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Pretty Please - add it to our Events forum(s) and add to the calendar! >> 
How do you Creating & or maintin a website?
- Thread starter vping
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aeronca65t
Great Pumpkin
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Speaking personally, I'd say the less "flash and glam" the better.
Keep the main home page simple and not too busy with "Wow" graphics.
And don't require the viewer to click on "Enter" on the home page.
Use a font that is big enough and with a enough contrast to be read by older eyes on a smaller monitor. Please, no purple 8-point with black background!
Our main EMRA club website is here:
https://www.emraracing.org
It is constantly maintained by our very hands-on webmaster, Paul B.
That's one of the main things; if people suspect that the site is not updated on a regular basis, they'll stop looking at it.
We had a race at BeaveRun this weekend....by the time I'd gotten back very late on Sunday night, Paul had already updated the home page to promote our next event at Pocono.
EMRA has a group of affiliate clubs and some have their own websites. They are sort of a mixed bag. Here they are:
https://www.formulaproracing.org/
https://liverpoolmotorclub.tripod.com/
https://www.fdfoto.com/ssscbds/
https://www.licoa.org/
https://geocities.com/northeastiron/
I am also a member of VRG, and while I like the folks in the club, I'm not crazy about the main links on their website. These are teeny, tiny font on the bottom of the page and look almost like an afterthought
https://www.vrgonline.org/
Keep the main home page simple and not too busy with "Wow" graphics.
And don't require the viewer to click on "Enter" on the home page.
Use a font that is big enough and with a enough contrast to be read by older eyes on a smaller monitor. Please, no purple 8-point with black background!
Our main EMRA club website is here:
https://www.emraracing.org
It is constantly maintained by our very hands-on webmaster, Paul B.
That's one of the main things; if people suspect that the site is not updated on a regular basis, they'll stop looking at it.
We had a race at BeaveRun this weekend....by the time I'd gotten back very late on Sunday night, Paul had already updated the home page to promote our next event at Pocono.
EMRA has a group of affiliate clubs and some have their own websites. They are sort of a mixed bag. Here they are:
https://www.formulaproracing.org/
https://liverpoolmotorclub.tripod.com/
https://www.fdfoto.com/ssscbds/
https://www.licoa.org/
https://geocities.com/northeastiron/
I am also a member of VRG, and while I like the folks in the club, I'm not crazy about the main links on their website. These are teeny, tiny font on the bottom of the page and look almost like an afterthought
https://www.vrgonline.org/
Steve_S
Yoda
Offline
Ok, here we go again, only a shorter version.
Web design is similar to magazine design. You want a layout that keeps the user's interest. Navigation is extremely important. It should be very obvious how to get to every page on the site. It a user can't find a button, link or page, they will become frustrated and leave the site.
Avoid animated graphics, music, etc. They were cute for about a week in 1994, but now they are just plain annoying. Especially when you're supposed to be working and suddenly music starts blaring from your computer speakers.
Look at as many other web sites as you can to get ideas. The web community works the same way as magazines... steal as many good ideas as you can for your own design!
As for the physical part of the job, you will first need the FTP address and password to gain access to the web server. You will also want some sort of web design software unless you want to hand code everything in Notepad. I use Dreamweaver, which I have found to be powerful yet intuitive to use. Avoid Front Page if possible.
Web design is similar to magazine design. You want a layout that keeps the user's interest. Navigation is extremely important. It should be very obvious how to get to every page on the site. It a user can't find a button, link or page, they will become frustrated and leave the site.
Avoid animated graphics, music, etc. They were cute for about a week in 1994, but now they are just plain annoying. Especially when you're supposed to be working and suddenly music starts blaring from your computer speakers.
Look at as many other web sites as you can to get ideas. The web community works the same way as magazines... steal as many good ideas as you can for your own design!
As for the physical part of the job, you will first need the FTP address and password to gain access to the web server. You will also want some sort of web design software unless you want to hand code everything in Notepad. I use Dreamweaver, which I have found to be powerful yet intuitive to use. Avoid Front Page if possible.
