I have questions about making a web site, help me!

Given I can't run those menu dropdowns from work, I'm guessing it's JavaScript of some sort, abetted w/ CSS shenanigans?

I suppose if you can't run them, they're not a great solution!

Ha - sorry to mislead you, Dan. It's not that they're necessarily bad (probably far from that). It's that my workplace is behind the times re: browser & related upgrades, so whenever I go to certain sites (like any Wordpress publishing area, for instance), I get script errors.

I don't like the way it shifts things down so much when you click 'Boards' but I think I'm anti big movements on a webpage like that generally.

Yes source code looks javascript is powering the dropdown/stylesheet selection.

If all you know is plain HTML you have a steep learning curve ahead of you. Maybe you are a quick learner though and it won't be so bad.

I'm not planning on building it myself, I'm expecting to pay lots of money to have someone/some people do it for me, I just wanted to do some research and know a bit more about what I want.

What I like about that is that it's quick, it doesn't have that "waiting for something to load" issue going on. I don't mind that it drops stuff down, but why not just cover what's below, as you're going to select something else anyway.

I made my record label site with someone who did basic HTML stuff. I designed it more or less and had this idea of using lots of pulldown menus, and only after being basically done do I realize just how different the menus look...and work...in different browsers. Lets just say http://acuterecords.com/ looks really nice if you're using Safari.

But this upcomming project is an ambitious database driven web application/site. I was going to work with a programmer who wanted to put it together using pieces of open-source software, but he flaked. Prior to that I thought a site that complicated would need a team of hundreds and was out of my range. Now I feel like a college kid could do it, or maybe a few, or maybe I just need to hire web software developers.

Anybody looking for a job? Anybody have any small web developement firms they'd recommend?

dan i will email u later. i work for a smallish place that does design and cms/database back-end. not sure if they'd be right for you but i might have some suggestions

much appreciated.

dan those are sometimes known as "javascript pulldown menus"

you can check out flickr for an example of the same idea but without the moving stuff around nonsense

note that if you don't realize they're pulldowns, or special, you can still just click that main link and it will take you to that stuff anyway - this is good

woo! free learnin'!

looks like chowhound uses ajax (there's your buzzword) so that would explain the fast loading

i don't think so dude, it's just hidden DIVs. they're already loaded and javascript reveals them.

That doesn't mean it's not AJAX, tho, Tracer - they could be using AJAX (or even fancy boring ol' ASP, like I do @ my fancy job) to get the shit done, in conjunction w/ magical DIV tags.

Dan go to forums.digitalpoint.com where an indian will make it for you for a couple of tenners.

When you start outsourcing shit like this, then it's time to just cut bait on life in the IT field.

dan, do you really NEED that much dropdown? Seems like chowhound uses javascript because those sub-menus are teh hueg, and a rollover/pure CSS solution would be mad unwieldy. You can do a lot with just CSS, though.

I don't think I'll need that much, it just seemed like a graceful move compared to html pulldown menus one one hand and flash on the other.

[Removed Illegal Link]

huh

dont know about the menu specifically but their prototype.27.js is ajax

From a boring search engine optimisation angle make sure that you have some simple text links to your pages somewhere on your site so the google spider can find the internal pages

chowhound is not using ajax to pull the data for those dropdowns, it's just using prototype and some effects libraries to do the effect. firebug reveals no xmlhttprequests.

and my nerd meter just went to 9 when I typed that

ok, you're all hired!

just emailed, no idea if ilx mail thing works, there's no 'message sent' page haha

http://www.ilxor.com/ILX/WebMailControllerServlet

dan at danselzer dot com or dan at acuterecords

so let's say I wanted to build a website, let's say I wanted to build myspace. What are we talking about here, something a few people can do in a month or three? Something that'll take a team of dozens? Are we talking 3 grand? 5? 15?

you probably only need 1 or 2 people, a designer and a coder if not just one person adept enough at both to be able to provide what you want. more people = less time spent theoretically but too many cooks and all that. less people means you pay less out but what you spend depends on their ability/experience. i'd consider looking for a recent graduate who is keen to get some stuff into their portfolio so won't (shouldn't?) be charging you big money and might have some good fresh ideas. if it's a big site and you want a really decent job done allow 3 months for design, development and testing. the myspace can be done within a day really - write the copy, create/choose garish background etc.

i stress, time and cost depend entirely on how big the site is and what it involves in terms of content generation and management. and remember additional costs for site maintenance/updates/changes and support on the webhosting side.

sorry i just read your post above where you already kind of explained what/how big it was gonna be oops

so you think one or two people can't do it? A student? an intern? A high-school student getting extra credit? When you say "myspace can be done within a day", where you thinking I meant I needed a myspace page? I'm talking about building a database driven site...something that isn't just like a record label website where you have pages for each release, but something closer to chowhound or myspace...forums/social networking/calendars/etc.

I think a day is not reasonable although possible I'm sure by some.

Remember when looking for someone, you get what you pay for. A student or intern might indeed have the techincal skills but more than likely they do not have the professional experience to see a large project through all the neccesary stages.

1. write out what you want, in detail
2. get somebody who knows what they're doing to write out what would have to actually be done in order to accomplish that, both technically and design-wise
3. work together to come up with a time estimate, building in some buffer areas for things that might take a bit longer, and keeping in mind that certain things being delayed will delay everything else
4. multiply the number of hours by $25
5. actually do the damn thing
6. watch money roll in

o, i almost forgot - 1a. make sure the first version of what you want is the minimum amt. of stuff for it to still work and do basically what you want - you can add stuff later, and later you'll have a much better idea of what exactly to add and how to add it (cf. flickr, cf. photobucket, cf. myspace, cf. facebook, cf. google etc etc - they all started very bare-bones)

Yes I have to say that usually my clients have grand ideas of what they think they want. But once we really talk about their needs and the site's purpose these ideas get scaled down. Which ulimately makes for a better site.

