Nav Bar
fmueller
Auckland, NZ Icrontian
OK, I am finally in the process of putting my personal web site together, and were it's hanging right now is how to do the navigation. The content I'll upload first is centered around my fish keeping hobby - the main thing I've done so far is write a 25,000 word article on my largest tank. So together with photos and stuff, this is going to be big and needs to be split up into into various pages. I envisage a navigation where I have a nav bar on the top of every single page on the site that lets you access the introductory pages for the different areas, such as fish keeping, photography, cooking, etc. Once you get to these pages you'll be able to access the sublevels, e.g. under fish keeping: 240G tank, 29G tank, 5G tank, and so on. On the 240G page, you'll be able to go into filtration, lighting, plants, fish, and so on.
Now here comes the question. When I later want to ad a different area to the site, such as for example train spotting, will I have to go into every single page of the site and add the corresponding button, or is there a way to have a nav bar somewhere that is dynamically inserted at the top of every page? How would you do this, or better yet, is there a way to download the necessary code from somewhere? Yesterday I downloaded First Page, and was amazed by all the ready-to-use scripts this software includes, but I haven't found anything to solve this particular problem yet.
Many thanks in advance
Frank
Now here comes the question. When I later want to ad a different area to the site, such as for example train spotting, will I have to go into every single page of the site and add the corresponding button, or is there a way to have a nav bar somewhere that is dynamically inserted at the top of every page? How would you do this, or better yet, is there a way to download the necessary code from somewhere? Yesterday I downloaded First Page, and was amazed by all the ready-to-use scripts this software includes, but I haven't found anything to solve this particular problem yet.
Many thanks in advance
Frank
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Comments
If you plan on expanding your website down the road I would recommend starting with a CMS (content management system) such as WordPress.
Wordpress can be downloaded (www.wordpress.org) and installed if you have a hosting account or you can sign up for a free account where they host the website for you but with less functionality (www.wordpress.com).
If you hard coded everything it would work for now; however, down the road when you want to update some of your pages or expand you will end up going back and re-editing all the pages by hand.
cheers
If you want to go from scratch in only HTML (static pages), use a template. I know in Dreamweaver, using a template makes it VERY easy. You base all your pages off the template (which has the banner, nav, footer, etc in it) and then all you do is update the template and DW auto-fixes everything for you everywhere in the site. I don't use FrontPage (IMO, it creates crap code and isn't standards-compliant enough - it's slanted to IE-only) so I'm not sure if it has a similar function, but I'd bet it does. This is BY FAR the easiest way of doing it on static HTML pages.
If you're gonna custom code PHP or something from scratch, then yes, you'd write a file that prints out the navigation and then just do an 'include' statement in other pages. Then, all you'd have to do is update that one navigation file and it would change for everything else. I'd recommend picking up PHP: Visual Quickstart Guide from Peachpit Press if you want to go this route. This would require PHP access on the server, but not a database.
Those 3 methods (CMS, HTML-only, PHP-only) were in the order I'd recommend them
Many thanks, I'll have to look into that. Regarding the hosting, I signed up with 1and1 for their basic account. I know they might not be the best around, but money is an issue, and at $3 a month they are kinda hard to beat. I figured I can always upgrade to something better if the need arises. Now I just hope they allow PHP & MySQL, so I can use Word Press...
Frank
If you signed up for the normal <a href="http://order.1and1.com/xml/order/HostingBeginner;jsessionid=01D036A2455EBF8BFDF6342F326A20CD.TC60b?__frame=_top&__lf=Static">1&1 hosting beginner plan</a> you should be golden. However if you signed up for the <a href="http://order.1and1.com/xml/order/MsHostingBeginner;jsessionid=01D036A2455EBF8BFDF6342F326A20CD.TC60b?__frame=_top&__lf=Static">1&1 Microsoft beginner plan</a> you are probably going to want to have them switch you over.
Other than that, it is just a matter of <a href="http://wordpress.org/download/">downloading</a> and installing Wordpress and you will be well on your way!
Let us know if you need anymore help!
cheers
jared, they should hire people like yourself at 1and1!
