what software do i need to design a website?

Raymond Lin

Raymond Lin

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Raymond
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as title, been thinking putting together a portfolio site, like the look of theimageisfound.com and jeffascough.com and would like something in a pinkar format. whats best and easiest to use? dreamweaver? fireworks? frontpage? i have all 3 but dunno where to start.
 
Hey Raymond - that's a huge question, and I believe there's many threads on here about it already so perhaps have a search and you will find more than I am able to post here.

However, there are loads of things to consider and as you rightly point out, the first of these is that you need to determine if the domain name you wish to use is actually available, and then of course, obtain it. You should also then consider and determine the quality of the site you require i.e. professional web design company or not.

Furthermore - with galleries, there are in essence two main types; (1) managed hosted services and (2) self installed applications.

Have a look at Zenfolio, or Smugmug for example - both of which provide excellent managed services for you. They allow you to create categories and groups, upload your images to their servers, password protect specified areas, you choose from a number of eyecatching predetermined designs, themes and layouts, and you pay an annual fee to them dependent on how many features you require. Usually there's two or perhaps three levels of service and features. I have a zenfolio account set up for my gallery - www.reflectingMe.com - though I haven't decided if this is finally the gallery I will stick with. I am also trying out SumgMug - which does look to be rather good, but a lot more expensive. Both however, provide similar services for around $40 per annum.

Alternatively, take a look at Coppermine, 4Images, Gallery2 or Photopost - all of which are stand alone gallery applications and require installing on your own web space, and then setting up and configuring as you require - though this is not usually as difficult as it may seem. You do need to set up a web hosting account to be able to run these applications. The first three I mentioned are actually Open Source Applications i.e. free, and Photopost is a professional gallery script costing (I think) about $130.

There's also the option you have mentioned - which is to code a www site yourself. If you have the skill and experience, and the tools - then go for it...!!! Stay away from MS FrontPage though - not the best wysiwyg web design app out there.:nono:

Now - I am not sure if I am allowed to do this, but in my business as a self employed Project Management Consultant, I regularly run online webinars covering a range of different topics, and I am about to run one re "Starting on the web - Get Your Own WWW Site up and running", where usually around 14 people attend a 2-3 hour online session, conferenced in thus where you can all speak with one another, and you can all see my computer screen as I run through each of the steps of this process. From starting with a blank canvas, through obtaining a domain name, through setting up a web hosting account, right up to ending up with a pleasing looking site. If you are interested in attending one of these sessions, please feel free to contact me for availability, pricing and the date of the next session.

Hopefully this has provided some information, and enough for you to move to the next step, whatever that might be.

Good luck.
 
theMusicMan said:
There's also the option you have mentioned - which is to code a www site yourself. If you have the skill and experience, and the tools - then go for it...!!! Stay away from MS FrontPage though - not the best wysiwyg web design app out there.:nono:




Good luck.
Click to expand...

Agree with that, if you want to use a Microsoft [spit spit] product, Web Expression is much more professional and server friendly.

There are also loads of web templates available for free or to buy on the web that you can then open in your web design program to personalise to your own specification before uploading to your server space.

The other option I looked at when considering my revamp a month or two ago was Photium, who deal specifically in portfolio hosting. They offer a one month free trial with a temporary URL, so you can set things up and generally play around with the look and settings before going for the paid for version [which as I recall was pretty good value] and your own domain name.

Whichever route you go down, good luck (y)
 
Hey Raymond - you should also take a look at LadyLens' site too, it's excellent. I believe she used a combination of her own code and another free album script called jAlbum.

Nice site LL...:)
 
:nuts: :love: I love you MM and that is very flattering, glad you like it, but my coding ability isnt that good. It was a template that I adapted for my own use. Designed plenty of basic websites but my knowlegde is limited, which is why I find the use of template really good, a sort of happy medium, plus, whilst adapting it, you learn more about the code and how its working and can carry that on to the next project, and so on. Sort of learning without realising you are learning and still a load of satisfaction from doing it.

Jalbum is an excellent way to produce an effective, professional gallery with plenty of themes, and again, once 'created' on your hard drive, can be opened in your web program and fiddled with further if not quite how you want it. Its also very quick, in that once you have a collection of full size images you want to publish, the program, shrinks, compresses, adds a water mark, etc, without having to set an action is ps or any other editing program first. (y)
 
You actually only need a text editor, like e. g. Notepad (ew) or PSPad (much better) and a bitmap editor such as the GIMP or Paint.NET (I dislike the latter, but many are fond of it).

Since it seems you want a WYSIWYG editor, it might be better to get one of them free CMS and image gallery systems theMusicMan mentioned earlier. It's the fastest way, there are lots of customizable themes available and some of them look quite nice :)
 
Its all very well using html if you have some understanding and experience but clearly like most of us Raymondo is starting from scratch with almost nil experience.
I would suggest you get hold of a cheap wysiwyg program like MS Publisher or MS Frontpage which anyone with an Office CD will have. It'l cost ya nothing and give you a chance to experiment with the included templates (pretty awful American stuff tbh ) and within an hour or two have something basic that works. Its quick, cheap (free) and easy and you have something workable to upload within a day.

I have constructed 3 basic websites within a single day using publisher one of which lasted 3 years with little alteration. i sold £50,000 worth of Digital products all over the world from it in the first year !

If you are looking for special fading effects ,animated gizmos ,sound etc the I suggest you pay someone to do the webpage for you frankly, its not worth the frustration and hair pulling.

oh and unless you have a very clear idea of what you want to achieve it would be worth trawling this site and others for a few examples that will give you a starting point at least and an idea of what you want to achieve. good luck
 
A combination of Fireworks and Dreamweaver for software m8 since you already have them both, as said above keep clear of frontpage, it works fine from your point of view but inserts loads of M$ proprietary extensions that can cause trouble for antone not using IE as a browser.

The Jeff Ascough site uses Flash and so does theimageisfound.com I think. Both are almost certainly scripts that have been adapted to suit the owners.
 
sorry completly misunderstood I wrongly assumed Raymondo was a complete novice! Dreamweaver is awesome but for a novice a bit like putting a non driver in the cockpit of an airplane with a flight manual and saying `there ya go mate this will get you to Glasgow'lol
 
well, i could go with one of those gallery hosting sites that has templates. but i have time on my hands and the site is not urgent so i am wondering how hard is it to create a nice looking flash site with the programs i have. i know if its easy then everyone would do it, i'm wondering how big a learning curve is it? last programming i did was PASCAL over 10 years ago but i'm not scared of computers, i can use CAD for example.
 
Noooooooo!!!! You may not be scared of PC's, but why reinvent th wheel??
 
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