afternoon all.

was wondering if anyone knew of any good, proffesional (and cheap :hihi: ) website design compaines, or indeed if you freelance yourself give us a PM.

thanking you :thumbsup:

What sort of website are you after? I can get you a professional website like the one below that you would also be able to update yourself and not have to pay a web designer vast amounts of money to update or have to wait for them to find time to do it.

If you've got 5 mins spare let me know and I'll give you a ring for a free demo of how easy it is to use if you want?

Daniel McLean

will pm you (in fact i needed to post that to get my post count upto 5 so that i could pm you).

try www.freedomsoftware.co.uk

try www.freedomsoftware.co.uk

Ditto. I agree with this man :)

If you're going for a professional solution then go with freedom and stay away from the minutemaker (it doesn't validate, and it doesn't appear to conform to accessibility standards).

If you want a cheaper alternative, I can do you a website where you can change the content yourself, and find you a cheap, reliable host. (And it will conform to all w3c standards!)


Cheers

If you're going for a professional solution then go with freedom and stay away from the minutemaker (it doesn't validate, and it doesn't appear to conform to accessibility standards).
The link above doesn't even appear to compile at the moment and they've turned on external debugging so everyone can see what's gone wrong which is nice.:hihi:

The above link is just a demo so I could show Burnsie the workings of the admin section and how easy they are to update and how many features they've got. I actualy meant to send it as a PM for this reason which is why I had to edit the post to take my phone number off!

One of the main requirements that the company behind this software requested was to be Search Engine friendly which they appear to be as the below website has only been going a couple of weeks and it's in the top 10 of google (searching pages from the UK) for quite a few of its key phrases . eg crocs shoes.

Lots of major websites* don't validate to web standards especially ones that are using the latest technology so I wouldn't say that was a reason to discard a Content Management System website.

* e.g. ebay and the national lottery.

Lots of major websites* don't validate to web standards especially ones that are using the latest technology so I wouldn't say that was a reason to discard a Content Management System website.

* e.g. ebay and the national lottery.

Doesn't mean that gives your site or whoever's site it is an excuse not to validate. I really don't understand why you can't make it validate...validation doesn't even mean the site is accessible.

Doesn't mean that gives your site or whoever's site it is an excuse not to validate. I really don't understand why you can't make it validate...validation doesn't even mean the site is accessible.

I agree, careful attention should be taken where possible to try and make websites as accessible as possible and with websites I build from scratch I usualy abide by the rules of validation.

However the MinuteMaker demo I posted on here is a lot more complex than a hand coded website and the code for each page is dynamically generated depending on what the website owner does in the admin section.

However the MinuteMaker demo I posted on here is a lot more complex than a hand coded website and the code for each page is dynamically generated depending on what the website owner does in the admin section.

so dont let them do anything that doesnt produce valid html.

so dont let them do anything that doesnt produce valid html.

That would be like showing someone a Ferrari and telling them it would be too fast for most roads so they can have a Fiesta instead!:D

Sometimes you have to make a decision on how closely you are going to follow the web guidelines of HTML validation if it means restricting the technology and the features that you want.

That would be like showing someone a Ferrari and telling them it would be too fast for most roads so they can have a Fiesta instead!:D

Sometimes you have to make a decision on how closely you are going to follow the web guidelines of HTML validation if it means restricting the technology and the features that you want.

You mean bodging. HTML standards are there for a reason. HTML standards are there to help developers create sensible, and compatiable HTML. If everyone bothered to code proper compliant HTML, it would make life easier for everyone, and also have the side effect of forcing browser developers to create browsers that also adhered to standards, rather than having people make up their own, and then only work in certain browsers on certain platforms. The whole point of having these standards is so that everyone, regardless of OS/Browser can see the same site in any browser on any platform. It also makes web developers lives easier, so they dont have to code the same thing twice, or create "workarounds" which are in themselves often bodge jobs.

Joel

BinaryWebs: not having a go, but don't you think your site should be built a little bit better?

ie,

- get rid of tables
- add titles to your links
- use XHTML instead of HTML
- use <strong> instead of <b>, <em> instead of <i>

etc..?

and make it validate ;)

some older versions of browsers don't even support xhtml

the simpler you can make it the wider your audience

Joel,

Unfortunately like you say the HTML standards are not even adhered to by the people who make the browsers, Microsoft probably been the worst for breaking them yet the most popular.

Stuff,
Anyone who starts a sentence with "I'm not having a go" generally is having a go!:thumbsup: Only joking yes these minor points could probably be changed for the better.

I take it you were on about the BinaryWebs link? When I first put this site together it did validate and now the 1 point it fails on was probably due to me changing the content and not checking again, I shall re-assess.

The tables point I do disagree with you on though, as I think most people agree there is a time and place to use tables and in this particular design it fitted in nicely.

Cheers

Dan

Tables should only be used for tabulated data, and not layout. Unfortunatly a lot of people still dont get this.

Most of the reasons for browsers being the way they are, are down to the developers. IE allows you to miss tags, use incorrect syntax. If it didn't, it would force developers to create better sites, and also have the knock on effect of forcing the browser developers to create browsers that comply properly with web standards.

The more people that adhere to the HTML guidlines, the more likeley it is that vendors will be forced to make their browsers work properly.

Joel

as I understand it the main reason tables are frowned on is down to the difficulty of converting a web page to speech for the visually impaired user if it uses tables, the text may be laid out nicely on the screen but is usually in the wrong order in the raw data

As Joel said: tables for tabular data, CSS for layouts.

Nothing on the Binary Webs site can't be quickly and easily replicated in CSS.

It's the new Millennium now... table-based designs are soooo 1990s :)

Rightly or Wrongly the reason I used the table was to make it cross browser compatible whilst also passing Bobby (online accessibility checker) priority 1's and validating to HTML Standards, which it did.

P.s. Stuff, the 90's were great tho weren't they!;)

as I understand it the main reason tables are frowned on is down to the difficulty of converting a web page to speech for the visually impaired user if it uses tables, the text may be laid out nicely on the screen but is usually in the wrong order in the raw data

It's more to do with the separation of content and presentation. With a well done CSS layout I can completely change the way a page looks just by altering the stylesheet....it's rather difficult to do that with tables. But as you say because of this it helps immensely with accessibility. Try sticking your table based layout into a screen-reader and see what it sounds like.

As for compatibility....I can get CSS layouts to look the same if not very similar down to IE5 so what's the problem? All you need to do is understand the quirks of each browser.