Website Creation

[stormy 5]

Alright, so I designed a webpage in Photoshop. And I have a domain name and hosting with godaddy.com. Now, I'm lost. I have very little html experience or knowledge. I'm looking for someone to give me some direction on how to turn my Photoshop creation into a working website. I'd also be willing to pay someone to do it for me, however I'd need to be educated on how to update the content on my site on my own.

Thank you,

Stormy

[odokie 8]

I built my website through a DIY host.  They are there to help but I do most of it myself.  You can also Google HTML and learn alot. Good luck 

[jeremySI 18]

email me at sales@decaldude.net  and i would be more than happy to help you out as much as i can

[MaderDesign 3]

stormy, creating an entire website in photoshop is not a great idea. Slicing up the entire file, including pictures and words doesn't help the website. It is much too large to load fast, and none of the wording will be embedded html and web crawlers and bots won't be able to crawl your sites. Web Optimization will also tell you the same thing.

hope this helps.

[jeremySI 18]

i took a look at the file you sent. i would say that you could use the header as a picture and maybe the left navigation but the main portion you def only want a background. the less images you use the better since it will cut down on loading time. ill see if i can come up with something if my damn photoshop would stop crashing to let me save your images

[MaderDesign 3]

Jeremy, also, make sure when looking at the background if it can be tiled at all then try to use a little of the image as you can so that you can tile in dreamweaver to keep the load down.

[stormy 5]

I was afraid I might hear that, Mader. I'm trying to come up with a professional looking website while not spending a whole lotta cashola. I like working in Photoshop a lot, and I don't have Dreamweaver or Frontpage, so I was tryin to see what I could come up with. Let me know if you can do something with it, Jeremy.

Here is what I came up with.

[jeremySI 18]

the teal like color of your main part you can do with just setting the background color to that. then you can use text on top of it and not an image. the top border you could prob do a solid background color and have your name and everything as their own image(wont be a large size that way). the design you have there on the left can be done with an image, shouldnt be a large file since its just basic and do the text on top of it with the links

[tlzimmerman 11]

If you want to learn, I would bypass html from the start and go more php based websites.  HTML...while still completely relevant, you just can't do what you can with PHP, although the learning curve is higher.

My advice is to look into a CMS (content management system).  These are basically free, open source php based websites you can "install" on a webhost. The beauty of them is there are whole development teams building modules for the community for free all the time.  Want a shopping cart?  Download and install it.  Want an awesome flash based photo gallery? there is probly 6 of them. 

The other nice thing is once you delve in and customize the look of the site to meet your needs via templates, its extremely easy to update and upgrade things as you go because they have an administrative backend you log into to create the content.

It may seem daunting at first, but Joomla is my favorite cms.  you can learn about it at www.joomla.org.  There are countless websites and even books on how to install, template, and get a site up and running.  Yes, the learning curve will be higher than just laying down some simple html, but at the end of the day the end product is much much higher quality in my opinion. 

Just my .02, if I had the time I would help you out.  Hope you get something running.  Good luck.

[lwsimon 1]

Learning to build websites is going to take a lot longer than learning to cut vinyl.  I've done it professionally for some time.

As for the previous poster, you can't *skip* HTML.  PHP and HTML have different purposes - to build a dynamic site from scratch (which you don't want to do, btw), you'll need to know a server-side language (PHP, Python, ASP, Ruby, or others), a client-side language (Javascript), HTML, CSS, and probably a method for structuring data like XML, JSON, or similar.

Either hire someone, or set up a Wordpress site with one of the many e-commerce plugins available.  I recommend WP e-Commerce if you're on a budget, or Shopp if you have some cash to put into it.  If you want to go even less technically involved, try Shopify.com.

[tlzimmerman 11]

Yes, he explained php and html and their role together better than I did.  I was just saying I would recommend trying to go further than just a simple static html site if you are willing to learn.

[jeremySI 18]

html will more than get him his site up and running. i would suggest getting it going that way, he can read up on and learn HTML to get it how he wants. then i would jump into CSS to better layout and present the website followed some javascript to do any type of scripting needing. I definately wouldnt get into server side scripting until HTML and CSS are understand.

as for these template programs you speak of, sure they look nice and all but it will only get you so far in the game if you dont understand at least the basics behinded adding/changing content.

[Booper 2]

Just use WIX.COM, took me like 2 hours to do mine on there, you can host it thru GoDaddy and it looks pretty darn good IMO www.evilkittygraphics.com

[jeremySI 18]

not a fan of flash sites, just my opinion though. id steer away from using templates or a site builder program or anything at first. dive into making the site from scratch. learning how to make a website can come in more handy then you think.

