Website Templetes?

[PhreeZone 20]

I'm looking at setting up a new website/redoing our current one and I was looking at just buying a premade templete and customizing it to suit our needs. Anyone have any experience with any of the online companies selling templetes? Also why do they sell you a package that includes the HTML, the GIF/JPG's and a PSD file? The PSD seems to be a photoshop document that is the webpage, but in multilayer format. Seems pointless to me... what am I missing?

I wrote our current page from the gound up in Notepad and it works, but quite frankly its lacking a lot and its just generally a pain in the rear to look up for to do HTML again for a 1 time a year project.

Yesterday is history
And tomorrow is a mystery

Parachutemanuals.com

[CrazyIvan 0]

Have you considered getting some FREEWARE, there are some very nice ones out there, WYSIWYG HTML editors, so, NO HTML coding or very little.

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Blue Skies and May the Force be with you.

[skycat 0]

How much extra crap code does that insert. I need an easy HTML program for Derek so he can do updates on his website that I built him since I don't have to time to keep up with all the changes that he keeps wanting to make.

Fly it like you stole it!

[beej 0]

The psd layers are there for you to have the ability to edit a layer. For example, you may have a fancy header image in the template package, that has 'your company name here'. You can then go into photoshop and edit the text within that layer. Thus preserving whatever gfx are behind (or maybe in front) of the text.

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If the shit fits - wear it (blues brothers)--

[ChasingBlueSky 0]

My company purchased it's website via a template - they are usually pretty cheap and a decent time saver.

_________________________________________
you can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me....
I WILL fly again.....

[PhreeZone 20]

I've got most the editors that are on the market on my work stuff. I've got Frontpage, HomeSite, Dreamweaver, blah blah blah... Still will require hours and hours to lay out tables, and set up stuff like that. If a design already has that done I'd love to just buy it, type in what I want and go. Plus all the templetes I'm looking at have Flash included to slightly dress up the

What I'm looking at is a complete site that they include all sorts of gif's and jpgs and the HTML files. Plus they have these PSD documents in it that I have no clue as to its purpose.

Yesterday is history
And tomorrow is a mystery

Parachutemanuals.com

[PhreeZone 20]

How do I go from the PSD file to exporting it to .html files then?

Yesterday is history
And tomorrow is a mystery

Parachutemanuals.com

[pilotdave 0]

The slices tool in photoshop (or is it imageready?...same thing, they come together) splits an image up into an html table. That's how I got started designing http://www.umdskydiving.com. It still took a lot of tweaking to fix the margins and stuff (btw I stole code from dropzone.com to fix the page margins
Dave

[Avion 0]

Whoops, I missed that you already have Dreamweaver. I know a guy that does really good sites www.lucky7media.com although he does charge big bucks. He went to school for two years just to learn how to use those programs

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There is a neat little freeware html editor called, Webcoder, that I use to do simple sites with. Much better than notepad, I used to use that too, much to some peoples amazement.

http://www.webattack.com/get/tswcoder.html

To do really good looking sites, you need to use something like Dreamweaver. There is a good learning curve involved.

[pilotdave 0]

I use NoteTab Light. Course I don't give a crap what my site looks like... it just has to function correctly. I had planned to pretty it up a long time ago but I like the black and white for when I'm at work...doesn't stand out.
Dave

[heidihagen 0]

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To do really good looking sites, you need to use something like Dreamweaver. There is a good learning curve involved.

I disagree. Software companies are making everything sooooooo user friendly.. you can turn out some pretty cool work --- assuming you are proficient w/photoshop!
To answer your Q Phree: switch over to image ready, slice it & get your rollovers ready (or whatever you're doing), then when you're ready to save choose the "save optimized as" option (under the file menu). I think the default is gif, so you should prob change it to gif and hmtl. I've only used imageready a few times to pull together a page last minute, but I like it. Hope this helps

i didn't lose my mind, i sold it on ebay. .:need a container to fit 5'4", 110 lb. cypres ready & able to fit a 170 main (or slightly smaller):.[/ce

[mailin 0]

Template Monster has some great stuff! They even include the HTML files they used so you only have to modify content mostly if you just want it to look like their example. I use them all the time - the flash stuff is a little bit harder to use, but overall they're great. Pretty cheap too if you don't want a custom template - I think its $50 or so.

