I want to build a personal website on wordpress.com
I have found a website that I really like the look of and want my website to look extremely similar to that website, maybe with just different assets.
I have some experience in Java and C but none in html. What would be the best way to replicate the source website onto my own website. I know I can inspect the element and look at the source code but it is really unintuitive. Is there a better way? How do I find the themes the original site used? Is there any way to copy the html code onto my own website?
Are you sure you want to build it on WordPress.com? It's hosted by WordPress, but also very limited and you can't really modify the themes.
If you want more control, you should do it using self-hosted WordPress.org package.
To check what kind of theme is used, go to source code and search for "wp-content/themes/theme-name" or find the main CSS file (often style.css) as there will be commented details that are shown by WordPress in Themes menu.
There are 2 options:
The website you like is a custom design and there is no easy way to copy that and it can be even illegal if you don't ask the owner. If you really want to copy the source, there is only a manual way - you download the source styles and scripts and modify it. Tough and risky way, because the sources are often minified.
The website is using a free or premium theme, available to buy, that's going to save you hours of work and probably allows a lot of customization, so you only have to spend some time to adjust it to your needs, upload photos etc. You will probably even don't have to look at the code.
(extra) If you still don't know what theme it is - ask the owner
Related
So I've created a restaurant webpage from scratch (my first full webpage). I want to get into freelance work, but I've heard that a lot of people use WordPress and it's plugins to create websites fast. I'm not really a fan of template editing, but can I use my existing HTML and CSS, upload it to WordPress and edit it there, and utilize WordPress plugins? I really want to add stuff like online ordering, RSVP systems, or mini stores on these sites.
No Problem, you would be able to make custom templates with your existing HTML/CSS/PHP. While having the ability to take advantage of plugins. Using an open source platform like WordPress will give the administrative rights to the restaurant owner, and most likely prevent the requirement for maintaining the website.
Yes, you can use your own HTML, CSS or JavaScript to create a theme and start from there. It might take you longer but you can do it.
Wordpress allows you to create a "Child Theme". With this, you are able to have your own stlying (css) or custom JavaScript. The advantage of doing this is when the theme publisher (assuming you are not the original creator of the theme) updates the theme, all your custom styles and JavaScript will remain intact. That is a good way of going around it.
If you want a quick solution, most themes come with a "Customize" section where you are able to paste your own styling. All the best!
A helpful link on creating child themes is https://developer.wordpress.org/themes/advanced-topics/child-themes/
I made a custom website using html,css etc for a friend who is currently using a weebly platform template for their current website.
After agreeing to use my custom website, I have no clue on how to upload my pages to weebly and avoid using their templates. I've tried to clear the pages and then inputting my own html code and CSS, however, the CSS is not implemented and the html code itself is awkwardly placed. I have tried to google the problem, however, I cannot find any clear instructions or tutorials.
The only reason using I am weebly is because they are currently subscribed to it. So my question is how to use your own coded website with weebly?
Also if there are cheaper options of webhosting feel free to suggest them, since I'll need to use one for the future.
EDIT: I can run each page locally on my PC
Simple answer is, you can't. At least not the way you expect to be able to. Lots of platforms are like this.
That said, you can certainly convert what you've created to something that will work on the Weebly platform. Your Theme/Design, CSS and any custom JavaScript can be converted. The content itself is added using the Weebly editor.
I guess you should ask yourself; Who's going to be editing this website? And does the Weebly platform fit their needs. If it is your friend, and they already have a subscription, and the platform is sufficient for them, I would recommend converting it so it works with Weebly. ~And not create something that they can't manage later.
There are many websites out there selling HTML templates to use for your own website.
I've bought many web templates in the past, but it just dawned on me;
Most of them offer full previews of the websites they are selling - essentially offering the product for free, since one can just use "View Source Code" and copy-paste the HTML, CSS, JS, et al. into their own program.
I just tried it out myself with this theme from Themeforest and I was able to copy most of the site from the preview (some parts are a bit messy).
