Questions for Web Design Hobbyists...

[GTaudiophile]

Those of you who build web sites for personal use in your spare time, do you go all out with the fancy technologies? Like, are you building completely Flash-based sites? Or keeping it simple with HTML, CSS, etc.? What about Java, PHP, mySQL?

Which of these features would you use if you wanted to build a site intended to share your personal photography, so in other words very photo heavy? Would you try to build your own layout or use a third-party program?

And finally, what resolution are you designing for these days? 800x600 seams silly to me.

Thanks for your input.

 

[Mo0o]

Anything that's content heavy should NOT be made in flash. A nice CSS PHP mix will do nicely. CSS has a lot of potential to save you a lot of headaches over html but setting it up properly can be difficult.

As far as resolution goes, I like layouts that are viewable in 800x600 but more pleasing to the eye at 1024. If you're good and the layout allows it, make it dynamic, so it can move w/ the resolution. Although that tends to get tricky since widescreens are so popular now.

 

[daveshel]

The purpose of my site is sharing photos with friends and family, so I've never had any need for any database technologies. HTML, CSS, Javascript. I size my pics at 720 X 540.

 

[mcturkey]

Well, my personal site uses CSS, JS, PHP, and MySQL. Of course, I'm also thinking about changing careers to web design, so I've been spending a lot of time lately expanding my skillset, hence why I've gone overboard with the technology.

For the most part, I design for 1024x768, although I try to make sure the site is at least viewable in 800x600 (though I am longing for the statistics to back up my suspicion that an overwhelming majority of users are above that resolution now). Widescreens really b0rk many of the design philosophies I used to go by with dynamic layouts. Case in point, I use two monitors for development, with the coding on my main screen (20" widescreen 1680x1050) and the site always up in Firefox on my secondary monitor (17" 1280x1024). When I viewed my site on my main screen a few days after finalizing the design, I was horrified at how it looked in widescreen. Completely screwed up the proportions I was going for.

I don't use flash for anything, because so often you can achieve the same or better design goals with CSS and PHP (and AJAX where needed). For the photo gallery portion of my site, I wrote the entire thing from scratch, allowing me to upload 1 or a hundred photos at once, have them automatically resized and thumbnailed as needed, then put into a database along with captions. Then the gallery itself is dynamically generated with a set number of images per page and scrolling between images. Really, it's complete overkill to develop something like that from the ground up unless you're trying to learn the technologies behind it.

 

[jjones]

If you're doing a personal photo site, why not use Gallery2?

That uses regular html/css with php on the server side and mysql db.

 

[RandomFool]

I use different things for different sites. My personal site is just HTML and CSS because I really don't need more than that. My test site is HTML, CSS, JS, PHP, and MYSQL because well that's where I play with stuff. I never use flash. I usually design the site for 1024x768 and peek at it in 800x600 to make sure it's not too hideous.

I made my own cheap photo viewer using HTML, CSS and JS but they way I did it doesn't work very well. I've been thinking about redoing it to include PHP as well. Usually I upload pics at 800x600 resolution.

 

[iamaelephant]

I would definitely use something like Gallery2 for a personal photo site, Although there is a large wealth of open-source CMS software available. I run a small site for me and my friends that uses little bits of everything (PHP/mySQL, CSS or course, Java, AJAX and allows users to post flash content) but if it were open to the public I would cut down a lot on the bandwidth-hogging stuff.

Edit - oh yeah and if I were to launch a production website I would optimize the PHP/mySQL a lot. With a small user base it isn't a big deal to stress the database server but when you have a ton of users it could be a problem.

 

[GTaudiophile]

Thanks for your input.

Those of you have personally made your own gallery, could you please PM me the web address? Would love to take a look.

 

[mugs]

Gallery2 + Carbon theme (I think?) looks great

My wife uses SimpleViewer (Flash-based) for her photography site, it also looks good.

 

[Nocturnal]

If you don't want anyone to find your page via Google or other search engines, use an entire Flash based website. I think CSS, with most web 2.0 gadgets and gizmos work best. Lay off the Flash though.

 

[GTaudiophile]

Originally posted by: Nocturnal
If you don't want anyone to find your page via Google or other search engines, use an entire Flash based website. I think CSS, with most web 2.0 gadgets and gizmos work best. Lay off the Flash though.

