Some questions about websites

Respital

Respital

Active Member
I know how to make a website and have already made one (http://annasart.tk). Not the greatest but not bad for a start.

Now i need to make another website for a friend, but here's the thing I'm still not that great in design and they want people to be able to buy items from the site so it'll need a shopping cart or something of the sort. I have no idea how to do that, also I've never gone through with hosting and such as I've used .tk for the domain and free webs for the site that .tk mirrors or whatever.

So my questions are
  • How do i include a shopping cart in a website?
  • What sort of hosting should i look for? And what are some good places to start.
  • How i should go about ads or if i should have them at all.
  • Should i copyright the site or is it not that big of a deal?
  • Would i have to make all of the graphics? Could i use tutorials from the internet and use the final product or would that interfere with the copyright?
  • What else am i forgetting?

Thanks!
 
I am speaking from the perspective of years of website
design experience.

It's a pretty sad looking website T_T It makes my head spin
to think that it is being used to represent an artist.

For Anna Kuzniak, I think it would be better for her to create a facebook page,
upload her artwork in the image section, use the about section for her bio, and
the contact details as such. Then just forward the .com/.tk url to the facebook
page. It will look more professional. And whoever visits her page can then add
her page/her to their facebook, allowing her to receive more exposure directly
through networking. And because of that, I think more of her paintings would
receive exposure and sell.

Respital said:
So my questions are
  • How do i include a shopping cart in a website?
  • What sort of hosting should i look for? And what are some good places to start.
  • How i should go about ads or if i should have them at all.
  • Should i copyright the site or is it not that big of a deal?
  • Would i have to make all of the graphics? Could i use tutorials from the internet and use the final product or would that interfere with the copyright?
  • What else am i forgetting?
Click to expand...
Hosting:

For any business website, I would recommend a VPS - virtual private server.
It runs between $20 to $40+ a month, depending if you go managed or
unmanaged, and cpanel or no-name brand control panel.

The problem with shared hosting, which is what you purchase for $5 to $9 a
month, is that the servers are regularly packed beyond capacity. There is more
ram and CPU being used than there is on the server. So often times your website
will be offline. They claim 99.9% uptime, but usually, you'll be lucky to have 75%
uptime.

A VPS has dedicated amount of CPU and memory for your website. It doesn't
matter how many other websites are on the server, your website will always have
enough resources to run. With a VPS your website will not be effected by other
websites on the server, and so it will be online 99.99% of the time.

For a business website, you need guaranteed uptime. A client cannot be sent to
a dead link. If a potential client sees a dead link, goodbye - you never see the
client again.

I use hostforweb.com. I pay $40USD a month for a managed VPS. Technical support
is always online and very quick. I had a few times I had to use their support - there
was no waiting, and they had the problem fixed pronto.


Shopping Cart:

You can use a PHP/MySQL script that you host on your website, or you can use
a remotely hosted shopping cart, and you embed their interface into your website.

Script: You might be able to find a free script at hotscripts.com, or you might have
to pay for one. You will have to know how to create a MySQL database in your cPanel
so that you can install the script, and you will have to know how to install the script
itself.

Remotely Hosted Shopping Carts: View this link.

PayPal: They have their own version of a remotely hosted shopping cart. If you are
using PayPal to accept payment methods, you can just use their shopping cart.
Visit this link for more information. I think that would be the easiest way.


Ads:

Do you mean - how do I advertise my website so other people can find it?

Or do you mean - how do I monetize my website with advertisements?


Copyright:

Anything that is your creation is automatically protected by copyright. If you have
a company name that you wish to protect, then you will have to trademark it. But
that has nothing to do with website creation.


Graphics:

You cannot take anyone elses photos or graphics and use them on your website.
Illegal and you can be sued for it. Especially do not want to do this if it is a
business website.

If you are looking for images to use on your website, you can either use public
domain photos and graphics - these are images that have been put up for free
distribution by their creator. Or, you can purchase stock graphics at istockphoto.com.
Any images you purchase there can be used by you for personal or commerical use.
There are some limitations - like you cannot then go and sell the images, as they
do not belong to you. But you can edit them, and use them on your website and
in designs.

Would i have to make all of the graphics?
Click to expand...

Essentially, good websites do not need lots of graphics to communicate. Check out
the book Don't make me think. If you are designing a business website, you limit
the graphics to a company logo, some photographs to accentuate the body text,
and maybe icons. Everything else you accomplish with white space, borders, and
typography.


Website design is all about communication, with a hint of marketing. Focus on
getting the message across to the viewer. Like any skill, it takes years to perfect.
Do your best, and then improve on what you have.
 
Thanks for the reply Marcin!

I've been attempting to remake or rather make another website these past few days but it seems impossibly hard hand coding it all, i tried using a free template but it still isn't working out very well.

How did everyone else make their website like i see these <div> tags in perfect alignment and there's no way it's hand coded is there some sort of program or should i just use notepad?
 
And also how do the bigger websites do it where they have for example 5 pages of products and add a new page making 6 pages but it being the first page is there a certain technique with how you create the folders?
 
The most popular HTML editor is Adobe Dreamweaver. From my experience, after years of hand coding in Notepad (I actually use Notepad++, it's a free download, a little better than the plain Notepad), I couldn't figure out how to use Dreamweaver. Also, you don't have to pay for Dreamweaver, nowdays there are free open source Web Editors (another one) that are just as good.

Respital said:
And also how do the bigger websites do it where they have for example 5 pages of products and add a new page making 6 pages but it being the first page is there a certain technique with how you create the folders?
Click to expand...

I'm pretty sure they use a database. And they have a dynamic script that fetches the inventory from the database and then displays it accordingly.
 
