Site Development Structure

[TommyBs]

Hello all,

Now I know in an ideal world creating a new website would involve a designer and a developer who work together to come up with a solution, but for (i'm guessing) most of us you have to do both jobs. My question is, what do you look at first? (other then the overall picture). For me I generally always start with a layout and design first before I fit the functionality around it, but often I find myself constantly changing my designs. When I do finally do the coding (normally in PHP) I can speed along quite quickly and the code is mostly re-usable (i.e. I can then redesign the site and dynamic bits will still work or I can use them in a new site). The hard part I often find is getting started on coding as I always want to get a clear picture of the site and design first even though I constantly change things. So where do you start? I'm beginning to think I may start coding first but just have a structure for class and id names, then I can change the design as much as I like. Ideally I think I should probably do the code without any classes and styles attached (I am beginning to lean more this way with OO) but this is not always possible with complex designs.

What's everyone elses thoughts?

btw when I say coding i mean the dynamic stuff in php etc. and not the css and html coding as I consider that part of the 'design' side.

[kevin wood]

i work for a company who develops websites and i have the great job of designing and developing the sites that we produce.

my of tackling it is to design the site first then add the functionality to it later. as for changing the design all the time this is going to happen i feel with any site that you under take as you will design something one way come in the next day after a brain wave the night before and change sections of it.

this is how i work but i feel it is probably down to the person who has the task in front of them as you only know yourself what you are most comfortable doing.

for instance if you find the coding harder then you may leave this to the end and vise versa it just depends on what which side of things you are better suited to.

[hostxchng]

i try to begin with the design. it seems the proper way (for me of course). but what ends up happening is both jobs run simultaneously. i am very unorganized that way.

coding first and only seems backwards.

i have yet to complete a design for a site and then develop it. but i am still a greenhorn learning as i go.

i am curious to know how others might organize and schedule themselves when designing and developing a site. here i could really use some pointers.

[rams4sai]

i work for a company who develops websites and i have the great job of designing and developing the sites that we produce.

my of tackling it is to design the site first then add the functionality to it later. as for changing the design all the time this is going to happen i feel with any site that you under take as you will design something one way come in the next day after a brain wave the night before and change sections of it.

this is how i work but i feel it is probably down to the person who has the task in front of them as you only know yourself what you are most comfortable doing.

for instance if you find the coding harder then you may leave this to the end and vise versa it just depends on what which side of things you are better suited to.

Can Anyone help me out in creating aa new website. I can create using html but i need to learn how to use dynamic pages. Cna anyone let me know how can i get started??

[peter_budo]

Can Anyone help me out in creating aa new website. I can create using html but i need to learn how to use dynamic pages. Cna anyone let me know how can i get started??

You will need to decide what technology you wish to learn in order to get dynamic content PHP/ASP/JSP. I would recommend JPS but then you would need to know Java, but I expect you do not so this would long time shot. So you left either with ASP or PHP. I'm not realy "microsoft fanboy", I think many of they approaches are overkill so I would suggest to learn PHP. You can piick up basics at w3schools.com, there many other online resources also if you prefer hard copy there are many books to choose from

[blocblue]

I've not so long ago started a new site from scratch. When building website, I more often than not design the layout first, with an aspect of nearly everything in it. For example, I'd design and include error messages, which 99% of the time would never be seen, etc. And that is what I have done this time too.

Recently I have started the back end coding in PHP to make the pages dynamic in their construction. So all the HTML, error messages and content is templated. Next I am moving on to designing the database so that I can begin designing the CMS, although with this being a solo evening project, it is going to take a long time to include all the features.

On the topic of OOP, I have recently been working with OO PHP, and I think its great. I mean for this new site, I have created a template class, which when called and passed an array of parameters, it will produce a complete page. I am very pleased with it. Lol. But I will continue this trend with all aspects of the CMS also.

And to Peter, with regard to creating a dynamic website, the best thing I think you can do is firstly find a good book (I like the PHP and MySQL book by Larry Ulman) and come up with a project. Then sit down and teach yourself. Use the book for pointers. Then PHP.net is an awesome resource too. As is Google. And if all else fails, you have DaniWeb - something which I wished I had found when I was first learning (although I still am).

Best of luck.
R

[jamello]

Well, different strokes for different folks!:)
I find coding before design 'easier' or more convinient for me to do. I generally know what the functionality of the website would be and code accordingly(using asp.net). so it is always easier for me to change the design later or anyhow I want it after implementing all the functionality of the website

peace:cool:

[eimee_newagesmb]

Iam interesting to build a website and doing seo in future. I can proceed with normal design techniques for my site? or Should i change any design parts for the implementation of seo techniques

[MidiMagic]

I have sets of styles I use.

- A basic set that includes styles for centering text, images, and objects.
- A palette of colors for backgrounds.
- Styles for div columns.
- Table styles.

I start with the basic styles, and add others as I need them. I build the site top down, as one would build an outline in English class.

[hiacclaimdir2]

Having the navigation of the whole site in mind is the first priority. Then I design the actual layout of the home page. Once everything seems to mesh I just start adding the content pages.