My question is: are there functionalities that are impossible to get without buying the website, or is it all just essentially running on the honor system?
Any PHP site you cannot copy the PHP code behind it (or any kind of server-side code) which means that contact forms, newsletter subscriptions etc will not work unless you write your own PHP code for them, however everything else works pretty much fine. It is equivalent of downloading something over a torrent or similar. It is illegal, and not to mention unfair to the developers that have spent time creating the template.
If you will just manually copy and not buying the template from themeforest or other template sites, you won't get any technical support from author and any succeeding updates from the template. I guess it's also a form of piracy.
So, buying premium templates is beneficial to you and to your clients.
Like Benedict Lewis said, you're just copying the static HTML and none of the server side code. You wouldn't be able to use this is WordPress (or whatever CMS the theme is made for). You'd have to manually create new pages, edit them, and and upload them to your site, which is a pain.
Plus you're stealing someone's work which may be copyrighted.
I'm trying to create a theme for a CMS, but it's proving nearly impossible, as I have no understanding of PHP or ASP.NET. I can put a site together via CSS and HTML, but I want clients to be able to add and edit content themselves. I'm about ready to give up on designing one altogether and just use an existing theme.
I've had a go at trying to understand the inner workings of Wordpress, SilverStripe, Umbraco and Pixie, but the tutorials have left me confounded. Are there other CMSes I should be looking into for a more simplified theming process?
I'd really love to be able to just drop a chunk of code into the content area of a given HTML page, and make that region editable from a WYSIWYG front end that the client can log into. Is there such a thing?
Anything but DotNetNuke.
I'd recommend giving Wordpress another try.
I'm no web developer, just a an average Java/C# programmer who needed a web site and has some basic knowledge of HTML and CSS. What I did was find a theme that was similar to what I wanted, then started tweaking it incrementally. My theme is pretty basic, but before long I got a pretty good grasp of "The Loop" and printing out category and page links and such.
How about Movable Type?
You can (and should) edit the templates via the web interface, they are divided into separate modules, so you can concentrate on one area of the site, styling is of course handled via CSS.
It took me a few hours without any prior experience with this CMS to completely port a Wordpress theme to MT - I found the documentation very helpful and didn't even have to look elsewhere.
An awesome thing about MT - it generates static pages based on the templates you defined. Meaning, very low load on the server, you don't need to query the database on every request, etc. You could probably do the same/similar by activating the cache plugin (or is it built in now?) in Wordpress, but here it's the default modus operandi so it's more stable and integrated with the CMS.
Drupal with the zen theme (or a "lighter" version of it: Starkish theme) seems like a popular choice (and well deserved, too). It gives you a good starting point, it has great documentation and many modules available.
PS: I've added this as an additional answer so that it can be voted upon separately from my other suggestion - I just could not stop myself from bringing up the Drupal + zen combo :)
I worked with Joomla, it is really easy to have a theme for it without knowing any programming language. When you install it using a simple installer, there will be a folder named templates. There are three simple themes each in its own folder. Just copy one of them,change XML data for that theme ( just to name it and have some details, no programming ) and change the contents of CSS and HTMLs. every where you see something unrelated to HTML like , copy them!! Names are descriptive. so you can guess what do they do. give it a try!
I'd really love to be able to just drop a chunk of code into the content area of a given HTML page, and make that region editable from a WYSIWYG front end that the client can log into. Is there such a thing?
The only system I've come across with this kind of functionality is Perch.
Just create your website using HTML/CSS as usual and chuck in a few small php tags where you want editable content. These areas are then added to an admin area for your clients to edit.
The only drawback is it costs £35 per site - I don't know if there's a free/open-source CMS with this functionality...
It's difficult to say which CMS will be the best one for you (maybe your question should be made into a community wiki question).
I have a little experience with mojoPortal, and found it to be easily customizable. There's a lot of documentation about how to skin your CMS and there a lots of complete skins that you can use as a starting point.
There is also a demo site, where you can see how the CMS works for an end-user.