[Booper 2]

Yeah yeah yeah you web guys are all the same with yer HTML and yer blah blah blah LOL! Im a joe blow who has a regular job and all my spare time is eaten up with a newborn baby, vinyl cutting and dealing with the wife, the LAST thing I have time for is learning yer "Magical Interwebs language" so IN MY OPINION, if it LOOKS good, and saves me a boatload of time then how can that be a bad thing LOL!

[tlzimmerman 11]

not a fan of flash sites, just my opinion though. id steer away from using templates or a site builder program or anything at first. dive into making the site from scratch. learning how to make a website can come in more handy then you think.

This is where our opinions differ.  You can do things with content management systems that a novice or web meddler like myself simply cannot do from scratch on their own.  All the heavy coding and lifting is done for you, and if you can get dangerous enough to be able to go in and tweak css and simple html.......you have some pretty sweet webpages that have a backend that its easy to update content for you and others who know nothing about building webpages.

I will use my own for example.  www.doublezdecals.com was created using joomla, free template that was slightly tweaked, free plugins that were easy to install.  I was able to do a full e-commerce webpage with payment gateway through paypal in a day, probly couple hours several more days tweaking things when I found something I didn't like.  I am not a web designer, I am a regular guy with a kid on the way, a wife, and a ton of hobbies.  I know enough about html to make a basic webpage from scratch, enough about php and css to be able to go into others code, find and tweak what I want.  When I don't know how to do something, I use the joomla forums and google and learn. 

Bottom line, in web design there are many ways to skin a cat, find something that works well for you and you are comfortable with.  Opinions will vary, but as long as it works for you and you are happy with it, thats what was important.  I made my site originally in html and css using what I knew...and it worked just fine, but it was a pain to update and in the end I wanted more......so I did my research and found my current solution.

[stormy 5]

I totally agree. This will be a huge learning experience for me, and if I get to the point where I'm comfortable with it, it's another service I'll be able to offer.

Anyone can use a template or a site builder program, and I've done that before. If you're happy with your site, tlzimmerman, and it is effective for you, that's all that matters.

I personally, am looking for something unique. Layout wise, at least.

And I totally understand how everybody's busy, don't worry. On a normal day, I wake up at 6am, shower, do homework and/or vinyl. Go to school at 8am-3:30pm. Wrestling practice 3:30-5:30. Come home. Do more vinyl and business work. See the girlfriend of 2 years til about 10. then i go to work again or try to catch some sleep. I'm on Christmas break until Monday, and that's why I've had time to start on it now.

not a fan of flash sites, just my opinion though. id steer away from using templates or a site builder program or anything at first. dive into making the site from scratch. learning how to make a website can come in more handy then you think.

[CyberChuck 4]

I currently own 6 domains and webmaster three others. For the most part, I use html and css. You'd be surprised at what can be accomplished in very little time. I also downloaded a free html editor called Note Tab Lite that speeds up the process by inserting the actual code with the click of a mouse. But, you have to understand what the code does first.

Charlie

[stormy 5]

I just purchased dreamweaver. Hopefully I can figure out how to use it. haha

[CyberChuck 4]

Stormy,

    Dreamweaver has an incredibly steep learning curve. I tried to learn it and gave up. It was easier for me to learn how to hand code. As an example, I took your image file from here; cut it up; converted the pieces to gif files and placed them in nested tables to come up with a functioning layout in less than 2 hours. You can see the result of my tinkering around here: http://www.southernsignworks.net/stormy/ . It really isn't as hard as it all looks. The page I created was done with strictly HTML - no css or anything else.

If you need any help, feel free to ask. I enjoy putting together websites - it's been a hobby for a long time now.

Charlie

[jeremySI 18]

I just purchased dreamweaver. Hopefully I can figure out how to use it. haha

i like to use dreamweaver since it shows you a live preview while you are coding. i also have notepad++ which is great for coding.

nothing against templates and what not, just saying you should at least learn some html and css so even if you have a template you can more easily modify it

[midwaste 4]

I just purchased dreamweaver. Hopefully I can figure out how to use it. haha

i like to use dreamweaver since it shows you a live preview while you are coding. i also have notepad++ which is great for coding.

nothing against templates and what not, just saying you should at least learn some html and css so even if you have a template you can more easily modify it

I haven't used DW, but +1 on Notepad++.

[Jeffrey06 2]

Yes, Dreamweaver is tuff. I still don't know my way around it, most like any Adobe programs though.

[wasatchcars 0]

Give FrontPage a shot is pretty simple and there are lots of tutorials on Utube