Help Making Webpage Fancy!

[rspassey]

Hello,

I have slowly gotten back into making webpages, but am a total beginner when it comes to web design. I would really like some suggestions on how I could make the simple Family Photo Album that I am working on look a little nicer, more professional, and fancier.

The page is currently at http://www.freewebs.com/passeyfamily/home.html and I am open to any and all sugestions. Fire Away.

Thanks for any input,
Ryan

[hartken]

Easiest thing would be to use coppermine or gallery. They are open source galleries that add a lot of features and would make administration easier.

I don't know if your server will support it though. If it doesn't just lookup a CSS primer and that should give you everything you need.

[rspassey]

Well, I was wanting to get more into the HTML coding of it myself. I don't think CSS is necessary for this sort of webpage, but correct me if I am wrong. What I was actually looking for was some advice, maybe a good starting point, from where I can learn more about webdesign and perhaps some pointers.

[DynamicTech]

Why not look at some free templates you like, download them, and check out the source code? HTML is easy. I found the hard part is making descent graphics. Google webdesign tutorials. There probably a million sites that have them. This site has quite a few excellent tutorials: http://www.htmlgoodies.com

[Statica]

Using just HTML is a very impractical way of dealing with an online album especially as you start to add more pictures. I would second the suggestion of using Coppermine or Gallery. If you then want to take it further, you could start developing your own theme for those galleries.
Is CSS necessary? CSS will allow you to attach and reuse a style guide to all your webpages : http://www.wdvl.com/Authoring/Style/Sheets/

[mairving]

Another vote for Gallery and Coppermine. I like Gallery a bit better. It is fine for now as Statica suggests but adding pictures will be a pain using just HTML.

The way that it is currently done only allows for a small sampling of pictures before scrolling with way too much white space.

[rspassey]

Thank you for your suggestions. I will certainly consider using Coppermine or Gallery in future projects, and might have to pick up a book or something to teach me more about CSS. This album was done specifically for my Grandparents to view some of our holiday photos - they also have Dial Up, and I think if I add to many large pictures at one time on a page it will take ages to load. I appreciate the advice, and it is becoming more apparent that I should spend more time learning Webdesign. HTML, CSS, and javascript .

[Statica]

Installing something like coppermine/gallery does a whole lot more than just give you a pretty interface to put up pictures. It opens up a whole slew of features like editing images, automatic thumbnail generation, image/album view permissions and priveleges (something that I find is of great use to me) etc etc etc.
On the topic of learning design, it's fairly easy to pick up HTML from online primers (www.wdvl.com is a great site) or from source code. However learning to code properly is a skill far too few exhibit on their work.

[rspassey]

Originally Posted by Statica Installing something like coppermine/gallery does a whole lot more than just give you a pretty interface to put up pictures. It opens up a whole slew of features like editing images, automatic thumbnail generation, image/album view permissions and priveleges (something that I find is of great use to me) etc etc etc. On the topic of learning design, it's fairly easy to pick up HTML from online primers (www.wdvl.com is a great site) or from source code. However learning to code properly is a skill far too few exhibit on their work.

Thanks for the link, I will be downloading both and playing around with them. Up untill now I have only taken a few classes learning HTML when I went to a computer camp back when I was 9 or something. What little that has stuck with me is the most basic of the basics. Now I am trying to pick it up again. In computer science I opted to take advanced programing in BASIC (yeah, I know the practical applications of BASIC have disappeared, but it still teaches logic) rather than web development with HTML and JavaScript. Perhaps there might be a course outside school which I can take to learn actual HTML rather than learning how to use an editor like Dreamweaver to make professional pages. I will look into it, as I want to learn actual coding skills to make web sites rather than using already made interfaces and templets.

[hartken]

This is probably the best tutorial for CSS I've found.

http://www.macromedia.com/devnet/dre..._concepts.html

CSS is pretty much the same as HTML. It is the default in design right now. Think of HTML as being the structure and layout of your site, and CSS being the styling and format of your site.

[g35coupe]

Adobe Photoshop also has a pretty nice web galley builder that is automated. you can select from different themes also.

[mairving]

Originally Posted by g35coupe Adobe Photoshop also has a pretty nice web galley builder that is automated. you can select from different themes also.

It is true that it does but you would still have to manually edit the pages and there are a bunch of them to make any changes.