erm...how do you build a website?

[Amy K]

I think I finally have enough info to warrant trying to build my own website. However, I have NO experience in this area at all. My boyfriend was going to help me but then we broke up. Deciding not to be deterred I went to the library and borrowed "Building a Website for Dummies" (yup that's me!) but I still don't know what they are on about. I think I would be able to manage using a piece of WYSIWYG software, but are all SO expensive.

I know what I want the site to do and what I don't wnat the site to do. I have chosen a domain name, and have decided on how the site should look.

Can anyone give me some tips on how to make my webite a reality??

Which books are useful? Which software is good etc etc.....

[Berlin-Bob]

Hi Amy,

join the club !

Have you seen these thread already:
"Slightly off topic": http://www.rootschat.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=11030.0 and
"Your free Webpages on RootsChat.com?": http://www.rootschat.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=5703.0

It's basically the same thing: There is a lot of interest, and lot's of people are saying "... would love to, but need help". 

So there is a wish for "technical help" , and tech-help type of board. 

I had a PM from RootsChat recently, saying that it is changing servers, and when that's done, they will be introducing some new boards. Hopefully this will be one of them.

Probably as soon as RootsChat starts the web-pages service, the "technical help" will start coming ...

And once we have our web-pages, there are a lot of good tips on this thread, about what to put on them:
"presentation": http://www.rootschat.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=12461.0

p.s.
Calling RootsChat:  Any timetable for the web-pages, yet ??

[trystan]

Timetable? Do you think we plan things?!

The Long Answer:
We have the new server running, but we still haven't made the jump yet (from the old one) becasue it might mean RootsChat will be down for up to three days. Scary. There is however a way where we can make sure the site is only down for about four hours (in the quiet hours), but we're not 100% confident enough yet to do it. Even with a four hour shutdown, attachments may not look right for a few days while everything gets into synch.

The Short Answer:
We're not too sure when we will do the switch, but we are hoping it wil be in the next few weeks.

Fingers crossed,
Trystan

[Berlin-Bob]

Thanks, Trystan, for the info.

As an IT professional constantly working with software and hardware updates, I can only say:

- allow far more time than you've planned !

- post it on the "Welcome" page in BIG, BIG  Letters well beforehand,

- and, Good Luck !

[Chris in 1066Land]

Hi

Thanks to Trystan, and with Trystans help, I have been putting together a web page through rootschat

www.rootschat.co.uk/history/hastings

Am quite pleased with the way it is going, and it is getting between 100 and 200 hits a day - which cant be bad - its only 3 weeks old

Chris in 1066Land

[Reggie]

I think I finally have enough info to warrant trying to build my own website. However, I have NO experience in this area at all. My boyfriend was going to help me but then we broke up. Deciding not to be deterred I went to the library and borrowed "Building a Website for Dummies" (yup that's me!) but I still don't know what they are on about. I think I would be able to manage using a piece of WYSIWYG software, but are all SO expensive.

I know what I want the site to do and what I don't wnat the site to do. I have chosen a domain name, and have decided on how the site should look.

Can anyone give me some tips on how to make my webite a reality??

Which books are useful? Which software is good etc etc.....

Amy

I never had any experience with web page making at all.  I bought two books - (1) HTML for the World Wide Web by Elizabeth Castro. (2) Sams Teach Yourself HTML 4 in 24 Hours.  I don't know where you are, but I am in Australia and I belive they are world wide available books.

Now, I downloaded a FREE HTML program from this site http://www.arachnoid.com/arachnophilia

I did a very simple web page a few years back and you can see it at http://johnson.reg.tripod.com/

There is also another FREE HTML website maker too - goto:   http://www.chami.com/html-kit/ I must admit I haven't given this one a real hard look as yet.

Fortunately my genealogy program (The Master Genealogist) has a companion program (called Second Site) that makes a web page very quickly.  Some people like the style, some don't.  I haven't put it up on the web as yet because of incomplete data etc.

Hope this helps.

Reg

[Kazza]

Fortunately my genealogy program (The Master Genealogist) has a companion program (called Second Site) that makes a web page very quickly.  Some people like the style, some don't.  I haven't put it up on the web as yet because of incomplete data etc.

My genealogy program,  Roots Magic,  has this included.  It produces lovely pages,  with lots of choice on style,  layout.  There are hypertext links and indexes too.  I was very impressed.

Kazza.

[Shanko]

Amy,

I use the old boring notepad and do the html codes myself but I do know of some who say the other html programs are too hard to workout but they all say how easy is the Coffeecup html editor is. It does frames, tables etc etc for you much easier than the way I do it but you got to be careful as tables that work in IE won't work in Netscape so you got to fiddle and fart around. Give the Coffeecup a go

you can download it to see how you go and as you use it you can actually view the html so that way you can see what each code does
heres the url for it
http://www.coffeecup.com/

If you want the very basic html codes I will be happy to give them to you so you can at least get something started

Shanko

[Adi1962]

Amy,

you can download it to see how you go and as you use it you can actually view the html so that way you can see what each code does
heres the url for it
http://www.coffeecup.com/

Just to add to Shanko's suggestion, I would go for the Coffee cup Visualsite Designer
http://www.coffeecup.com/designer - its also free and is a little easierwhen first starting out.

But if you are only going to use it for your family tree than I would be more inclined to look at something like Kazza suggested- Roots magic or similar


Adrian