Web Developer Advice Needed

[SlimPickins]

Hi Everyone,

I was hoping to snag some advice from any web developers here that are fairly current on what's cool, etc. I've had some experience working with basic HTML/CSS sites in school (early 2000) and with hobby sites here and there in more current times. Back when I last checked in on the scene, the cool thing was setting up tableless layouts with floating CSS divs. I've accomplished this with a fairly static site I setup just for fun: www.deadcrow.org.

This site is pretty static and currently just contains some stick figure drawings I made when I was going through a phase (I won't go into the details) as the only content that ever really changes. You might notice a theme that ties back to my sig and avatar. Anyway, this site hasn't been updated in a while, but when I last gave it an overhaul, I killed the table layout I originally had and hacked up a bunch of floating divs using CSS. Now, I kinda want to get back into it and maybe add a blog and a *real* image gallery. If you actually look at the code for my current image setup, you'll notice that it's quite primitive.

After doing some checking around the other day (CSS3 has me pretty excited, btw), I found I was getting a lot of hits for open source CMS programs like Joomla and Word Press. It seems, based on my findings, that these are the new hip thing. Can any current developers confirm this? Is hand coding a thing of the past (aside from tweaks here and there) for setting up site layouts? If so, any recommendations on what to go with? It seems like the "big 3" right now are Joomla, Drupal, and Word Press.

Thanks in advance for any tips!

 - Pickins

[KD197]

I'm no web dev, but I guess it depends on how complicated you want to go. If you want comment boxes and tagging without coding a load of stuff yourself then things like WordPress are probably your ticket. If you wanna go simple check this: http://nine.uctleg.net/ublog.html Comments via emails is a pretty cool idea, not sure how to do that though... But you could use a bash script to upload new posts

[AfterMath]

if you are good at drawing stick figure, i suggest you get flash, you may be able to figure it out, maybetake a few tutorials, make a flash site and flash comics, i garuntee itd be a bit more popular ;-)

[snkFLOYD]

Shoot me an e-mail, I'll help you out.

lguillow@gmail.com
www.paintboxdesign.com

-snkFLOYD (formerly MFER)

[Pyrite[1up]]

What was the question again? lol

[Tesla[1up]]

The main question you should ask yourself is if you will be satisfied with a cookie cutter website or a custom built site. Wordpress is very popular but will you be happy with having the exact same site as 10,000,000 other people (only difference being the style sheet you use and a few custom widgets) or do you want something that is unique to just you ?

When creating the 1up site, I thought about using a pre-built system like wordpress or similar but quickly decided against it because I wanted 1up to stand apart from everyone else in the crowd so I coded it by hand in notepad. I realize it might not be fancy and flashy but I can at least say it's unique and I can take pride in that.

The next question you might want to ask yourself is if you have the time and talent needed to create a website by hand. You can create a site better than any CMS you could imagine by yourself and it could be just as dynamic as wordpress is, but do you want to take the time to learn all you need to learn to do it ?

It took over 100 hours to create the framework for the 1up site and it's still not even where it needs to be. Zhalix and myself have pretty intimate knowledge of the technologies that we are using to develop it with but it's still a slow process to make sure it works and functions correctly in the dozen or so browsers still in use today. The advantage of using a CMS is that is has already been time tested (for the most part) and all the hard work is already done for you. You should keep that in mind when making your decision as well.

I could write volumes about this but I am tired and I think you can understand my point but I will reiterate it anyway. Create a checklist of pros and cons for each option you have and then choose the one that works out best for you. Weigh in what your end goal is and how quickly you want to reach that goal, who you want your target audience to be, How much money / time you want to spend on the project, your overall skill level, and finally your desire to have "your own" vs "their" website and the answer will hopefully become clear to you.

Tesla[1up]

[Pyrite[1up]]

Learn CSS, and master it. Whether you roll your own or use a CMS like Wordpress, you'll need the CSS to make it look the way you want. Remember, tables are for tabular data and CSS is for layouts.

[SlimPickins]

Thanks for all the replies! Tesla and Pyrite, you have both answered my primary quetsion pretty well. I spent quite a bit of time learning layouts in CSS a couple of years ago and am pretty confident with my ability to create "templates" with HTML and CSS. My main weak point is server side scripting like PHP and knowing how to leverage it for dynamic content like images and blogs.

