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Resolved Need Advice On Webpage Design, Programming, Shopping Cart System

Discussion in 'Web Applications & Cloud' started by flynempire, 2012/06/04.

  1. 2012/06/04
    flynempire

    flynempire Well-Known Member Thread Starter

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    Hello, I am looking for some advice in regards to web page development and the tools needed.

    Right now I feel stuck in a rut. I cannot tell you I am a total web master but I have been doing this for several years now and I want to improve. I really want to improve the design look and more importantly to be much faster.

    You can take a look at one site I have done. www.kleinerts.com I do like it but I want it to be more modern. We are going to be moving over to another ecommerce platform which still has not been decided but our current system is too limited.

    I am using Dreamweaver CS4 and I know CS6 is out. I also should say I am not a programmer, a coder to a point but the only programming/coder I want to do is for the web. I am a visual person so Visual tools are the best bet for me. I can read and understand html code, etc for the most part and I learn from it. I also use Photoshop CS5 which I love. Very good program.

    So my questions are what programs besides Dreamweaver have a lot of visual tools that can help me? Again I would like to be faster and better design.

    Should I look into Dreamweaver CS6? Looks awesome from what I see. I also need a program that can create code that will work in different browsers without much change when you view the page. Right now I have trouble with IE 7 and below, always IE :( I want to not worry so much and just be standardized. I just wish things were simpler and since at my job I am the only person that does this, catalogs, brochures, print work, graphics/photos, etc. It is not always easy. I am not going to complain but it is a lot to take on by yourself.

    One final thing to ask is about shopping cart systems. The system we have now and that we are evaluating are the non-hosted type. The hosted types like Volusion.com and Bigcommerce.com are not for us. We want to be in control. We want cart systems that are like what we have now where you download and then upload to the server, following the manual to do it right and then configure to our needs. If any anyone can recommend by experience or word of mouth some cart systems it would be invaluable and much appreciated by me. I know there is one called Magento, OpenCart, etc..

    Thanks for taking the time to read and any answers/advice you can provide me.
     
    flynempire,
    #1
  2. 2012/06/04
    dnmacleod

    dnmacleod Well-Known Member

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    As always, it all depends on your budget.

    I haven't tried DW CS6 - I use CS5.5 and find it brilliant and I'd expect CS6 to push the boat out a little further. IMHO anything other than DW will be a retrograde step. Doubtless some will disagree but the truth is that DW isn't the tool of choice for the vast majority of web designers for no reason.

    I don't know of any other tool that even comes close.

    As regards shopping carts, WebAssist do a very good shopping cart which is full customizable. At the end of the day - you get what you pay for.
     
    dnmacleod,
    #2


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  4. 2012/06/04
    TonyT

    TonyT SuperGeek Staff

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    I would never use Dreamweaver or any other Webpage editor to create an ecommerce site. For one, real ecommerce needs a database and Web editors don't do well with sql or server script programming.

    I just setup an ecommerce site using Opencart. It's an opensource package, stable and best of all doesn't cost anything.

    I am quite familiar with PHP and mySQL, so I can easily modify some of the core functions. But there's no need to modify if you can be contented with the many available free themes.

    I can't show the site just yet, I am awaiting trademark usage approval from a legal firm.

    Magento is a good package too, but a bit more complex to theme and customize than Opencart.


    Opencart install on a server is a breeze too. You can easily test it at your godaddy site. Make a new folder in your root directory called shop, or opencart, or test-shop. Create a database via godaddy control panel. Follow the install instructions in the opencart download and in less than 10 minutes you'll have your test site up and running.
     
    TonyT,
    #3
  5. 2012/06/05
    flynempire

    flynempire Well-Known Member Thread Starter

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    Thank you very much for your advice. I will look into it right away. Tony I totally understand what you are saying and agree to a large extent.

    I also want to develop non-ecommerce sites so it looks like I will stickwith Dreamweaver and get the latest version. I also heard of webassist.

    I have also seen a program called WebPlus X6. Looks nice.


    Victor
     
    flynempire,
    #4
  6. 2012/06/05
    flynempire

    flynempire Well-Known Member Thread Starter

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    By the way, does the site as present look OK to you?
     
    flynempire,
    #5
  7. 2012/06/07
    TonyT

    TonyT SuperGeek Staff

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    Looks just fine to me.

    Though I'd get rid of the underlines in your left column <h2> headings.

    Underlined text on a Web page implies that it's a link. That's the default setting for the anchor tag.

    Underlines can be used for emphasis in a paragraph or block of text, but shouldn't be. Better to use italic or bold to emphasize.

    For headings, use a larger size for font or use bold.

    My criticism of Dreamweaver, this is why I won't use it:
    http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=h...(detect+automatically)&doctype=Inline&group=0
     
    TonyT,
    #6
  8. 2012/06/07
    dnmacleod

    dnmacleod Well-Known Member

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    I think that validator needs a serious bit of looking at to be honest Tony. If you actually look at the source code, you'll see that a lot of what the validator flags as "errors" aren't errors at all. Its complaining about a lot of unclosed tags but all the ones I checked were actually closed.

    Its also complaining that alt tags aren't specified but I was always under the impression that alt tags were desirable (for screen readers etc) but not mandatory. When alt tags are used it complains that they shouldn't be there. You can't win with this validator.
     
    dnmacleod,
    #7
  9. 2012/06/07
    TonyT

    TonyT SuperGeek Staff

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    IMHO is best to try to approximate compliance with validators, but bottom line is that the browser will render things OK and the end viewer doesn't look at the source code. If he's looking at your code he isn't buying underarm shields!

    But you can tidy up some stuff like closing this:
    Code:
    <link href='http://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Yanone+Kaffeesatz:400,200,700' rel='stylesheet' type='text/css'>
    Your doctype is xhtml, thus all tags be closed.

    Most all elements are closed using </tag>. But some elements don't have closing tags, such as <link rel...> or <img> or <hr> or <br>, etc. In such cases they are closed like so: />.

    The code above should be:
    Code:
    <link href='http://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Yanone+Kaffeesatz:400,200,700' rel='stylesheet' type='text/css' [B]/[/B]>
    Script types must also be declared:
    <script src= "xyz.js" type= "text/javascript ">

    there is no attribute "background "
    means that is not a supported xhtml attribute, you should use CSS:
    <style= "background-image:url('gradient2.png'); "

    You're getting most of those errors in the validator because the code is a mix of xhtml, html4 and html3.

    The alt attribute is mandatory in html4 and xhtml. Some of your images don't have alt=" " specified. An alt attribute can be empty such as alt=" ", which is allowable.
     
    TonyT,
    #8
  10. 2012/06/08
    Arie

    Arie Administrator Administrator Staff

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    Arie,
    #9
  11. 2012/06/08
    TonyT

    TonyT SuperGeek Staff

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    It should validate if change doc type from this:

    <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd ">

    to this:

    <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML+RDFa 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd ">
     
    TonyT,
    #10
  12. 2012/06/13
    flynempire

    flynempire Well-Known Member Thread Starter

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    I found a program that is low cost, visual and can make HTML 5 and CCS3 compliant pages. Has lots of add-ons and templates.

    Really nice stuff. It is here: http://www.wysiwygwebbuilder.com/index.html

    This may be of use to some people here.
     
    flynempire,
    #11

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