I did 1 and 1a and had 2, but 2 disappeared, basically. Part of the point of these questions is to figure if I can't find number 2, do I just hire number 2, and if so, on what scale? I ask about students/interns etc because obviously that would be a cheaper route, but I'm willing to pay for it to be done right, I just have a hard time understanding the technical dimension of what is needed and how many people it could take.

I did already lay out, for myself at least, what the basic features need to be and how it could/would grow from that.

re: finding someone. Have you contacted the designers/webmasters of any sites you like (which are similar to yours, eg. bands/labels)?

fwiw, this has nothing to do with bands or labels.

My project falls somewhere between some cracks so I haven't been sure who'd be best to contact. Anything that seems similar enough I feel may be potential "competition" so it seems a bit awkward. I have a few people I can talk to and will give that a try soon enough.

oh okay. For some reason I thought you had mentioned this was for a label.

I still think contacting people who have made sites you like is a good start.

dan, i wrote some rambling email that got eaten by shitty ilxmail servlet and then got caught up in work, blah blah. in any case what i was gonna recommend was similar to steps 1-3 above. i know squat about the financial side of it.

i'd suggest rather than contact sites you like, you use them as the examples to show the potential hirees as a way to guage what they can or cannot do for you.

I just have a hard time understanding the technical dimension of what is needed and how many people it could take.

this is almost impossible to assess without knowing the details of what the site needs.

you want me to show all my cards? I'm having these discussions with people off-list, I'm just not comfortable going to far in-depth here.

When you say "myspace can be done within a day", where you thinking I meant I needed a myspace page?

ha ha yes sorry

i'm really intrigued by the project i must say

you want me to show all my cards? I'm having these discussions with people off-list, I'm just not comfortable going to far in-depth here.

? no i don't. just saying you know.

i do however have a co-worker who is doing something like this on the side (and quitting to do it full-time) with at least two other people, one of which is the programmer

building their own site or starting a programming firm?

their own site

So tell me about Ruby On Rails. Is that something that I would want somebody to use to make me a site? Is that something I can teach myself without knowing anything about programming?

you should spend your time thinking seriously about what your site is for and what your goals are: what does a successful site do for you? get more interest in your music? attract an audience of [...] people? get x number of people to buy/download music? let you post news updates, run a blog, send out RSS feeds? why do you need a website? what can't you do (quickly, easily) now, that you want to be able to do using the web?

then, talk to the technical person(s) who are building your site about your goals, and let the experts figure out what kind of technology would accomplish them most efficiently.

you wouldn't go to an auto body shop and start telling them what kind of tools they were supposed to use to fix your car, would you?

as far as rails goes, the <a href="http://37signals.com/";>37 signals</a> folks use it to do some really nice applications

but their philosophy is almost as key I think- you start simple! don't go nuts thinking of a million features and bells and whistles, start with a few key things only, make all the extra stuff fight to be included. there are so many forums/networking/everything but the kitchen sink sites out there, and meanwhile everybody is on facebook, and facebook is a platform - the web is going a different way now

Usually its better to use a precooked solution to knit stuff together than code it totally from scratch.

you should spend your time thinking seriously about what your site is for and what your goals are: what does a successful site do for you? get more interest in your music? attract an audience of [...] people? get x number of people to buy/download music? let you post news updates, run a blog, send out RSS feeds? why do you need a website? what can't you do (quickly, easily) now, that you want to be able to do using the web?

As mentioned above, this has nothing to do with my record label. I know exactly what it needs to do and I think I know what would make it successful.

then, talk to the technical person(s) who are building your site about your goals, and let the experts figure out what kind of technology would accomplish them most efficiently.

There are no technical persons, that's the point of this entire thread. I'm trying to find the experts so I can figure out who can do this and how much it will cost. From a personal correspondance, I've had one company recommended to me, and I will talk to them. I was told however they are very expensive and the point of this thread was trying to gauge what kind of "experts" are required.

you wouldn't go to an auto body shop and start telling them what kind of tools they were supposed to use to fix your car, would you?

I'm just trying to get a sense of what certain tools are best for the particular applications I want to discuss. I wouldn't go to an muffler place to get my stereo installed necessarily.

The specific tools 37signals seems to offer don't apply to me. I have no problem starting simple. While I understand the idea of customizing precooked solutions, it scares me that you're already starting with applications that are only partially relevant to the task at hand. But if the solution is to take some open-source software, or buy something, and tear it apart and put my own interface on it, that's fine, the problems is WHO is going to do this?

It took me a few days to get Simpleviewer working. Until I realized I hadn't uploaded the swf (?) file correctly. hahahaha Dumb @ss I R.

I'm looking at creating a website to display my artwork. Can anyone recommend a place where I can set this up ? I don't want to get bogged down in code, so I'd love something that will do all that for me. Like Squarespace but not as awful as Squarespace.

And as cheap as can be :)

thanks

im having a bit of a problem too, trying to upload my rails app to heroku but since i add client side routing with angularjs, heroku doesnt show those pages. It looks like i need to use grunt and possibly yeoman but being new to web stuff not really sure what they are yet