Take a look at Joomla. That was the first CMS that I really used, and I still think its templating engine is better than most of the others out there.
Its template system essentially lets you build a standard web page, and then use some simple tags to define where the content and modules would go. You can override the output of most external components and modules without too much trouble, and the vast library of third-party extensions should help you add a ton of functionality to your site without much coding on your part. Joomla also has a fairly easy-to-use administrative backend, so your clients should like it too.
This page for themeing Wordpress helped me a lot:
Theme Development
UPDATE
Xichael,
If you know HTML and CSS pretty well, but you just don't want to spend time learning the Wordpress framework, then I think this is a good option for you (again, I can relate to your situation). Use Wordpress with the new Toolbox starter theme. It's super minimal.
Toolbox: An HTML5 WordPress Starter Theme
Here's an example of what it looks like. Just "View page source" and go to town on the CSS!
I've thought about writing my own very simple CMS just for handling pages, i.e. you have some sort of template, and then a <div> in the middle to drop in text from a WYSIWYG editor. You could even use XML as the data store to eliminate having to set up a database to store the page content.
It would sort of be re-inventing the wheel though, because there is so much polished CMS software out there already, but it wouldn't be that hard because it wouldn't have 99% of the features most systems have. However, what happens when your client wants to add something in the future that's already standard in an existing CMS or plugin?
If you are looking for a simple CMS tool, CMSimple is as basic as it gets. A small PHP based CMS system that does not even require a database or XML.
"CMSimple is the ideal tool for a single user to maintain a website."
Original version here: CMSimple.ORG
Original plus 2 enhanced versions here: Download CMSimple
117KB content manangement system
no database required; the entire site is stored in a single HTML file
built in WYSIWYG
no modules or widgets, no blog, no comments, etc., just basic pages
uses PHP (but no database)
Get themes here: dotcomwebdesign.com
Although I've done programming, I'm not a programmer. I've recently agreed to coordinate getting a Website up for a club. The resources are--me, who has done Web content maintenance (putting content into HTML and ColdFusion templates via a gatekeeper to the site itself; doing simple HTML and XML coding); a serious Web developer who does database programming, ColdFusion, etc., and talks way over the heads of the rest of us; two designers who use Dreamweaver; the guy who created the original (and now badly broken) site in Front Page and wants to use Expression Web; and assorted other club members who are even less technically inclined.
What we need up first is some text and graphics (a gorgeous design has been created in Dreamweaver), some links (including to existing PDF newsletters for download), and maybe hooking up an existing Blogspot blog. Later (or earlier if it's not hard), we may add mouseover menus to the links, a gallery, a calendar, a few Mapquest hotlinks, and so on.
My question--First, is there any real problem with sticking with HTML and jpegs for the initial site? Second, for the "later" part of the site development, what's the simplest we can go with? Third, are there costs in doing this the simple way that will make us regret it down the road? Also, is there a good site/resource where I can learn more about this from a newbie perspective?
If you don't require any dynamic content, heck, if you don't plan on editing the content more than once a week, I'd say stick to basic HTML.
Later, you'd probably want a basic, no-fuss and easily installable CMS. The brand really depends on the platform (most likely PHP/Rails/ASP), but most of them can be found by typing " CMS" into Google. Try prefixing it with "free" or "open source" if you want.
I'm pretty sure you can do all this for absolutely free. Most PHP and Ruby CMS's are free and web hosting is free/extremely cheap if you're not demanding.
And last/best tip: Find someone who has done this before, preferably more than once. He'll probably set you up so you never have to look at anything more complicated than a WYSIWYG editor.
Plain old HTML is fine, just as long as you don't use tags like blink and marquee.
I personally love tools like CityDesk.
And I'm not just plugging Joel. (There are others out there in this class I'm sure.) The point is they make making a static website very easy:
The structure is just a filesystem structure
pages have templates to consolidate formatting
all resources are contained in one file
easy and fast Preview and Publish functions
For a dynamic collaborative site, I would just install one of many open source CMSs available on shared hosting sites.
