Lois & Clark Forums Forums General Discussion Technical Help and How To's Web design help

I'm trying to put together a webpage. Unfortunately, I have next to zero experience at such things. I don't really know HTML and, in general, I'm a clumsy programmer at best.

I have created a few basic web pages in the past, but I've done so using WYSIWYG editing programs like Netscape Composer and Trellian Webpage.

Most of what I want to do can still be done that way, but I'd like to snaz it up a bit this time.

One thing I'm looking to do is to create borders along the sides of the page. I want a main background image, and then a different image running along the left (or right) side of the page. I think I just need to create an invisible vertical devider and set the border image as the background for that side of the devider, but I'm not sure how to go about doing that. Especially not without defining a height for the border (I want it to run the length of the page, whatever that happens to be).

I'm also looking for a way to allow users to select font options from a pull-down menu (preferably without cookies). I found a program which claims to do just that, but have yet to test it. Any thoughts on that would be helpful, too.

I think that's it for now. I may be back as I get further into the design. Any help/advice/suggestions you may have on this stuff would be very much appreciate, though.

Paul

The best way to do the running border is to do a table tag. Have the width be 100%, and you can set the border to whatever you want it to be. It's what the major websites do for their menus. You can then put a background color in that cell.

I'm not sure how to do the font selection, but I'm sure there's a php script or cgi script to do that.

One website that I checked out a lot in my earlier days (and still do for color codes) is http://www.htmlgoodies.com . They've also got stuff on javascript and php and other stuff now.

Thanks, Karen! That really helps.

(BTW, I assume you mean height = 100% rather than width? Oh well, I'll play around with it...)

Ooo, and nice link! Thanks again.

Paul

No, Paul, that's right. She's making a table that's as wide as the screen, but has 2 columns, one for your menu and one for your main body. Speaking of which, there shouldn't be a tag at the end there.

Basically, TD tags indicate columns, TR incidate rows. A very basic 3-column table with one row would look like this:

One thing to keep in mind though is that if you use the table method to split up your page, the image is not considered part of the background, and you won't be able to have text running over it.

I believe there is a way to do exactly what you want with cascading style sheets, however, I don't know it off the top of my head.

You can also do this with basic html by using background tags to your table, however in order to not have the image repeat if the user resizes his browser window to something larger than your two images, you need to have fixed column widths and heights.

Let's say you have an image that's 350 x 50 that you want for your body, and 100 x 50 that you want for your left column.

http://werbach.com/barebones/ The Barebones Guide to HTML is a nice starting point if you're curious about html.

Thanks, Aria. I got it set last night. Took a little playing with the numbers and settings, but it works well now. I even got the font thing to work, with drop-down menus, no less.

The table has two collumns, each with its own background image (which both repeat and which overlap relatively neatly with each other), and I can put the text where I need it. I tested it out, and it works fine with IE and FireFox.

The font thing causes IE to send up an annoying prompt, but fortunately, it only does that once per session. Not ideal, but not too bad, either.

As for HTML, I'm picking it up slowly as I go, learning the tags and capabilities from playing around with stuff like this. I know programming isn't one of my strengths (and never will be -- I just don't have the right kind of mind for it), and I get by well enough for the limited needs I have (I don't make many webpages, and most of them are fairly simple and straightforward, like the travelogue I put up).

Anyway, thanks again.

Paul

Worth considering is Macromedia Dreamweaver. I initially couldn't think why I'd want to spend that money -- then I used it. It strikes a marvelous balance between WYSIWYG editing and code editing, and it puts the HTML and CSS stuff together workably. It assumes you know a good bit of HTML, but it puts a nice interface on it at the same time.

The retail edition is hideously expensive, mind, but you can get it on an academic basis (mine's though the school bookstore) at something like a 90% discount.... If you don't do much web stuff at all, it might not be worthwhile, but if you start doing more it makes doing the complex stuff far more feasible.