All you HTML Guru's belong to us!

I ^ | Myself | Me

[ConservativeMan55]

I have recently been named as the Webmaster for the OSU College Republicans. The last Webmaster didn't ever update the Web site, and he left the College Republicans in a bad situation.

He left without giving up the password for the Web site. Now he won't return their calls. So while we are attempting to track down the password for the Web site, I am still scripting out what I want it to look like.

I am leaning towards The Auburn College Republicans Web site theme and look. We've visited several, and are still deciding. Here is our old Web site.

It hasn't been updated, and won't be until we can track down the password. We believe the old Webmaster became a Democrat. Anyways, if anybody here has any HTML tips, and or tricks please let me know.

Free Republic has really helped me learn HTML in the past couple years, but I know there is a lot I still don't know. The easy stuff like Marquees, Font Size, Font Color, links, pictures. I know that stuff.

I have managed to find a few pages with some amazing script.

Do any of you all know of Web pages which look really good or use a certain font, script, etc that you like? Better yet, are any of you College Republicans from around the country that might be able to give me some ideas?

Here is the Young Democraps page. It appears not to have been updated either. I am planning on making our College Republicans page, informative, entertaining, and downright Conservative!

I also liked The Young Republicans of Virginia Web site. I understand that if you put too many pictures, etc on your Web site it will become heavy and won't load fast.

But..I'll have plenty of links. Drudge, Rush, Free Republic, Townhall. Plenty of pics from our meetings. I've also made a message board for the College Republicans, which I will link to from the main page.

Another great thing I'll put on it is a place where people can donate money if they would like. We also sell T-shirts. We can put pictures of them up as well.

Anyways. Good HTML info...besides the Sandbox.

THANKS!

[PAR35]

Frontpage is great for beginners, but stay away from the Microsoft-only extras.

Problems:
1. They won't work unless the web site is set up to handle them.
2. They slow down the site.
3. They may not display or work properly with folks who use better browsers.

Hint: After you put up the site, view it using 2 or 3 different brands of browsers to see how it looks to various users. If possible, try older versions as well as current versions.

[eyespysomething]

No guru, but here's a webpage to check out:

The UGA College Republicans is the largest College Republican organization in the United States, nearly doubling the next largest organization.

[Nick Danger]

FrontPage is a reasonable choice for you, because the server they have you on is running Microsoft IIS. Such a setup makes things easy for you. The downside is that about 15% of your visitors won't see what you think they will, because FrontPage does a fair number of fun things that depend on the Browser being IE.

Before you get all excited about ASP or PHP pages, find out whether the University IT guys will let you have access to those things, and whether you can have access to a database server. There are some wonderful things you can do with scripting languages and a database, but when you don't control your server environment, you may not get to play with any of it.

If you have any hope of actually learning anything by doing this, consider the venerable Notepad.exe as your HTML editor. It won't do squat for you, which means you'll have to learn how to do everything "by hand." That is a Good Thing. The world is full of FrontPage and DreamWeaver types who haven't the slightest idea how to fix anything that goes wrong.

Now for the reality shower: the reason your old site never got updated, and the reason the Rats' site never got updated either, is that many people who get stuck with your job think that the task is to "create a web site." It's not. The task is to figure out a way to hook other people into helping with the content. If it's "all you, all the time," it won't be 90 days before your site starts going stale, and a year from now the next guy will be saying, "Our old site was never updated."

So consider one of the many canned "blogware" apps. "Moveable Type" is probably the best-of-breed right now, but Zope, Geeklog, and many others are just fine. What these things let you do is appoint "deputy admins" with their own logins who can update different sections of the content themselves. They can post articles, pictures, etc. without knowing one word of HTML. If it all has to go through you for coding into HTML, you'll be sorry, so seriously consider one of these things. You will have to give up some flexibility in terms of look-and-feel, but in return you get an easy way to spread the real workload (which is always keeping the content updated after the site is built).

Moveable Type will run on a Windows server, but you'll need the IT guys' help because Moveable Type is one of those "wonderful things you can do with a scripting language (cgi in the case of MoveType) and a database." This kind of approval is generally easier to get for a canned app that is already running in lots of places. That's a much lower level of "scare factor" than giving you permission to write and debug your own scripts on their server.

Good luck whichever way you choose to go.

[NRA2BFree]

I'll take any and all help I can get.

Okay, let me know if you don't get any better offers. I noticed that there are some who are way advanced beyond plain html. :)

[Ronzo]

Do any of you all know of Web pages which look really good or use a certain font, script, etc that you like?

My absolute favorite web site in terms of design and usability is the "Regent College website They used a product called Macromedia Fireworks MX to design it. Gospelcom.net is an excellent source for all sorts of very well designed web sites.

However, you can make a "decent" web site using nothing more that Microsoft Word. My own news & directory web site was made entirely in MS Word: THEODICY (Pronounced "thee-ODD-issy") I don't use any pictures or graphics on this site, but I could easily add some if I need to. The HTML it generates can be ugly, but it WORKS.

