Website Builder
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Getting to Grips with CSS
Posted by admin on 25 Dec 2007 | Tagged as: How to's, Website Builder
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Occasionally, we receive questions from our members about implementing technologies that are still new to them. The following post covers a topic on CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) that we hope you find useful.
Martin from WealthyDragon writes “I know what CSS does and what it allows you to do, but I’ve never got to grips with actually using it. There are still murmurings in the forums that getting CSS to work in different browsers still causes headaches. So I don’t plan on using it until those wrinkles are easier to manage.”
“For example: what are the files that make up a page that uses CSS?
On pages that don’t use CSS, you have an HTML file, some image files and
whatever other files you need (e.g. audio files, etc.). What are the
files that make up a page that uses CSS?”
This is a problem many people have that already have their own websites, but want a better way to dress up their website. In the beginning, there were many problems related to cross-browser compatibility. But many of these have been worked out and the ones that remain are usually in the more advanced realm of using CSS. Those issues aside, let’s start with some basics.
First, CSS can be implemented right inside your HTML files. There is no need for any other files. Style attributes can also be used right inside your HTML tags as well. However, having a separate CSS file for your styles allows the same style sheet to be used for all of the pages on your web site. Have I confused you yet? Let’s look at each option:
Option 1 - Implementing CSS in your HTML files
There is an HTML tag named <STYLE>. By inserting a set of STYLE tags in your HTML file just after the BODY tag, you can define STLYE attributes for your web page. For example:
<STYLE>
body {
font-size: 11px;
font-weight: italic;
color: #FF0000;
}
</STYLE>
This is the style that will be applied to everything in between the <BODY> tags of the HTML file. It says that my text will be 11pixels in size, in Italics and the color Red. Every tag in the CSS file starts with the HTML tag (without the brackets) an opening ‘{’, the formatting commands and a closing ‘}’. Each formatting command is structured as ‘attribute: setting;’
Insert a STYLE section at the top of your page just after the BODY tag and change around some of the settings between the brackets (the ‘{’ and ‘}’ brackets). This is one of the best ways to learn how CSS works on your web page.
Option 2 - Style attributes within HTML tags
The second way of using STYLE tags is to put them right inside your HTML tags. For instance, we are all familiar with the tag to create a link so let’s use that one:
<a href=”myhomepage.html”>Text that links to my page</a>
This is the standard use of the tag, now lets add some formatting using the style attribute in the tag and some style sheet commands:
<a style=”font-weight:bold; font-variant:small-caps; font-size:12px;” href=”myhomepage.html”>Text that links to my page</a>
This should produce the following result:
This is the method I use when designing my websites until I get the desired look, and then I move everything into a style sheet file. Which brings us to option 3 …
Option 3 - Integrating CSS as a separate file
Having all of your styles in a separate file keeps the look and feel of your web pages standard across your entire website. Once you have all of your formatting done, you can save them into a file with the extension ‘.css’, such as ’style.css’. You then link to this file from your HTML files with the following command:
<link href=”style.css” rel=”stylesheet” type=”text/css”>
This line should go just before the </HEAD> tag in your HTML file.
Summary
This is just the beginning, and by no means a comprehensive guide to CSS. But, if you are comfortable with using one or all of the options mentioned above, you are now ready to begin playing around with the different attributes of CSS to get your website looking its best.
There is a full reference on CSS tags and attributes here.
There is a CSS Cheat Sheet for your reference here.
Have fun!
Website Tonight® - Online Website Builder
Posted by admin on 20 Dec 2007 | Tagged as: Web Hosting Companies, Website Builder
I feel compelled to write this post as I am in the process of promoting the WebSite Tonight®, online website builder as one of our premier products. I have used the product myself and gathered input from other blogs on this topic to assist those considering the purchase of a Website or an online website builder.
Product Overview
First a quick overview of the product so everyone knows what we are talking about. WebSite Tonight® uses over 800 templates to assist the user in creating their own web site by using a point and click method. No programming or technical experience is required or needed.
There are three plans available that offer free hosting and email. Users can add flash introductions from a library of more that 60 presentations. Music can be added to the flash introductions, and each account can add a Forum, RSS feeds, a guestbook and video uploads for adding videos or movies to your site.
One interesting feature is the ability to create web pages for mobile devices and combine them with with your podcasts.
Product Issues
For the absolute beginner, or a person with little or no technical knowledge, the product is a wonderful way to get a presence on the Internet. It’s fast , easy and simple to create a web site that looks good.
However, as with every new venture, problems may arise. One such user had used the product from another hosting provider and ran into troubles. So they asked their friendly web guru to help out.
Justin Chelf is a young, successful web entrepreneur that runs his own group of web sites. As a person who is more technical than most of his clients, he found the WebSite Tonight product rather limiting when it came time for him to make some minor modifications. You can read his post here.
It is important to note his comments, and being a concerned reseller, I called GoDaddy and checked this out with my own WebSite Tonight account. The limitations were correct, but not necessarily a bad thing for a beginner in the web site design arena.
After much discussion, they did offer to change my plan to a standard Hosting Plan, meaning that I could then keep the coding I had done already, but I now had to maintain and program the pages on my own computer first and then upload them to my web server. Not a problem at all, but this may be an issue for a beginner.
Buying Options
So, it is clear that before buying a WebSite Tonight account, you should weigh your options carefully. Questions to ask yourself might be:
- Do I want to customize the HTML code?
- Do I need to add Javascript code to my pages?
- Will I need professional assistance after I start?
There is good telephone support for the product if you should have problems, and you can change your plan later. The alternative option to WebSite Tonight is an Economy Hosting plan. Here is the cost options overview of the associated Economy packages:
| WebSite Tonight® | Economy Hosting | |
| Cost per Month | $4.99 | $3.99 |
| Disk Space | 50 MB | 5,000 MB |
| Transfer | 1 GB | 250 GB |
| Email Accounts | 1 | 500 |
| Email Forwards | 50 | 50 |
| MySQL databases | none | 10 |
| Forum | Yes | Yes |
| Photos | Yes | Yes |
| Blog | No | Yes |
| FTP Access | No | Yes |
| Custom coding | No | Yes |
| Add a domain name | $1.99 | $1.99 |
The Deluxe and Premium Plans offer similar differences. Compare this list of features with what you expect out of a web site. If some of these items do not matter to you, and you really do not want to involve yourself with the technical aspects of web design, the WebSite Tonight option is probably you best choice.
However, if you want to understand how web pages work, and eventually understand more about web technology, the basic web hosting plan is you best option.
We hope this helps you in making the best web hosting choice for you.