OP
Offline
Thanks
I am not computer stupid but am also not a dummy. Not ever doing this and mainly just being a surfer I figured I'd come to you guys for insight. My club's website has not been update in about a year. There are club events during the year the should be posted. I went to the British are Coming yeaterday and took a bunch of photos of some cool cars. I can't post them & it is frutrating. We've talked about it at meeting but I have kept my nose out of it because I don't know the first thing about it. I'm trying to now learn what I can so I can propose something.
Maybe I should create my own own small site to practice before venturing into re-doing the clubs?
I am not computer stupid but am also not a dummy. Not ever doing this and mainly just being a surfer I figured I'd come to you guys for insight. My club's website has not been update in about a year. There are club events during the year the should be posted. I went to the British are Coming yeaterday and took a bunch of photos of some cool cars. I can't post them & it is frutrating. We've talked about it at meeting but I have kept my nose out of it because I don't know the first thing about it. I'm trying to now learn what I can so I can propose something.
Maybe I should create my own own small site to practice before venturing into re-doing the clubs?
Offline
And I'll stress what Steve said earlier: Avoid FrontPage if you can.
When Navigator was Mosaic we started with Notepad as the HTML editor. Those were simpler times. Used the "Composer" in Netscape for a while, went to HotMetal when it came out. Now DreamWeaver is good. At least it doesn't make a secret of file management the way FrontPage insists on doing.
To get your feet wet, try the Composer in Mozilla. You can look at the code (very like Basic) with Notepad to see how things are set.
A really clean, neat FTP software is "Filezilla" for FTP'ing to the server.
When Navigator was Mosaic we started with Notepad as the HTML editor. Those were simpler times. Used the "Composer" in Netscape for a while, went to HotMetal when it came out. Now DreamWeaver is good. At least it doesn't make a secret of file management the way FrontPage insists on doing.
To get your feet wet, try the Composer in Mozilla. You can look at the code (very like Basic) with Notepad to see how things are set.
A really clean, neat FTP software is "Filezilla" for FTP'ing to the server.
Offline
Working on a small site is a good idea, get your feet wet and try out a few things first. I do this for a living, and I'm a big fan of looking around for inspiration from other sites. Certainly no need to reinvent anything.
I'm a programmer type, so I use a general text editor (JEdit), don't particularly like any of the WYSIWYG editors, but I'm a bit of a code fascist and hate to think of another program writing my web code -- that's why I wrote my own web software. But I'm not a normal sort when it comes to this sort of thing.
DreamWeaver and Filezilla are both good tools, they'll help you keep it updated with a minimum of fuss.
I'm a programmer type, so I use a general text editor (JEdit), don't particularly like any of the WYSIWYG editors, but I'm a bit of a code fascist and hate to think of another program writing my web code -- that's why I wrote my own web software. But I'm not a normal sort when it comes to this sort of thing.
DreamWeaver and Filezilla are both good tools, they'll help you keep it updated with a minimum of fuss.
G
Guest
Guest
Guest
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I'm an IT Administrator - not a website designer. So I need to know just enough to get by and understand what's going on and be able to work on personal stuff. I agree with what the others have said about the layout, not using a point and click solution etc. I learned from a well know book and website by Joe Burns - HTML Goodies His book and website will get you up and running quickly - sort of an "HTML for Dummies" approach.
Coffee Cup HTML Editor is a great little inexpensive HTML editor that you can download and try for free. It's all I ever use at home - unbeatable for $49.00
Something else you can learn a lot from if you've done some programming is to simply view the source code for simple pages using a browser like FireFox.
Coffee Cup HTML Editor is a great little inexpensive HTML editor that you can download and try for free. It's all I ever use at home - unbeatable for $49.00
Something else you can learn a lot from if you've done some programming is to simply view the source code for simple pages using a browser like FireFox.
G
Guest
Guest
Guest
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Oh - and for a quick way to post photos - I'm sure there's others but many programs like Adobe Photo Shop Elements, which comes free (or used to) with many printers, cameras, etc has a great little utility built in that lets you quickly and easily create photo galleries like this one that I did for a recent post here. (You can add captions, backgrounds etc as you like using an editor like Coffee Cup if you want to pretty them up)