Marcin said:
The most popular HTML editor is Adobe Dreamweaver. From my experience, after years of hand coding in Notepad (I actually use Notepad++, it's a free download, a little better than the plain Notepad), I couldn't figure out how to use Dreamweaver. Also, you don't have to pay for Dreamweaver, nowdays there are free open source Web Editors (another one) that are just as good.



I'm pretty sure they use a database. And they have a dynamic script that fetches the inventory from the database and then displays it accordingly.
Click to expand...

Yeah i just downloaded the free trial of dreamweaver and it's way more complicated then i need it to be.

I've got notepad++ as you suggested but i think i need to learn how to make websites all over again, now i have a basic knowledge of html i'm not very good with tables but i now see that css basically controls all of the styling.

Now here's my problem(s)/questions/whatever
  • Should i build a website from scratch or should i use a template?
  • How can i edit my template if i should use it to place text beside a picture?
  • Is there a certain way i should be creating folders as i go along or should everything just be in one folder?
  • Should the same CSS document be used for all of the webpages or should it be different depending on the page?
  • What language should i use to code my website? (HTML, XHTML, HTML + CSS) ?
 
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[late bump]

Respital said:
Yeah i just downloaded the free trial of dreamweaver and it's way more complicated then i need it to be.

I've got notepad++ as you suggested but i think i need to learn how to make websites all over again, now i have a basic knowledge of html i'm not very good with tables but i now see that css basically controls all of the styling.

Now here's my problem(s)/questions/whatever
  • Should i build a website from scratch or should i use a template?
  • How can i edit my template if i should use it to place text beside a picture?
  • Is there a certain way i should be creating folders as i go along or should everything just be in one folder?
  • Should the same CSS document be used for all of the webpages or should it be different depending on the page?
  • What language should i use to code my website? (HTML, XHTML, HTML + CSS) ?
Click to expand...
 
Respital said:
Now here's my problem(s)/questions/whatever
  • Should i build a website from scratch or should i use a template?
  • How can i edit my template if i should use it to place text beside a picture?
  • Is there a certain way i should be creating folders as i go along or should everything just be in one folder?
  • Should the same CSS document be used for all of the webpages or should it be different depending on the page?
  • What language should i use to code my website? (HTML, XHTML, HTML + CSS) ?
Click to expand...

LOL, wow - old topic. You should private message me next time, I would have
noticed your request for a reply. I haven't been spending as much time as I
used to on computerforum.com.


Should i build a website from scratch or should i use a template?

I think the easiest way to build a website is to use wordpress. There is also
a collection of templates - pick one, upload it, select it as your template -
and now all your pages show the new template. Instead of code, you edit
your posts/pages in WYSIWYG editor.


How can i edit my template if i should use it to place text beside a
picture?

Place the picture first, followed by the text. For the picture's CSS, you will
float it LEFT or RIGHT. This will wrap the text around the picture. Then add
some margin to create space between the picture and text.

Code: 
<style type="text/css">
img.photo1 {
    float: left;
    margin-right: 10px;
    margin-bottom: 10px;
}
p.bodytext {
    width: 480px;
}
</style>

<img src="my-photo.jpg" class="photo1">

<p class="bodytext">Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit.
 Cras et sem leo. Morbi id diam euismod justo pellentesque varius. 
Pellentesque habitant morbi tristique senectus et netus et malesuada fames
 ac turpis egestas. Sed accumsan aliquam risus id sodales.</p>
In wordpress, you would simply import your image, drag it into the
WYSIWYG editor, and hit align-left. The actual CSS code is handled by the
template you use - it will set itself accordingly.


Is there a certain way i should be creating folders as i go along or
should everything just be in one folder?

Depends on the size of your website. I usually put all my CSS stylesheets,
images, and javascript in their own folders: /css, /images, /javascript.

But if you have a website with many sections, you might also want to
group the pages by date they are uploaded, /2009/june/20/, or by
category.

In Wordpress, all your posts/pages actually end up in the MySQL database,
but you can set the links to appear as if they are being grabbed from
folders.


Should the same CSS document be used for all of the webpages or
should it be different depending on the page?

The elements that are the same on each page, you will put those in one
CSS document that will be used by your entire site. Any elements that
only apply to one page, you can either make a separate CSS file for those,
or put the style in the header of that page.

Code: 
<html>
<head>
<style type="text/css">
/* Your CSS goes here */
</style>
</head>
Generally, you will have one reset CSS stylesheet, main CSS stylesheet,
one for forms, and any additional stylesheets that come with software you
use like a forum or lightbox script.

Really, the aim of good web design is for the website to be continuous from
one page to the next, so the CSS elements in your main stylesheet should
work on all your pages.


What language should i use to code my website? (HTML, XHTML,
HTML + CSS) ?

HTML, with all style information in CSS stylesheets. And if you want to
simplify editing the websites and adding new pages, use a CMS (content
management system) like Wordpress or Joomla - those are made in PHP
and use a MySQL database to store information. Only thing you would
have to know about PHP/MySQL is how to install the script.


Edit: There are more people discussing web design at sitepoint forums
and smashing magazine forums.
​
 
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I suggest you use a CMS which will be database driven. I also recommend you host it with www.phpwebhosting.com as they do not over crowd servers and you get unlimited everything for 9 bucks a month.

A CMS will allow you to do everything from a very simple stand point and as you learn you can completely redesign it from the ground up but keep the framework of the CMS in the back end to run the site.

I recommend drupal for that since you can still design everything from the ground up but you have the frame work of the CMS running the back end. There is no need to reinvent the wheel and build your own CMS from scratch when drupal already uses the core open source fundamentals that you would use anyway.

Plus you can install it and have it up and running in a manner of minutes.
 
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