (Internet Explorer !!!!) then you can actually get in trouble with your clients for adhering to the standards.

Honestly I can't see how for any half decent coder writing a cross browser CSS is any more difficult than writing nested tables with colspans and rowspans. And updating XHTML/CSS files is so much easier. People just prefer what they are used to if they've been coding tables for a while but with this strategy they'll be left behind.

I agree that CSS is not perfect for layouts (which is why I'm currently reading up on OOP CSS) but neither were tables.

professore wrote: »

Surely there are screen readers that can read table based sites - tables are as structured as css !!!! This is a de-facto standard.

Your screen reader doesn't know if the table code is a genuine tabular data or a layout trick so it will read "table 1, first row, first cell, second cell, third cell, second row...) etc. even though there is no real content there. Imagine listening to this for a complex nested table layout.