[ale] web page creation app

[Robert Reese~]

Hi Paul,

> I doubt I will ever do much web site creation, I just want to make
> my own site ( again..) with something other than  swriter or WORD..

Don't blame you one bit.  :)  I have the answer: FrontPage Under Crossover Office!  ::RDAG::


>> But yes, CSS at the same time is certainly preferred.  And
>> SitePoint is a fantastic place to start.
>>
> not sure why I would need CSS, for a personal site with maybe
> folders of baby pictures...

CSS is for STYLE, HTML is for CONTENT.  :c)  Separate the two, and you'll have a much easier time handling both; especially true six months from now.  Particularly with CSS, where you can make stunning changes in a a few moments.  For example, let's say you decide to do your own photo pages and you want to create a special themed photo section.  You change exactly one word in the HTML for the target page and you can apply, say, a birthday theme or a Christmas theme.  Or, let's say you have a set of photos that you like with a navy blue background and a lilac font.  Your visitor doesn't particularly care for lilac and thinks the blue is too dark.  You can, with a touch of JavaScript, add a dropdown or radio button for different themes or even specific elements such as changing just the font color and allow your visitor to choose to see the photo set they way they prefer to see it.

For a dramatic example site of the power of CSS, take a look at Eric Meyer's page at http://meyerweb.com/eric/css/edge/  <http://meyerweb.com/eric/css/edge/>

See also CSS Zen Garden at http://www.csszengarden.com/  <http://www.csszengarden.com/>


On the other hand, how about letting others do the work for you in regards to the pictures?  Winkflash.com has a great free site.  And for a small price <$40 per year, take a look at smugmug.com, my personal favorite.

http://www.winkflash.com/  <http://www.winkflash.com/>

http://www.smugmug.com/  <http://www.smugmug.com/>

I'd stay as far away from Flickr as possible... they _stole_ $25 from me, and have met very few companies which had worse customer service.  I rate them right along side AOL.

If you want to extend that to the main body of the site, consider getting a Blogger.com page and use it as a regular website rather than a blog?  It's free, and IIRC you can mask the URL.  The styles are limited though functional.  Security is handled by Google & Friends, which might be more secure than your hosting's systems.  I don't know your hosting so I can't say whether that's true or not.

However you decide to do it, we're here to help.  :)  Say... you aren't hosting on an IIS server, right?  ::grin::

R~