Re: Would you take a complimentary course on HTML from acompany whose website looked like this?

LOL Pete

Well, you did not see the original site - do you want FBU? That one was based on a mid-90s design from some company that a former band member used.

This organization can't afford professional design, so I did the best I could with the knowledge I had. I've had mostly favorable responses. I freely admit that the look of the header design is loosely based on an example in a book entitled "Build Your Own Web Site The Right Way Using HTML & CSS", I think, from http://www.sitepoint.com. As to color palette, it is based somewhat on the colors in the logo for the organization - not a simple pairing to work with. Also, I used the buff color of music paper as the model for the background color of the content DIV. The color choices were very hard to get something usable, especially with that bright blue and red logo! I didn't go it alone completely, I really did ask for input - just not the right ones, eh? :-)

But I must admit I've never had anyone call it butt ugly!

The content is essentially the same as what was on the original site - no time to fix a lot of that, especially the archived stuff.

The nice thing is, this is now CSS-based for presentation as much as I knew how, so the look can easily be changed. Seriously, I'm open to positive suggestions - if someone wants to Firebug it and give alternatives, please, go for it. Can't promise it'll be incorporated here, as the director and others are very happy with it. And I don't have time to make a huge change. But I'll learn from it.

The other good thing is that it is much more flexible now - menu system is expandable, lots of things. There is so much more to make it work better - I have a glitch in the concerts page with the location info not showing up for the last concert, but I'll get to that anon.

Oh - I made a stab at making printer output appropriate for that medium with CSS - take a look at the print preview for the concerts and for the rehearsal schedule under member info, please. It could always be better but it is a beginning. As to why it's laid out as is, the director has handouts that I used as models for this.

OK back to real work.
Vern

Pete Helgren wrote:

I won't be quite as brutal as Aaron (Aaron here was the hint that it was *Vern's* site: "I'll put myself out on a limb" )

The site looks nice enough. I have created much, much worse. Just take a look at opensource4i.com or petesworkshop.com. I created those monstrosities almost 8 years ago! But you *can* tell that it wasn't a professional web designer who put the band site together. There are hundreds of thousands of sites like this out there. And, for what it is designed for, it works.

I can't remember who the OP was but I definitely recommend that if you are delivering content in a pre-packaged, commercial application, then invest the money to get a professional template created. If you are developing an intranet app or just throwing something together for yourself or friend, by all means, learn the HTML/CSS ropes and DIY. FBU (Functional But [Butt] Ugly) sites are good opportunities to learn. You really need them anyway just to be able to work around even a professionally developed template.

Pete


Vern Hamberg wrote:

I've found a number of books from http://www.sitepoint.com to be very helpful as to design. There are others as well. Concepts of color theory are teachable. I've done a fair amount of VB development in another context and am comfortable with trying to make things look MS-ish - again, it's how it is out there.

I redesigned a web page for a community band I'm in - I took concepts I gleaned from those several books - learned CSS, learned to use JQuery and plugins, learned layout with more modern techniques. Old site was all table-based layout - a border between sections of the page was action a 5pt column with background color - sheesh!! Not these days.

I'll put myself out on a limb - here's the link - http://www.ihcb.org - I know there are some things not quite as I'd like them but did not have time to figure out more. Be gentle, please!!

Oh - it took time and some help, but it seems to work pretty well in most browsers. Whew!!

Vern

Kelly Cookson wrote:

I've created some web pages that look decent...but I did it by surfing the web until I found a page design that I liked/wanted and tried to mimic it best I could.
With enough training and the right tools, I think most RPG/COBOL developers could make respectable web pages. The questions to me are: How much training? What kinds of training? What kinds of tools? Will your RPG/COBOL developers even want to be retrained as web developers? When does it become more practical to hire web developers than to retrain RPG/COBOL developers?
Plus, professional web developers work full-time learning the art of making great web pages. RPG/COBOL programmers won't have the same amount of time to devote to learning the art of creating web pages. That may always be a handicap when it comes to developing award-winning designs.

Kelly Cookson
Senior Programmer/Analyst
Dot Foods, Inc.
217-773-4486 x12676
www.dotfoods.com