There really is no reason to go out and purchase a specialized package like Macromedia Studio MX as long as you have Word. Anyway, there is a long & tall learning curve to Studio MX, and is only worth it's purchase price if you plan to design web sites for a living. However, Dreamweaver MX 2004 might be worth while. It too has a steep learning curve, but there's a lot you can do with it right out of the box. Plus, it has some very nice "already made" templates that you just add content too.

For an example of a site I designed using Studio MX, visit my site Alyosha Design. Most of what you see at this site could be duplicated using only MS Word and inexpensive photo editing software, but I find the Macromedia Studio product to be more flexible for my needs.

I'm just a designer; I'm not very good with the backend of website design. But there's lot's of very knowledable people here at Free Republic who can help you with particular questions.

[No_Outcome_But_Victory]

A very nice editor for HTML is HTMLKit, which is available for free at:

Download HTML-Kit

It has lots of nice plug-ins and doesn’t hide the code from you if  you don’t want it to.

[js1138]

I like Flash for humorous things. I think it sucks as a home page decoration. Anything that makes the home page load slower will cost you visitors and money.

[BillaryBeGone]

For whatever it's worth, here's the URL for the College Republicans at Texas A&M University - Corpus Christi:

http://kestrel.tamucc.edu/~Republicans

Also, in case no one's suggested it, you might check with the computer science department at OSU. Lots of times professors are looking for projects to give their students. This sounds like it might qualify.

Good luck!

[Ronzo]

Even though I don't "highly" recommend this route --if you are a student at OSU (I'm assuming you are...) you could get Macromedia Studio MX at a HUGE discount!

If you buy Studio MX at Amazon.com, it will cost you $950 to $1,000.00.

But if you get it from JourneyEd.com you can get basically the exact same package for a mere $199.00. The only thing you have to do is send them proof that you are a current student at OSU. Usally that means just sending them a JPEG of your student ID.

Studio MX is industrial strength web page design, but it works, and works extremely well. It includes Dreamweaver, Flash, Fireworks & Freehand. The two I use most often are Fireworks and Dreamweaver.

You can get just Dreamweaver from JourneyEd for $99.00, but you'd might as well just get the whole studio for $199.00. Fireworks will definately come in handy for photo-editing and manipulation.

But if you'd rather stick to FrontPage, they have the latest version (2003) for $90. Not that great of a deal, but still it saves you money. Personally, I'd rather use MS Word over Frontpage. But Dreamweaver is preferable to both.

Also, as already recommended, make SURE you view you web site on various web browsers and platforms. I've always been amazed at how different one of my creations can look on a Mac as opposed to a PC. There's lot's of things that Microsoft and PC's will let you get away with that will not work AT ALL on a Mac.

[WFTR]

I wish you well in this endeavor and would be glad to give advice if there's anything I know that can benefit you. As another poster suggested, I'd also recommend that you create HTML in Notepad. First, this simple text editor forces you to learn the real code that you are using. Secondly, I've found that many pages made by Microsoft are about twice as big as they need to be. I took over the page at work and deleted all of the unnecessary pieces of code that were written by Microsoft. My new page had the exact same look and function but was half as big.

Well, four and a half
Bill

[Consort]

OR.............

HTML Color Chart.

[Jen]

I haven't read all the comments, so I may be repeating what others have said.

My opinion - FrontPage sucks. It's proprietary (MS product) and your server must allow FrontPage extensions. DreamWeaver is not bad. My gripe with both is that they put in a lot of unnecessary 'garbage' code that isn't needed which slows down loading of your pages. Freebie (or shareware) HTML editors often have 'spyware' in them - so run a good spyware program after you download them to see if any has been installed - and to remove the spyware.

Best choice - if you know basic HTML - use Notepad and write your own lean, clean code. Keep layout simple and clean! Content is more important than 'dancing bologna'.

Be sure to prepare your pictures and graphics for the web. PhotoShop is the industry standard, but there are low-cost and free imaging programs available which perform the essential tasks of cropping, sizing, and minimizing file size.

A really good site to learn and get help from pro's in the web business is SitePoint. Check out the forums for free scripts and other cool stuff.

The easiest tool I've found for allowing non-techy people to update pages WITHOUT risking them messing up the layout of your site is FlexWindow. All you /they need is an email program to update specific areas in the pages. Check it out here on a site I'm building.

Best regards! If you have questions, please ask and I'll help as much as I can.

Jen

[ConservativeMan55]

Excellent Advice! Thank You!

I completely understand the "learning by hand" thing.

Also...I like the fact that the notepad has a search feature.

[ConservativeMan55]

Excellent Ideas! These are great and innovative!

[ConservativeMan55]

Looked at your Web page. It is almost as beautiful as you are! :)

[turbocat]

I do not like Front Page and recommend - very highly - NetObjects. www.netobjects.com

Incredibly intuitive and lots of extras from coolmaps.com

I build all my client's sites with NetObjects. You might check it out.

[ConservativeMan55]

Thank You!

[ConservativeMan55]

Thanks!

[turbocat]

Extra note - Dreamweaver is not easy to start out with. Most of the authoring programs have free trials.

Got lots of references on extra tricks coding when you get to that point.