[Dark_4ce]

Alrighty. A buddy and I have been contemplating making a Warhammer/games workshop oriented website to show off our terrain and figures, and starting a forum as well for us and anyone who is interested in the hobby as well getting some of the regular customers in our store to form some sort of community. Now. I'm VERY poor at making websites and have no clue how to get a forum going any tips and ideas how to get the site going? We'd basically just want something VERY simple. Thanks.

[Kamikaze]

Well, in my quest to spread my evil CSS and proper markup obsessions here're some resources:

http://www.w3schools.com/ --- Basic tutorial/introductions to HTML and the like.

http://www.glish.com/css/ --- A bunch of common/popular layouts with example CSS code.

http://csszengarden.com --- For artistic inspiration.

http://www.w3.org --- Web standards, the important things are the specs for HTML4.1/XHTML1.0 and CSS.

http://www.alistapart.com/ --- Some very cool articles on web design, some may require advanced understanding of CSS.

http://www.phpbb.com/ --- Fairly good free/open BB software. Harder to manage templating than vB.

http://www.openbb.com/ --- Another free BB.

[Dark_4ce]

Ah cool thanks. One more question. I'll prolly have to find another server than the one I got right now right? in two months they will increase my webspace to 50mb for free, but right now its stuck at 10mb. Will this free service be enough to run a phpbb and website? Or should I look for some other good hosting?

[Liberator]

If it's going to be semi-permanent, you probably would want to find an inexpensive paid server rather than a free one.  Mostly because of all the services that such an arrangement would entail.  Don't pay more than $10 a month unless you intend to go professional with the site and offer paid services to other people.

[MatthewPapa]

Beware, some free services do not support CSS or PHP.

[WMCoolmon]

10 MB isn't enough to run anything but a minimalist forum. I'm not sure about phpbb, but it wouldn't be enough to run ikonboard.

If you can spare the cash, I'd recommend 1&1. I've got a free account from them, from a special they had some months back, never had any trouble. I've not used it much but it's got everything I could want to create a fairly large site - something like HLP, on a smaller scale, would be fully possible with their $9.99 personal Linxu account.

http://order.1and1.com/xml/order/Hosting

Still, it all depends how major you're planning on having this website be.

:thepimp:
Oh, and if you want some HTML/CSS examples you can check out my site at http://s93727692.onlinehome.us/ . I design(ed) my site with CrimsonEditor, so the source is pretty efficient and orderly.

[Stealth]

i'd worry if they support SQL on their user accounts, because good luck finding a good board that doesn't use SQL.  

www.htmlgoodies.com is a great website for reference and of course, remember, if you need any help, don't hesitate to ask

[Kamikaze]

Originally posted by MatthewPapa
Beware, some free services do not support CSS or PHP.

CSS is processed by the user agent rather than the server, so there's no reason CSS won't work AFAIK (Unless the user's browser is old or text-based).
There may be lack of support for things like Zope, various languages used for CGI, Perl, PHP, so on.

[Dark_4ce]

Cool. Thanks. I'll be looking into all of this.

[Setekh]

My advice would be to start with a centre and build from there - don't structure your site to have multiple 'centres'. Like the Array, right? It does one thing, and it does it right. That's the place to start, and then build outward.

[Dark_4ce]

Yeah, we'll just start by showcasing our models and terrain. And then go on to add a forum later on if people seem interested.

[Stealth]

yeah as long as the server supports uploading text files, it'll support CSS

[Anaz]

www.westhost.com <-- that's what my mother's site is running on atm, good packages.

Btw...I'll be eagerly awaiting your site, if I had more money, I'd be a WH40k player

[Xelion]

Just click on the layout you want, and the codes there, but I would still recommend some of Kamikaze's links. Its better to learn CSS so you know what your doing...

Intensivstation
The Noodle Incident

Good Luck with your site