Unfortunately there is no 'normal' hosting plan. There is only a 'Linux' hosting plan and a 'Microsoft' hosting plan. Since I am running Windows at home, I signed up for the Microsoft version. I bet that's how most ignoramuses like myself think and that's how people get lured in the proprietary Microsoft world. If they had called them normal and Microsoft, everybody would go for the normal version! Luckily you put me on the straight and narrow, and I've already been switched over. They give you 24h during which you can transfer data from one site to the other. Obviously that's not applicable in my case since I haven't set up a site yet. I might wait those 24h though before installing Word Press to make sure there isn't something funny going on with the changeover.
Many thanks
Frank
Now that you are on the Linux hosting plan you should be ready to rock and roll.
I use WordPress extensively with a few of my clients so let me know if you have any issues!
cheers
Man, this is a lot more complicated than I expected! The good news is that after a number of service calls 1and1 has now finally managed to convert me to the normal (Linux) package, and I have successfully downloaded and installed WordPress.
I've spend hours reading through all the WordPress documentation - of which there seem to be the plenty - but it's mostly all about blogging, in which I have no interest. I have worked out how to create a page; that is I found the admin function where you have the option to create a page instead of a post, but I am still at a complete loss as to how this program will help me solve my original problem, ie create a navbar that will be displayed on all pages but can be changed and updated centrally in one spot eliminating the need to edit every single page on which it is displayed.
Also, I have a fairly good idea what I want my site to look like (see: www.fmueller.com). In a nutshell, the site will be heavy on photos, so I want a white background and simple, no frills text and navigation centered around Arial Rounded MT Bold and Arial font families. Unfortunately I have no clue how to achieve that look using WordPress.
Please help!
//edit: I did some further reading, and it looks like if I want to give my web site an individual look and use WordPress, I'll have to learn how to design my own 'themes'. Is that realistic for somebody with just basic HTML and CSS skills, with no prior PHP experience whatsoever. If yes, where would you suggest I start?
Frank
I haven't even found out yet how to create a front page - I created a page called 'index', and one called 'home', but none shows up when I visit www.fmueller.com - I always get this stupid example page that WordPress puts up automatically when first installed.
So it looks like I am doomed to have a web site consisting of static HTML pages that will be impossible to update or a WordPress created one that looks like garbage. I think I am going to watch TV now and have some cheap beers :sad2:
Frank
You can make static pages in WordPress (Write -> Write Page). You can also set your "front page" to one of those static pages (Options -> Reading -> Front Page -> A static page). The example you're seeing isn't a page, it's just the first sample blog post. WordPress is, by default, set up as a blog.
//edit: Looking at your site again, here's what I'd do: Use the default WordPress theme, delete the big blue header image, stick your logo (left align) there instead, and change the title text to black. Then, call it quits until you want to get more adventurous with the theme. I bet that will look fine
Many thanks, General, that was really helpful! I never even saw that there was a css file in the theme, just a bunch of php files, and since they are just gooble-dy-goog to me, I got in a bit of a panic. I haven't got much experience with css, but I should be able to work that out.
Also, many thanks for the pointer towards the options button! I can't believe I didn't find that. Lots of good stuff hidden there ;-)
Now one more question, does anybody know how to create a new category in WordPress? I can't seem to find that option anywhere.
You can leave the 'slug' blank
Thanks!
I was out of town over spring break and missed this thread.
Anyways, just checkin' in to make sure you got situated!
cheers
Many thanks for checking up on me. I'd have to say your timing to point me towards Wordpress just when I was starting out was simply perfect! I am so glad I found this piece of software. It will make maintaining the site so much easier for me. It was somewhat of a steep learning curve, but things are ironing out pretty smoothly now. Have a look at www.fmueller.com, to see where I am at.
What's bothering me right now are the hideous bullet points in the lists when I use Firefox, which I believe also lead to the strange line spacing in the page list in the sidebar.
However, once I've added a few more pictures to the slide show on the front page, I am ready to launch the site; that is post in various aquaristic forums that I belong to and let people know the site exists.
Again, many thanks for your help!
Frank
Frank