Website design

[swmcl]

Hello chaps (sorry but its is mainly chaps isn't it!)

Am looking to do the website thing and I'm wanting to get a bit more clued in.

For a number of years I've had a domain and the hosters are using a Linux server of some sort (possibly redhat). I have my own development server at home - an Ubuntu box. I'd start with that.

I want a visually simple and uncluttered but sophisticated-enough website. I'm thinking of something like a film reel of smaller thumbnails along the bottom and the centre photo enlarged above the film reel. The show would fade images in and out. A click on the image will load another page with just the image and image data. etc.

I want to avoid Microsoft and Adobe. No Flash.

I have php, mysql, postgres and am thinking of Ajax and jquery.

Does anyone have specific experience here to guide my thoughts - does anyone want a job !?! I don't want to do this myself exactly but I might have to.

I've loaded Coppermine and Gallery3 but I don't think they're quite the right thing...

That's it. My limits have been reached! I'm not sure how to speak too much more of the lingo required. I'm not computer silly and I promise I can learn quickly!

Help and opinions appreciated.

Cheers,

Steve

[kjsphotography]

Wordpress with plugins. You can add galleries, shopping carts all very easily.

[Brian C. Miller]

Well, what you want can be accomplished with a bit of Javascript. How much do you know about HTML and Javascript? CSS?

#1, look for a site that you like. Turn off your Adobe Flash, and then sites will load their HTML pages. The code will be on the page which does stuff like that.
#2, for interesting web commentary, visit Vincent Flanders' Web Pages That Suck. I browsed through his book, but I didn't buy it. I bought one from O'Reilly instead. The site grew out of a class Flanders taught, and he decided to teach good design by showing lots of bad design.
#3, peruse some decent books to learn Javascript and how it interacts with HTML.

Basic design: This would use layers. You could call the top layer the "mat" and the other stuff would exist in layers underneath it. The ribbon of thumbnails would reside on its own layer, and its position would be controlled by Javascript. The viewing photo layer can be faded in and out by Javascript.

[hiroki]

My website is very simple. I mainly use XML and XSL with a little PHP and Javascript. Javascript just to scale the images and fade them in/out. Plus reading some EXIF-data.
PHP I use to transform XML via XSL to HTML and extract some EXIF data from the image files.

XSL is the main part - creating the HTML / structure and layout. XML contains all the info/content, like the navigation, page names and content, image references and some text.

XSL is 250 lines long. PHP is 90 lines. Javascript 118 lines. CSS 62. But it's all very simple. For adding pictures, my "workflow" is to upload a 145x145px sized thumb, the hi-res image (up to 1000px high) and add an entry in the XML file to determine in which category(ies) the image should be displayed.

I have to admit that I prefer doing stuff myself rather than using bloated libraries or applications like gallery / wordpress / etc.

[swmcl]

Thanks guys for your insights,

I must admit the customisation of Gallery3 or Coppermine might take as much as making a relatively simple site in the first place.

Hiroki, you sound like an experienced pro. I've not heard of XSL !

Brian, is Java a security risk ? I think I've heard of people having problems with Java in some way .. No?

I'll look into Wordpress too. I'm not sure its available on Ubuntu though.

This is going to be a long drawn out adventure isn't it ? How much is it worth, should I pay someone ?

Rgds,

[swmcl]

Ha !

2 minutes of googling sees that WOrdpress is an open source CMS ...

OK so Wordpress is in the mix if its easy ...

[Brian C. Miller]

Javascript is a web browser scripting language, and doesn't really have much to do with Java. Different code engines. There haven't been too many Javascript security exploits. The main problems have come from a company's web system regurgitating Javascript fed through user input. Since the Javascript is just being used to control some photo positions, it's just fine.

[supremespy2]

Definitely Wordpress! There are already photography themes available for what you are looking for. Add a few more plugins for even more customization and you've got a professional looking website that you put together yourself, it's really simple.

[swmcl]

Thank you supremespy2 !

Your links are very encouraging. I might even be able to do this.

Cheers,

[timparkin]

Definitely Wordpress! There are already photography themes available for what you are looking for. Add a few more plugins for even more customization and you've got a professional looking website that you put together yourself, it's really simple.

+1 on wordpress - I'm a professional web developer and programmer and would only develop a fully custom website if I absolutely needed to create something that was impossible with available commodity tools.

I recently started a photography magazine and had it up and running in two weeks (http://www.landscapegb.com). You can customise themes quite easily if necessary but there are so many good themes out there, you might as well just choose a pre-exising one and tweak the logo and colours (it's your photography that is supposed to be original and make an impression, not your website). Choose something minimal that makes the most of your photographs..

google "elegant themes" and "woo themes" for some good premium themes