Website Critique

A

Alexsktbrdng

Limp Gawd
Joined
Dec 31, 2002
Messages
206
Hey guys,

Everyone has always been helpful on this site so I thought I'd ask a question of you. I'm working on a small website for a company that works as a sales rep for several product lines. They asked me to make them a site that lists all the products they represent and have a few samples from each product line (so potential customers can see all their services very quickly).

Anyways, I'm not great at any programming language (I have a little experience in HTML) and have started to use frames as the primary setup for the site. This is what I have so far: http://www.geocities.com/lord_karnack/Index.html (I didn't upload all the files because it's a pain in the ass with geocities, but the Great American link on the side will work and show you the format I'm working with).

I have a few questions:

Will this format work (the frames)?

I would love to have a format similar to www.towcaps.com (I really like the javascript menu on the side and top) Is this easy to make? (I don't have much javascript experience but have worked with C# quite a bit, which is kind of similar to java)

Any Suggestions for a hosting site? (ease of use is the #1 priority)

Sorry to be all over the place, but any help would be greatly appreciated!
 
You should spend a couple weeks looking at XHTML and CSS. These will form the foundation of your coding. Then you can start looking into JavaScript, PHP, etc.

I use 1&1 for hosting. Very easy to upload files with an FTP client.
 
Stick with CSS and XHTML as GJS suggested, using CSS and XHTML to mimic the design pattern of "towcaps" (or however else you prefer).

Once you get the pages done how you like, one (possible) next step would be to separate the common page elements into common header/footer/navigation pages, and using a server-side language to place pointers to these files where needed (ex: PHP, ASP, ASP.Net, JSP). This would eliminate the need for HTML frames and further simplify your design and maintenance.
 
Frames fell out of favor with the web design world many years ago. There are very, very few, if any, reasons to ever use them nowadays. Today's web is driven by xHTML/CSS, Javascript and server-side scripts (e.g. PHP. ASP.NET, etc).

If you're only concentrating on design, then like others said, take a couple weeks to get up to speed with xHTML/CSS. As always, I'll recommend the wonderful http://www.w3schools.com website to get you started.

I'll caution though that doing layouts properly with CSS can be very daunting for the beginner due to various browser rendering quirks *cough* IE6 *cough*, but there are online tools that can help you overcome many common hurdles, such as YAML, but it is important that you first grasp the concept of xHTML/CSS before diving into any of those tools since you will need to tweak them to fit your particular project.
 
Thanks for the help guys, I'm looking into xhtml/css now. Would you reccomend using those to build a site like this? I would like that menu across the top and down the left side, then have the target be the middle of the page. What kinds of ways could I do that without using frames?
 
Thank you GJS I've started reading the CSS tutorials and should be ready to start coding soon!
 
Honestly, with the lack of experience in this I would suggest using a type of WYSIWYG site builder. This would lay a foundation for you and you can build on it.

I know a lot of guys on here will disagree but it is what I would do especially if you aren't getting paid very much to do this. It is good to learn the language and coding for future use but when I built a site I used what I knew best at the time which was graphic design and some common sense of putting things together and with that I used a a site builder to put it all up for me.

Like I said, a LOT of people wouldn't suggest doing what I did but its just an alternative if you want to get a nice site together easily and efficiently.

I do recommend learning the coding and languages if you decide to do this professionally or just want to learn something new.
 
Hey viets7ylez I actually made the first draft I posted up there in Dreamweaver, which I've use before. But I always regret it later because I'll want to change something and it's just a huge pain. I've been looking at CSS and it really seems like the best option, and shouldn't really be that complicated. I'm not gonna be using any sessions variables or anything complicated like that, simply because I'm too much of a beginner. I will definitely check out those other sites you mentioned, MikeTrike and GJS (w3schools has been really good so far). I knew this forum would come through for me, you guys are the best!
 
I believe Dreamweaver has a Design View which works this way. Also, Dreamweaver comes loaded with templates for you to use. Of course you need to know CSS - which you should know for any web development work.
 
Okay I've been working on the layout a bit more and have a very rough version of what I would like the page to look like. It's a simple layout, header on top, then a horizontal menu below that, and a menu on the left, the content in the middle and a small footer. I have most of it in place here: http://www.geocities.com/lord_karnack/topleftmenus.html

Couple of questions;

1. How do I get that layout on every page, do I need to have all the code for it on every page (Or can I use an external .css file to preload some of it).

2. What is a good site to temporarily host some files (just so I dont have an ugly banner)
 
Menu navigation is starting to get better. My eyes, however, seemed to look near the upper navigation instead of the side navigation, which seemed counter-intuitive when the upper navigation seems like child links from the left-hand navigation. Or I could be mis-understanding the navigation flow b/c of the filler wording being used. I'll hold of on other comments relating to color after the navigation placement/logic becomes more solidified.


Replies to your questions:

1 - This ties into my previous comment about learning a server-side language, so that you have common page aspects/formats, and simply "include" or "nest" the child content pages within. Until you do this, you'll simply have to copy/paste the common header, menu, footer, etc.

2 - Take a look at this thread for some options.
 
I use bluehost and for the price love the features

You may want to use a wordpress or joomla cms that would make you and your companies life easier when updating, it seems that you are new to coding, etc. and that using a free cms would be a much more efficient and quick solution
 
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