If you're familiar with html/javascript basics I'd look into a CMS - wordpress, drupal, joomla, nuke, etc. All of these are free. Very often your web hosting company will install one of these by default which takes all of the hard part out of your hands. Next is just learning to customize the system and there's tons of docs out there for any of those systems.
All that being said there is noting wrong with good old fashioned html.
In addition to some of the great content management systems already mentioned, consider cms made simple.
It makes it very easy to turn a static site into a content managed site (which sounds like exactly what you might need to do in the future), and the admin area is very easy to use. Our clients have found it much simpler to use than the likes of Joomla.
It's also free and open source.
Good luck!
There's no reason to not go with plain old HTML and JPGs if you don't know any server side scripting languages. Also, once you want to get more advanced, most cheap hosting services have tools that can be installed with one click, and provide things like blogs, photo galleries, bulletin boards (PHPBB), and even content management tools like Joomla.
I had the same problem myself, I was just looking for something really easy to smash together a website quickly. First I went with just plain old HTML, but then I realised a simple CMS would be better.
I went for Wordpress. Wordpress is mostly known as a blogging platform, but in my opinion it is really great as a deadly simple CMS as well.
why not simply use Google pages?
Here is an example of a website I did, takes about 2 hours, easy to maintain (not that I do (-: ) and FREE.
I think that suggesting you mess with HTML for what you need is crazy!
Plain HTML is great, gives you the most control. If you want to make updating a bit easier though, you could use SSI. Most servers have this enabled. It basically let's you attach one file to many pages.
For example, you could have your menu in navigation.html and every page would include this file. That way you wouldn't have to update this one file on every page each time you need to update.
<!--#include virtual="navigation.html" -->
I agree with the other commenters that a CMS might be useful to you, however as I see it, probably a solution like Webby might do it for you. It generates plain HTML pages based on Templates. Think about it as a "webpage preprocessor" which outputs plain HTML files. It has most of the advantages of using a server-based CMS, but without a lot of load on the server, and making it easy for you to change stuff on any of the templates you might use.
It's fine
Rails (or purchase / use a CMS)
Not unless you start becoming crazy-popular
It really depends on what you go with for 2. Rails has a plethora of tutorials on the net and any product you go with will have its own community etc.
To be perfectly honest though, if the dynamic part is someone elses blog and you move the gallery out into flikr you may find that you can actually live with large parts of it being static HTML for a very long time.
If a to Implement a website With User Profiles/Logins, Extensions, Gallery's etc s a Newbi then a CMS like Joomla, Etc are good , but Else if you presently have only Static Content then Its good to go with Good Old HTML, About JPEG , I though Presently Its better to use PNG or GIF as its Less Bulky.
Also About you Query About Shifting to Server Scripts , When you have Database Driven Material or When you have Other Things that Require Advanced Prog Languages , Just use PHP Scripts inside PHP , and Rename teh File as a PHP, Thats IT, No Loss to you HTML Data.....
Do Go Ahead and Launch you Site ......
Dude, you're talking about HTML, obviously you'll be styling your content with CSS. Wait till you run into IE issues and god forbid your client wants ie6 compatibility.
Go with the HTML for now, I'm sure you guys will hack it through. Our prayers are with you.
Personally, I'd never use JPEG images on a website, mainly because of three reasons:
JPEGs often contains artifacts.
Quality is often proportional
with filesize.
Does not support
alpha transparency.
That said, I'd recommend you to use PNGs for images since it's lossless and a 24-bit palette (meaning full colors + alpha transparency). The only quirk is that IE6 and below does not support native alpha for PNGs, however this could be resolved by running a javascript which would fix this issue.
As for designing a website, there's both pros and cons for this. I suggest you read through:
37 Signal's Why We Skip Photoshop
Jeff Croft's Why We Don't Skip Photoshop
As for newbie resources, I'd recommend you flip through the pages at W3 Schools.