I highly recommend them!

Jen

Arianna Frances

[Avion 0]

I use Paintshop Pro rather than Photoshop. From what I hear, Photoshop is better, but I like the way Paintshop looks and find it easier.

[MakeItHappen 15]

Quote

I'm looking at setting up a new website/redoing our current one and I was looking at just buying a premade templete and customizing it to suit our needs. Anyone have any experience with any of the online companies selling templetes? Also why do they sell you a package that includes the HTML, the GIF/JPG's and a PSD file? The PSD seems to be a photoshop document that is the webpage, but in multilayer format. Seems pointless to me... what am I missing?

I wrote our current page from the gound up in Notepad and it works, but quite frankly its lacking a lot and its just generally a pain in the rear to look up for to do HTML again for a 1 time a year project.

Most auto-generators and code writers have severe limitations, including, but not limited to keywords, descriptions, robots, code bloat, portability and syntax.

Frankly, if I were the person hiring you and saw this post of you admitting that you did not know what you were doing, I'd find someone else.

If you do find some template generator that you like, check a sample made with it for proper syntax. If it passes that, then check for load times. If it passes that, then check for search engine friendliness. Search engine friendliness includes keywords matching up with page content (page by page), linked text relevancy and so on.

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Still will require hours and hours to lay out tables, and set up stuff like that.

If that is your biggest complaint, then you really do not know what you are doing.

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Template Monster has some great stuff! They even include the HTML files they used so you only have to modify content mostly if you just want it to look like their example. I use them all the time - the flash stuff is a little bit harder to use, but overall they're great. Pretty cheap too if you don't want a custom template - I think its $50 or so.

I highly recommend them!

Jen

Take all recommendations in stride. Jen uses plain old Javascript as an 'authentication' scheme. Guess she hasn't learned that if you disable javascript you can get to the pages and that search engines do not parse javascript.
Attached is a pic from one of her sites that was supposedly password protected.

attachment deleted by Skymama...Just because you have a skill doesn't mean you need to use it in order to put someone else down.

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Make It Happen
Parachute History
DiveMaker

[AggieDave 6]

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To do really good looking sites, you need to use something like Dreamweaver. There is a good learning curve involved.

BULLSHIT!

All you have to do is actually know how to script and code.

I've been doing professional web design off and on since late 1994/early 1995 and since the beginning I've used Notepad (or vi) and have created some monster sites.

One of my favorites was a complete intranet site for the Corps of Cadets at Texas A&M. A huge Oracle database frontended with ASP turned the organization into a 100% paperless organization (which was a large feat).

What did I use?

Notepad.


People who think you HAVE to use an editor to create good sites don't know what their doing and should stop doing web design while they go back and actually learn how to do this stuff.

--"When I die, may I be surrounded by scattered chrome and burning gasoline."

[AggieDave 6]

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From what I hear, Photoshop is better, but I like the way Paintshop looks and find it easier.
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It is, but it is a good bit harder to be good at then Paintshop Pro. I've been working with Photoshop for a bit over 8 years now and I'm still learning new things. Well, that and they keep adding all these new features I've got to learn with each major release.

--"When I die, may I be surrounded by scattered chrome and burning gasoline."

[PhreeZone 20]

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Frankly, if I were the person hiring you and saw this post of you admitting that you did not know what you were doing, I'd find someone else.

Since the person hiring me is me I don't think thats really an issue I'm just looking to redo our Picture/movie site and add some functionality.

I wrote our current page in Notepad and it verifies as valid HTML 4.01 http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http://cajunchickens.com. It also verifies as valid CSS http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/validator?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fcajunchickens.com&usermedium=all

I'm no idiot in webdesign but for how small of a group I am targeting this for its hard for me to justify that much time into an all original design if there is something out there that works close enough for what I want.

