Hard Light Productions Forums

Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: colecampbell666 on May 11, 2009, 07:05:27 pm

Title: Making a Website
Post by: colecampbell666 on May 11, 2009, 07:05:27 pm
What is a good editor with which to make a website? Is good old Notepad++ the best option? I don't want some fancy kind of uber-site, just something like the HLP frontpage or the SCP site.
Title: Re: Making a Website
Post by: FUBAR-BDHR on May 11, 2009, 07:09:58 pm
If you are talking a very simple one then you could probably do it using a text editor but I'd go with a web design program of some kind.  Been ages since I made one and back then I used whatever came with Mozilla.  I do use either notepad or wordpad to edit the ones that are already set up.  Too lazy to download a new program. 
Title: Re: Making a Website
Post by: an0n on May 11, 2009, 07:11:25 pm
I use Notepad and Photoshop.

Anyone who uses Dreamweaver is a faggot.
Title: Re: Making a Website
Post by: colecampbell666 on May 11, 2009, 07:14:40 pm
How do I go about? Do I write in the basic stuff (structure of links, text) and then shinify it or do I work from the top finishing as I go?
Title: Re: Making a Website
Post by: FUBAR-BDHR on May 11, 2009, 07:17:49 pm
Find a simple website and view source.  Won't work well for app generated sites but will for simple ones.  Best bet is to get a freeware program to start out.  It probably won't do what you want but get it close then go poking around in notepad to see the code. 
Title: Re: Making a Website
Post by: an0n on May 11, 2009, 07:17:57 pm
Personally, I tend to build a structure based around tables or whatever to get all the layout down, then start pissing about with background colours and CSS and stuff, then throw in some basic graphics.

Once that's done I just tighten things up as I see them.
Title: Re: Making a Website
Post by: colecampbell666 on May 11, 2009, 07:45:26 pm
Best bet is to get a freeware program to start out.
Suggestions?
Title: Re: Making a Website
Post by: BloodEagle on May 11, 2009, 07:47:57 pm
I prefer Arachnophilia (http://www.arachnoid.com/arachnophilia/) for coding in HTML.

--

Web-design programs always produce sloppy and/or buggy code. If you really, really want a top-of-the-line site, but you can't code it yourself, then you should hire someone to do it for you.
Title: Re: Making a Website
Post by: an0n on May 11, 2009, 09:58:09 pm
Indeed.

I'd build ya one, but if you're looking for freeware programs I'm probably outside your price range.
Title: Re: Making a Website
Post by: Solatar on May 11, 2009, 09:59:29 pm
I've done some very basic websites (basically as work-study/scholarship) for the music program of my university. I just used Araneae, but any text editor that highlights tags and such should be fine. I just stuck to basic HTML (with CSS) and it turned out alright.
Title: Re: Making a Website
Post by: an0n on May 11, 2009, 09:59:47 pm
Actually, just use what HLP uses:

http://modxcms.com/

And customize the **** outta it. Or skin it.
Title: Re: Making a Website
Post by: IceFire on May 11, 2009, 11:17:21 pm
I like using a combination of Notepad++ and Dreamweaver depending on the occasion and what the constraints of the project are.  Your best tool is ultimately the ability to understand the basics of HTML and CSS and then Google around for answers to problems that will no doubt plague you early on.
Title: Re: Making a Website
Post by: blackhole on May 11, 2009, 11:21:47 pm
I used notepad++ to code my personal website. DO NOT try coding your own forum though, you'll die.
Title: Re: Making a Website
Post by: karajorma on May 12, 2009, 02:08:34 am
Anyone who uses Dreamweaver is a faggot.

And that's earned you 3 days off.
Title: Re: Making a Website
Post by: Mr. Vega on May 12, 2009, 02:28:24 am
Pfffff. One day.
Title: Re: Making a Website
Post by: karajorma on May 12, 2009, 02:44:49 am
Yeah. I was just about to change it since an0n probably wasn't around last time this came up.
Title: Re: Making a Website
Post by: kode on May 12, 2009, 02:49:23 am
Anyone who uses Dreamweaver is a faggot.

And that's earned you 3 days off.

You're saying you use dreamweaver?
Title: Re: Making a Website
Post by: karajorma on May 12, 2009, 02:59:26 am
Nope. I would have perma-banned him if I did. :p
Title: Re: Making a Website
Post by: Sandwich on May 12, 2009, 07:03:57 am
I'm tempted to perma-ban anyone who uses DreamWeaver. :p

I gotta side with an0n on this one - at least as far as the webdev tools are concerned. I code everything by hand, using NotePad++, or TopStyle, or a combo of both. I also work nearly exclusively with CMSes, such as the aforementioned MODx, or my current preference, ExpressionEngine (http://www.expressionengine.com), which allows me total control over the design and code produced.

As for the process I go through, usually I have a design done up in Photoshop, which I then convert to HTML+CSS bit by bit. That skeleton HTML template then gets sliced up into modular, reusable parts according to whichever CMS I'm using. I end up inserting the content-pulling tags into the resulting templates, tying it all together.
Title: Re: Making a Website
Post by: vyper on May 12, 2009, 07:31:32 am
So what was he banned for? faggot?
Title: Re: Making a Website
Post by: kode on May 12, 2009, 10:03:00 am
in all seriousness, using a templating engine or something would probably be best.

I personally more or less stopped caring much about design of web pages and nowadays use emacs-muse (http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/EmacsMuse) and webby (http://webby.rubyforge.org/) for my web publishing, both of which offer a lot of options for styling and so on, if you are so inclined. For example, my tumblelog (http://www.lysator.liu.se/~busk/tumblog/) may consist of static files, but it has RSS and imo looks pretty okay, especially with me not putting a whole lot of effort into it, and all I really have to do to publish a new post is to put a few commands into a terminal and edit a flat text-file. It then processes the stuff, fixes markup and puts it into templates and uploads it to the web server.

And of course, if you have support for serverside scripting like php, it's just a matter of finding some piece of crap software that you can beat into enough submission to have it do what you want it to do at least most of the time.
Title: Re: Making a Website
Post by: karajorma on May 12, 2009, 05:27:35 pm
So what was he banned for? faggot?

Yep. Use of homophobic insults is little different to use of racial epitaphs. We do have gay members on HLP and they shouldn't have to wade through other people's small-minded bigotry just to post.
Title: Re: Making a Website
Post by: Davros on May 13, 2009, 04:12:38 am
for a simple website i recommend namo
just run the wizard and voila
http://www.namo.com/downloads/webeditor.php
Title: Re: Making a Website
Post by: colecampbell666 on May 13, 2009, 06:23:35 am
Thanks for the suggestions, I'll have to try a few of them.