title
spaceadvice
advice
advice

... you rarely read when you begin to set up a home page:

While I am no expert on Web Design or HTML. I design and maintain sites regularly for companies - soon to be 3 or 5.
This advice is gleaned from my time working with them and through trial and error (the best teacher!).
Part of the beauty of the Net is the ease with which you and I can set up sites on the Net but unfortunately this is not always a good thing. People lose interest and there are too many dead sites already.

 
Contents

Filenames

Browsers

Tiled
backgrounds

Wysiwyg
editors

Tables

Graphics

Best left
alone

Experts
only

My Sites

Links to Web Design
& HTML

Filenames

Browsers

Tiled
backgrounds

Wysiwyg
editors

Tables

Graphics

Best left
alone

Experts
only

My Sites

Links to Web Design
& HTML

Filenames

Browsers

Tiled
backgrounds

Wysiwyg
editors

Tables

Graphics

Best left
alone

Experts
only

My Sites

Links to Web Design
& HTML

Filenames

Browsers

Tiled
backgrounds

Wysiwyg
editors

Tables

Graphics

Best left
alone

Experts
only

My Sites

Links to Web Design
& HTML

First Page:

  • It's a good idea to name your first page index.html. Your eventual URL will be a little shorter as this is the default file loaded by most browsers.

  • It should be as quick loading as possible - not too many images; a concise table of contents to let people know what you've got at the site.

Other:

  • All filenames on your site should be in lowercase only. Do this as soon as you get started as it includes links to other files on your site and elsewhere. This is mostly a UNIX thing, but it affects you and is a good habit to get into. This is the No. 1 reason that links work locally and then your site falls apart once it's online.

  • Check your site in as many browsers as possible and not just the latest versions, either. You'll be surprised how different browsers handle some HTML tags.

  • If you use tiled gifs or jpegs, remember to check your site without these loaded. Many people surf the Web without images loading. This is especially important if you use dark backgrounds and lighter text. For the people with no images, include the ALT="whatever" parameter in your IMG SRC tag and specify bgcolor in the BODY tag.

  • Sooner or later, no matter what wonderful wysiwyg editor you use, you're going to have to get into raw HTML and do some editing. Get to know the basics at least; the rest will follow. I've tried Navigator Gold, HomeSite, FrontPage and SiteAid but invariably I find myself back in Notepad, (like now!), editing. Homesite is my favorite, for it's extended search and replace feature and lots more. It is not a wysiwyg editor and you do need to know HTML, though.

  • Tables are the most useful way to format text into columns - apologies to the css boffs. They are all over the Web. You won't necessarily recognise them as the borders are invisible and/or well disguised (like here?).

  • If you MUST have lots of pictures/graphics, present them as thumbnails. Most of us are not on ISDN and will get bored waiting for large graphics to load. You can safely ignore this advice if you've got a 'Tribute to the Bikini' site - your visitors will have an abundance of patience! Also, put in the WIDTH and HEIGHT sizes in the <IMG SRC> tag as this speeds up loading.

    As a rough guide (i.e. under favourable conditions - with a 28,8 modem), a 30Kb file takes 10 secs to download. When calculating, don't forget to add the sizes of all gifs and jpegs on the page, too!

  • If it's worth doing, it's worth doing well. Update information and check links as often as you can. If you have lots, use a free service like NetMechanic to check the links for you.
    Even better Download a small program called Xenu's Link Sleuth from http://www.snafu.de/~tilman/xenulink.html You can check all links from your PC/Mac locally and over the net.
    There is nothing more likely to send someone to their BACK button than a dud link - the dreaded ERROR 404.

Things best left alone

  • <blink> Netscape, how could you?
  • <marquee> Microsoft, how could you?
  • <bgsound> Not supported by Netscape
  • Frames - if you must, but more than two is a crowd!
  • Scrolling status bar JavaScript, pop-up boxes, alerts etc. - personally I like to see where the links are going. Leave the status bar alone. The screen is big enough for your creativity. I don't enjoy filling in my name, so that the page can be personally redrawn for NULL. The content shouldn't need all these tricks and they all slow down the process of people getting into your site and going further...

Things best left to the experts or at least until you have some time off work.

  • Java
  • Shockwave, Flash etc.
  • Video
  • Cascading Style Sheets. If you do and this site does, then check it in a non-CSS browser to make sure it's legible...and I had time off work! Style Sheets are supported differently in each browser and basically, it's going to be a nightmare until standards settle down and are supported universally. I certainly don't have time to set up 4 different versions of this whole site and detect which version of which browser visitors happen to be using. My apologies if it doesn't look too good on yours but hey, check the URL /ResearchTriangle/ :-)
sorry if you can see lots of white space. it's a style sheet thing and your browser doesn't support them; so scroll on down for the rest.
 

My Sites:

  Portfolio
 

Miscellaneous

If you still need some help, here's a list of my favourite Web Design and HTML sites.

What are you waiting for? There's a whole WWW out there waiting for your contribution.



 Ask not what the WEB can do for you,
ask what YOU can do for the Web!
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