Yesterday is history
And tomorrow is a mystery

Parachutemanuals.com

[MakeItHappen 15]

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it verifies as valid HTML 4.01 http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http://cajunchickens.com.

Try Whole Site Validation
Most of the errors are minor

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Make It Happen
Parachute History
DiveMaker

[Avion 0]

I like to see you create a javascript navigation interface with notepad or vi for that matter I like pico. Say, do you speak emacs?

[AggieDave 6]

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I like to see you create a javascript navigation interface with notepad or vi for that matter.

You won't see me do it. Why? I don't like javascript, used to script it out back in 98 or so, but I've never been a big fan of it.

Then again, I've programmed things a LOT more complicated then a simple navigation script using only Notepad...that was a while back, though. Any more the only time I do any sort of web design or real programming is for friends in need.


Pico, emacs, both are good, but there's something about the simplicity of vi that really appealed to me.

--"When I die, may I be surrounded by scattered chrome and burning gasoline."

[op5e 0]

I think there are two things here. First people doing webpages for fun and the other someone doing webpages for profit.

If you do it for fun, use whatever floats your boat. Yes you might be able to get away with PaintshopPro (PSP) but there are some things that you will save a hell of alot of time with when using Photoshop (if you are good at it). Especially now that they have intergrated image ready and god knows what else since I left the multimedia department 3 years ago. We had art students doing very complex designs with little to no knowledge (even though they tried to teach them) of HTML, javascript, css and so forth.

To answer you question, I have no idea about templates available. If you want to just make it look better I would think about approaching an art student or someone who likes designing things. I find creating the graphics as being the hard part, or even just getting a nice good look and feel. I see there being two distinct groups those that can design and those that can code (I definately can't design).

Photoshop files would be included because if you want to make a small change (color, add graphics, movie items) it is alot easier when they are in their full resolution and in layers. And even if you do not use this now, you might find it handy down the track.

If you have any troubles please feel free to give me a yell.

[Avion 0]

Actually, you can get free premade JS interfaces on the web.

Doing good pages these days has moved away from straight html. Using Cascading Style sheets and some kind of a WYSiWYG editor are a necessity now, at least for me.

[AggieDave 6]

Yeah, I use CSS. It seems like every time I start a new project I give Dreamweaver another chance and every time I get pissed off at trying to make it do what I want that I close the program and simply script out everything I need. Then it usually involved opening Flash MX to create an intro or a naviagtion system (or the bulk of the site) for the client/friend.

--"When I die, may I be surrounded by scattered chrome and burning gasoline."

[heidihagen 0]

Quote

Quote

To do really good looking sites, you need to use something like Dreamweaver. There is a good learning curve involved.

BULLSHIT!

All you have to do is actually know how to script and code.

I've been doing professional web design off and on since late 1994/early 1995 and since the beginning I've used Notepad (or vi) and have created some monster sites.

One of my favorites was a complete intranet site for the Corps of Cadets at Texas A&M. A huge Oracle database frontended with ASP turned the organization into a 100% paperless organization (which was a large feat).

What did I use?

Notepad.


People who think you HAVE to use an editor to create good sites don't know what their doing and should stop doing web design while they go back and actually learn how to do this stuff.

I called bs on that too. If he just wants basic html that looks pro photoshop.. even frontpage.. will work fine w/o any prior html, java, flash, yadda yadda knowledge. Yeah, you can't do as much but simplicity is key sometimes. My first big website was for senator bernson (almost ten years ago) -- I used notepad. It's funny to pull up today because it looks sooo awful!

i didn't lose my mind, i sold it on ebay. .:need a container to fit 5'4", 110 lb. cypres ready & able to fit a 170 main (or slightly smaller):.[/ce

[Avion 0]

You know that sounds kinda right. I've found that programming actually applications is easier for me than web site design. Web design is much more of a graphic artists type of job. I find it fustrating.

I used to charge a few hundred bucks to do a simple site for people, 4-5 pages of information about their business. People complained that my sites were too simple. So, I pointed them in the direction of Lucky7media who charges about $2,500 a site. They wanted my price with his sites. Oh well.