Finding a website designer

Medievalist said:

Get yourself a free copy of BareBone's TextWrangler; you'll have to hand code the html, but it's not rocket science.

Find a free CSS template.

And off you go!

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Already have it, naturally. (Though I've opted for XCode for most of my coding.)

I guess that's a few more on the list of languages to learn...

Well... I have done HTML before, but it always looked pretty amateurish. I've never touched CSS.

What's a good source for templates?

http://www.freecsstemplates.org/

Look at the HTML carefully; be ruthless about pruning javascript unless you know what it's doing.

This is a pretty good site--but sometimes malware slips through.

Also, for the utilitarian, there are a bunch of css grid engines.

Don't screw with the dimensions in css divs unless you really know what you're doing. That's what typically breaks I.E. compatibility.

Tirjasdyn said:

Wordpress can easily handle hundreds of pages, which can be turned on and off at will. Both the templates that Medievalist suggested handle this fine.

Textwrangler is also awesome.

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Ok. problem is that I don't know enough about the kit to be able to know or be able to do this. And, without fail, all displays about these sites and many others revolve around the mainly 5-page site:about, contact, portfolio etc etc. Unless of course the template is designed for something different such as for e-commerce.

ATP said:

Ok. problem is that I don't know enough about the kit to be able to know or be able to do this. And, without fail, all displays about these sites and many others revolve around the mainly 5-page site:about, contact, portfolio etc etc. Unless of course the template is designed for something different such as for e-commerce.

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Here's the thing; think about the WordPress Template as a series of real-world paper pads with forms.

The sort of thing an office purchases; the 50 or 100 sheet pad with the same form printed on all of them.

So every WordPress template has at least two forms; a Page form and a Post form.

The two often look very much alike; but Posts (as in blog posts) have a date and time stamp, they are usually configured to appear in reverse order, newest at the top, etc.

You want a static Page? You click a New Page link in the Dashboard; you get a blank form, ready for your content.

You want new blog Post? You click a New Page link in the Dashboard; you get a blank form, ready for your content.



These sites are all WordPress sites:

http://www.digitalmedievalist.com -- a single blog Post; all the rest are Pages

This site also has a separate blog about books; mostly, I wanted to play with a different style of WordPress template (and I used a separate WordPress install; there are other ways to do that). It's mostly Posts: http://digitalmedievalist.com/bookthing/

http://www.digitalmedievalist.net -- a few static Pages; most of the site is the Blog, using WordPress Posts.

http://www.greenmanreview.com Posts, with many many Pages. This is a review site; Reviews go up as Pages; a blog post periodically links to a number of reviews.

http://www.ipadprojectsbook.com/ A few Pages, but mostly, hosts a blog.

So there's a lot of variety available.

I should note--I'm not a designer, or an artist. I know text, and I know html and CSS, and some basics about scripting.

But I can read the screen. And there are several good books about WordPress 3.

ATP said:

Ok. problem is that I don't know enough about the kit to be able to know or be able to do this. And, without fail, all displays about these sites and many others revolve around the mainly 5-page site:about, contact, portfolio etc etc. Unless of course the template is designed for something different such as for e-commerce.

Click to expand...

What you see on a site and what Wordpress is capable of are two different things. Just because you see at template with five pages doesn't mean it is limited to five pages. It means no one hit New Page in the dashboard and created a sixth page.

Also each page can be named whatever you want. I don't have an about page on my website at all...because I changed the name in the title field.

kuwisdelu said:

Psst. I think you meant http://www.ipadprojectsbook.com/.

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Mistakes may have been made . . .

(Thanks Kuwi!; fixed it above)

Medievalist said:

<snip> And there are several good books about WordPress 3.

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This is probably the 'best' solution, but I am unable to afford it right now. And, it is not likely that the public library here will have such books; or if they do, it is likely out of date, and if they order the recent editions, these are likely to come b/t 6-12 months later.

Tirjasdyn said:

What you see on a site and what Wordpress is capable of are two different things. Just because you see at template with five pages doesn't mean it is limited to five pages. It means no one hit New Page in the dashboard and created a sixth page.

Also each page can be named whatever you want. I don't have an about page on my website at all...because I changed the name in the title field.

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Ok. But, I am in a Catch 22 then, aren't I? I don't know the functions of the templates I have chosen, & I am of the impression based on experience mentioned here that the designer is not going to spend time examining the template to determine what can and can not be done.

I suppose the only solution is to find a designer who has had some/good experience with the chosen template/s. Where do I go for this?

ATP do you have a server/ISP/host picked out?

Do they have one click install for WordPress?

You can easily switch from one template to another, just by clicking.

In general, templates don't have a whole lot of unique function. There are things like some have an "author page" already built, to list posts by a particular author; some have areas for image galleries, or ads, already established. Some have menus, some have menus in the header and the footer, or only in a special menu area.

You're going to need a host/server anyway, why not try playing with WordPress a little yourself? You can then ask a Template designer or someone who understands WordPress templates/CSS/PHP to make modifications to what you've already got.

Have you played with a free wordpress.com account? That will tell you an awful lot.

ATP said:

I suppose the only solution is to find a designer who has had some/good experience with the chosen template/s. Where do I go for this?

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How about this: What are the name of the templates?

Templates are one click installs in wordpress.