My first scratchbuilt site…..

@Paul_W_Jan 13.2006

Greetings from the wet northwest!
My experience with web building/development is one step from nil. (I have a site using Yahoo’s Pagebuilder, and i’ve been playing with Webeasy 5.) I’m ready to begin building a new site that will be loaded with my own photo’s and some text. I’d like to see a few long pages with rollovers on selected photos ……as opposed to alot of small pages that need to be linked together with buttons. The questions are: how does one build those long scrollable pages? What web site building programs are suited to this end(and my level of experience)?

Paul

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Full-stack Developer

6 Comments(s) _↴

@WebJoelJan 14.2006 — #if a page is longer (taller) than the user's screen viewport, the browser inserts it's own scrollbar automatically, and the page just 'gets taller'. -Is this what you mean?

I prefer not making my insertion page (the first page, usually called "index.html") not be taller than what can be displayed on an 800x600 screen resolution. -You want your first page to be succinct. Make it 'a teaser' of what the site has to offer. Kind of like a cover-letter to a really great resume..

Later into the site, one might reasonably expect a page to be taller than the user's resolution an any machine, but still, I personally do not like to exceed maybe twice or perhaps 3x as tall as a viewport ("viewport" being the "viewable area of a browser's window"). Generally, people do not like to scroll through long documents. It affects our attention span and comprehension level.

Having 'additional pages' breaks apart the content a bit and gives it context. -I'd much rather read a "book" with a few hundred pages, than to read the same book that is written in it's entirety on the side of building (just 'one page'). People are fickle that way. And beside, if a page gets too 'long', it will increase the time-to-load and one should always target the 56K dial-up speed load-time of "under 8-seconds". Analysts have studied this, that if a web page takes longer than eight seconds to resolve on a screen, most people won't wait... they'll just 'back out' or 'click thru' and leave it for somewhere else.

Does this help at all? ?

-Joel

@Paul_W_authorJan 14.2006 — #Joel,

Thanks for the helpful reply!, thats the kind of input i need to keep me from making a total mees of this project!. Your explanation has made me re-evaluate my proposed page layout, with the index page as a teaser or cover page...makes alot of sense. A good example is this photographers site: www.debenport.com One rollover photo to get in, then page selections. See the FAQ's.....a very long page!

My main concern has been with having to break up a page with specific content into 2 pages, thus losing the train of thought.....like having to turn the page half way thru a paragraph. The Webeasy 5 program does not appear to let me continue adding assets at the bottom of the page, i.e., the page does not get longer for me to install more text or photos. I may need to look into other site building software.

Paul

@CarolWJan 14.2006 — #Dear Paul,

Joel,

<snip>

My main concern has been with having to break up a page with specific content into 2 pages, thus losing the train of thought.....like having to turn the page half way thru a paragraph. The Webeasy 5 program does not appear to let me continue adding assets at the bottom of the page, i.e., the page does not get longer for me to install more text or photos. I may need to look into other site building software.

Paul[/QUOTE]

I'm about a year ahead of you in webweave-learning, and what I've learned, I owe very largely to these forums, though I started with a book that I found really helpful - old, out of date, but it got me past the very tough beginnings. For specific information:

http://www.coherentdog.org/webinfo.htm

will list what I found most helpful.

I went on the theroy that, not being a real computer-person, nor a web-weaver, I still wanted a nice web site, much for the same reasons you want one. And I decided it was crucial for me to be able to maintain my own site, since nobody else was going to do it. Well, I followed the recommendations in the book I started with (by Paul McFedries) - out of date for some elements of coding, so you need to be here - for instance, in the HTML and CSS forums, but McFedries recommended using - get this:

NOTEPAD

as your web editor!

Haha! I also used NVU, an open-source (I think) WYSIWYG editor; that got me past some difficulties too, and there are a few others; never could really understand HTML-Kit, which seems to have come out with updates lately, but I have it installed, and it is also very helpful. But now that I have a basic template in place, I use NoteTabPro as my web editor almost all the time, seldom deviating from that. That can be useful, or - difficult! Depends on what I'm trying to do. With help from here, though, I find it magnificent.

About long pages, though, I read Joel's reply to you, and thought it was excellent. However, I am a long-page sinner, as you will discover if you go to my site. There are ways to mitigate that a bit (I have contents down the right sides of the longest pages, usually, anyway). But many web-makers here are far more skilled than I, and I'd take their recommendations seriously.

If you have trouble with links, you can use the W3C Link Checker, and I recommend using relative addressing for your links from one page to another; that keeps things simple. A program like NVU can help you with that, too.

Oh, and I must not forget - if you don't have Firefox, go get it now, and get their WebDeveloper Toolbar (a separate extension); that toolbar is invaluable.

So I think you have lots on your plate, but trust you'll have as much fun (along with the sweat) as I have - well, once I learn enough to manage things at least a little. (That's all apart from the incredible teamwork that goes on here on the forums.)

Have fun!

Fri, 13 Jan 2006 19:46:33

@Paul_W_authorJan 14.2006 — #Thanks for the info Carol! It's great to learn new things!

@CarolWJan 14.2006 — #Thanks for the info Carol! It's great to learn new things![/QUOTE]

A fine lifetime occupation, haha!

Fri, 13 Jan 2006 21:08:14

@WebJoelJan 14.2006 — #Yes, -creating web pages is really awesome. In no other endeavor does one come so close to almost literally 'creating something out of nothing'! Just codified text, and done properly, you can get this wonderful result! A Web Page!

Gee.. not familiar with "Webeasy 5" but if it won't 'expand' vertically to allow for some verbose content now and again, -time to get something else! CarolW mentions "notepad.exe". Yes, -familiar with it. Many fond memories of learning html with it. It has been said that 'purists' prefer notepad over WYSIWYG editors. I started out that way, with notepad.exe. All web page builders should learn how to 'code by hand' using this. For the first course, that is all I had and what the college made us use. They wanted us to 'know what you are doing' from scratch.

Then they introduced us to a downloadable editor program called "EditPlus2.exe". You have GOT to get this! ? It is free for 30 days I think and unless they changed it, after 30 days nothing happens... you still get to use it but there is this pop-up 'register now' reminder which you just close on every start-up.

I bought mine a few years ago (as anyone whom regularly uses it should). It is EXCELLENT, GREAT! If you even a little bit of html coding, this program is the keys. -Color hightlighted tags/text (and if there is a syntax error, the color of the affected line changes and every line after also 'changes', indicating some problem that needs attention...), and probably the fastest 'switch from code to view' modality of any editor that I have ever used.

Go to http://www.tucows.com and search for "EditPlus.exe" and give it a whirl. I have two or three other html-editor programs in tow, each has it's own virtues, -but EditPlus2 is bar far the fastest, easiest, most enjoyable one of them all. ?

-Joel