I think I still need to experiment more with PHP itself and with prebuilt CMS programs to see what would best suit my needs. Currently, when putting a site together, I take one of my templates (I have about 4 or 5 decent layouts) and create a directory structure like so (using a three page example):

/      <- contains index.html
/script      <- contains CSS, Javascript, etc
/images      <- contains all images used
/about      <- contains index.html
/contact   <- contains index.html


I basically just copy the index.html from root to any other subdirectories I have created for other pages, update the relevant location of the scipt and images directories and then make changes to the title, content, etc.

It's somewhat tedious, but it's quick for me now that I've done it a bunch of times. I use the Bluefish editor in Linux, as it has cool features like tabs, auto-complete, and some other handy tools.

What I was hoping to gain from a CMS program is to have the ability to use a single set of style sheets to quickly generate multiple pages (instead of making multiple copies of index.html) with the same theme. Additionally, as the term "Content Management" suggests, I'd like to be able to manage changing content easier.

One thing I pondered was dropping in "modules" for the pages that would most likely change, such as a blog page or an image gallery page, continue using my current method for generating layouts, but at least have some minimal content management.

My main question really was intended to see what everyone else was doing to accomplish similar goals.

 - Pickins

[Pyrite[1up]]

What you want can be accomplished in several ways, especially with PHP. Once you layout is done all nicely in CSS and XHTML, simply break apart the pieces that can be reused. Put all the header code in one file, all the footer code in another, may be a left or right navigation box in another, etc. Then with php you can include the files where you want them, like this:

Code: [Select]

<?php
include('header.php'); // common to every page of your site
include('navbar.php'); // ibid

<!-- Main Body Content goes here -->

include('footer.php'); // ibid
?>

[KD197]

Remember, tables are for tabular data and CSS is for layouts.

And anyone still using tables for layout need to be stabbed in the face with a fork
Also, <3 php includes
Actually, I should rethink my blog system and do it in php. Pyrite, what're your thoughts on mysql vs flatfile for simple blogs? If I work something out Pickins, you're more than welcome to it

[Pyrite[1up]]

It all depends on the situation KD, there are cases where flat files are perfectly fine. Take a look at DokuWiki, it's an open source wiki software, that doesn't use a database back-end but rather flat files. Obviously if you want to do a lot of searching though, or referential integrity, row locking, etc, a database is more appropriate.

[SlimPickins]

What you want can be accomplished in several ways, especially with PHP. Once you layout is done all nicely in CSS and XHTML, simply break apart the pieces that can be reused. Put all the header code in one file, all the footer code in another, may be a left or right navigation box in another, etc. Then with php you can include the files where you want them, like this:

Code: [Select]

<?php
include('header.php'); // common to every page of your site
include('navbar.php'); // ibid

<!-- Main Body Content goes here -->

include('footer.php'); // ibid
?>

Yeah, I just stumbled on a tutorial regarding the PHP include, which looks like it'll accomplish like 90% of what I want, so I'm probably gonna hack on the deadcrow site a bit and see what I can make happen. The only other thing I would really want at somepoint would be the ability to make updates to certain pages in a browser interface. I would mainly apply this for an image gallery or something like a "for sale" page, where one could add/remove items that were for sale (as an example).

The problem with most of the CMS programs I keep running into is that they are WAY beyond the core concept of simply "managing content" and seem to force you to design the whole site with them. I really don't need that. I'm happy coding the site in XHTML/CSS. I just want something for updating "existing" pages.

 - Pickins

[KD197]

I guess you could make a PHP-based interface, I was planning on using an HTML form + PHP script to do blog updates, but if you want to keep stuff real simple I guess you could use it to bring up the pages' source code in the browser and you could make whatever changes you want without having to login to the server and edit/edit locally and FTP up.

[Pyrite[1up]]

What you are asking for Slim is basically a "database driven website". So after mastering CSS/XHTML for static content, you'll want to learn a web based scripting language that can interface with a database.

[SlimPickins]

Yeah, I'm feeling PHP in my future. Fortunately, being able to control the fate of retailers around with world with SQL kung fu is a requirement of my day job, so I can scratch learning SQL from the list. The missing link for me right now is a scripting language to put between my markup and my database.

Thanks again for all the tips and advice!

 - Pickins