Web 2.0?

 

[pstylesss]

You should design for 800*600... it may seem silly since I'm at 2480*1024, but you would be really surprised with the numbers on 800*600.

I use:
XHTML
CSS
PHP
and sometimes MySQL.

I would build my own layout for my photography... and I would also use PHP and create an admin panel to publish my work... but if web design isn't your hobby, and photography is, I would just make a static website to your liking and edit it in Dreamweaver.

I hate flash and dont use it, for anything. It takes too long to load, and even after its loaded, someone probably made an intro and 5 minute long transition effects, not to mention all the unnecessary stuff that people seem to put in them.

 

[pstylesss]

Originally posted by: mcturkey
Well, my personal site uses CSS, JS, PHP, and MySQL. Of course, I'm also thinking about changing careers to web design, so I've been spending a lot of time lately expanding my skillset, hence why I've gone overboard with the technology.

For the most part, I design for 1024x768, although I try to make sure the site is at least viewable in 800x600 (though I am longing for the statistics to back up my suspicion that an overwhelming majority of users are above that resolution now). Widescreens really b0rk many of the design philosophies I used to go by with dynamic layouts. Case in point, I use two monitors for development, with the coding on my main screen (20" widescreen 1680x1050) and the site always up in Firefox on my secondary monitor (17" 1280x1024). When I viewed my site on my main screen a few days after finalizing the design, I was horrified at how it looked in widescreen. Completely screwed up the proportions I was going for.

I don't use flash for anything, because so often you can achieve the same or better design goals with CSS and PHP (and AJAX where needed). For the photo gallery portion of my site, I wrote the entire thing from scratch, allowing me to upload 1 or a hundred photos at once, have them automatically resized and thumbnailed as needed, then put into a database along with captions. Then the gallery itself is dynamically generated with a set number of images per page and scrolling between images. Really, it's complete overkill to develop something like that from the ground up unless you're trying to learn the technologies behind it.

While that may be the case, it's not enough to justify not designing for 800*600. Anything designed for that usually looks great in higher resolutions anyway...

Proof

 

[esun]

I agree on using a pre-packaged Gallery solution. Not reason to build your own where there are so many already out there ready to go.

As for technologies, it all depends on what I'm building. For a basic website, X/HTML and CSS is fine. If I want some scripts, I'll use Perl or PHP (I like coding in Perl more, so I tend to use that more often). If I need a database for something, I'll use MySQL. Flat files are also fine for small things. I don't use Java for anything web-based, but I tend not to use Java much at all if I can avoid it (you can probably tell given how much I love Perl).

Oh, and resolution-wise, I tend to design for 1024x768. Screw the 800x600 people (then again, I don't make high-traffic or profitable websites, just personal stuff and for groups I'm in).

 

[GTaudiophile]

Okay, so Flash it out...way out.

I have played briefly with CSS but don't know if I understands its potential. I mean, I can design a CSS file that automatically formats all my pages by calling it. What else can CSS do?

I know what PHP/mySQL are but have sadly never messed with either. SQL is a database and PHP manipulates it, puts it in some visual form.

 

[pstylesss]

CSS is used to lay out your website. From the colour and size of your text, to positioning your left content box. It has become the standard for laying out websites. Tables are slowly being dropped, but there are still many people who swear by them and hate css. There is an argument going on in the Programming forum right now about how bad CSS is actually. But the fact is, it's the future of web development. You can choose not to learn and use it, but its like working only on a Commodore64 because the new motherboards are just too complex.

A great place to start learning CSS is at w3schools.com.

 

[GTaudiophile]

Originally posted by: ZeroIQ
CSS is used to lay out your website. From the colour and size of your text, to positioning your left content box. It has become the standard for laying out websites. Tables are slowly being dropped, but there are still many people who swear by them and hate css. There is an argument going on in the Programming forum right now about how bad CSS is actually. But the fact is, it's the future of web development. You can choose not to learn and use it, but its like working only on a Commodore64 because the new motherboards are just too complex.

A great place to start learning CSS is at w3schools.com.

Nice link. Thanks.