can anybody explain how to set up a website?

[laceflower]

I just purchased a web template and don't know what to do. Is there Anyone who can explain what i should do next? I know it sounds rediculously stupid but i am desperate and am for the right price even willing to pay whoever wants to make extra money. The templates i have are PSD file and i have domain name and hosting service with hostmonster. Please help me!!!!

[shadmego]

This is a seriously loaded question. Here are some basic questions you might want to answer to get a better response from others:

What type of site are you wanting to set up?
What type of template did you purchase and does it need any modifications?Websites can be built just about any way you want them to be built. The more customization you want though, the more expensive it will get because the more time someone will have to spend on the project.

In the most basic terms, a website is nothing more than a few files that get uploaded to a server. People visit that server and look at the files you uploaded.

Static files are built with basic HTML (HyperText Markup Language) and CSS (Cascading Style Sheets). HTML is pretty much the foundation of all websites, though anymore, most people want a more dynamic website.

In these cases, they use server-side languages such as php and interact with databases such as MySQL. On servers that are Microsoft-based, you would use ASP and SQL respectively.

Don't worry too much about that if you don't understand it, but if you want to learn to do this yourself, some great websites that teach you how to write html and css are:

HTML
www.w3schools.com
www.htmlgoodies.com

CSS
www.w3schools.com
www.echoecho.com

A great site to look at to see the power of CSS is:

www.csszengarden.com

Depending on how quickly you learn, you could be in for a steep learning curve, or it could only take you a few months to pick this stuff up.

Anyway, I would answer the first two questions and other will come along and provide their input as well.

~regards, and welcome to the Community!
Shadmego

[laceflower]

Next few days i am going to try to learn to do it myself. I am trying to set up a online store and bought an os commerce template. I wonder if it will be too complicated for me to modify it. I've learn to change the text and slicing it and save it as html in Photoshop and imageready last three days and i am using dreamweaver to do more work. Do you think i was doing right? I hope you don't mind me asking more stupid questions. When i got the template unzipped i ended up with 6 PSD templates. First question is that i couldn't change the images and when i used dreamweaver it allow me to change it. When my website is running and want to change the images and text, do i alway have to come back to imageready to fix it? Isn't there any easier way to modify the template without using photoshop? I will try to educate myself so i don't ask these questions again. Thank you so much and i will probably be back in a couple of days for sure with more questions.

[shadmego]

That's what I hear a lot of people do. Use a combination of Photoshop, Imagereadry and Dreamweaver to do their sites. I also know that Fireworks is very popular for modifying images for web publication. Unfortunately, I don't have ready access to these programs so I can't give you any detailed responses to the way you are going about modifying your files.

I don't know what you are referring to when you say you couldn't change the images except in Dreamweaver. If they were PSD files, you should have been able to open and change them in Photoshop.

As far as finding an easier way to change your images other than Photoshop, good luck. As far as I know, that's the best program to use to image creation/modification, but like I said, Fireworks, Imageready and Dreamweaver are all very popular web developement tools to have. .... wish I had them ....

~regards,
Shadmego

P.S. Please don't think your questions are stupid or rediculous. We all started somewhere. And we are all here to help.

[laceflower]

Thank you for your encouragement.*^^*

[splodge]

there realy is no better or easier way to change your pictures than photosop, easiest way to do it with photoshop without dreamweaver is, upload the picture you want on your web site to PS, resize it to the same size of the picture you want to replace, then click on > file > save for web > (save it to the file where the picture to be replaced is) click on that picture to pick up it's name > save > a popup window will show, telling you you are about to replace an existing picture > click OK > upload the new picture to your web host, job done,
if you dont trust me/yourself open the page in D/W and the new picture will be there, magic, if you want to save a copy of the old picture save a copy to an external file on your computer before above, if you want to replace with a different sized picture follow the same instructions, but you will have to open D/W > open the page > click on the new picture > look in the property bar, at the left hand side you will see 2 dimention boxs H/W with a refresh arrow > click that then upload picture AND page to your host :)

[laceflower]

Thank you. It feels good to know that there are people like you who could help me out. Thank you again.*^^*

[laceflower]

I successfully change the images and text in photoshop. When i purchased the templates it came with 6 psd files(main pages, category...etc) and again not to sure what i should do. Is it just main page that i have to modify or 5 other templates as well. Also could anybody explain whether I have to link all the buttons together or not.(I am hoping it is already linked together.^^) Can you understand what i am saying? :rolleyes:

[shadmego]

Again, not having played with this type of site building before, I don't know the exact answer you are looking for but I imagine that if all your pages are the same (using many of the same images from the PSD files, you can get away with only using those images that are unique to each different page.

I would also ask what you mean by linking all the buttons together. Could you explain a bit more please?

~regards,
Shadmego

[RichardDororugh]

do you have building sites?? I have never built one before and have muddled through to build these. www.local370voice.com and www.dorroughanddorough.com . If you are like me and new I would suggest putting Dreamweaver away until you have more experience. I have MX and may I say it is quite complicated for the newbie. Also no need to buy templates. There are enough for free.Get the Web Expressions Beta and play with it for a couple of months until you have a feel for web building. I have taught myself and I dont not know a sliver of web building and do not think I ever will. I cannot use half of the features in the Hostmonster CP. If you are looking for a Fancy Flash web site right off the get go I suggest you have someone build it for you. If I can help you in any way.Let me know

[laceflower]

Thanks everyone. Everything is taken care of now.*^^*

[shadmego]

Would you mind sharing with us what you did to fix the problems you were having? It would help everyone that comes after you.

~regards