Suggestions for building a website?

[CrusaderX]

I need to create a website for a few city organizations here in my hometown. I have very basic knowledge of html, and could easily throw something together that doesn't look very professional. But I want this to look at least somewhat professional.

An example of what I want to create would be something like this or even this - I don't need anything fancy, just a simple, solid, attractive site to convey information, which will be edited and updated regularly.

Since I don't know how to html code such a site from scratch, what kind of software would I need to build something like this? Some type of Freeware program with pre-defined templates or wizards or any other such extreme user-friendliness would be preferred.

 

[Gregor]

Hey Crusader,

I do professional web design here in Toronto and I can honestly tell you that if you want to reproduce the style of the two sites you mentioned, you can do it without any HTML programs. All you need is a few table templates (since thats what they are using).

I would be happy to help you out. If you want, send me an email to:
gregmouchian at hotmail dot com or reply to this here within the next 4 hours. I could whip up some quick table templates for you and give you simply instructions on how to insert all your data with only using notepad or something.

Cheers,

 

[CrusaderX]

Thanks, Gregor! I appreciate any help you can give me. Some table templates would be great. Tables do confuse me, and when I took a stab at creating some, the results were rather messy.

That's why I'm calling in the pros for help.

 

[JamesL85]

If you use Internet Explorer as your browser (and possibly other browsers, I couldn't tell you), you can always use the "Source" menu under "View" when you find a website that you would like to mimic. It will show you how they did it and you can "borrow" their ideas.....

You may already be aware of this, but just in case.....

 

[cybertalus]

If you're gonna make websites, please, please, please test them in something besides just IE before you release them into the wild. In fact if your websites are for government organizations of any kind you may need to test them in a text-only browser in order to meet with accessibility requirements.

Also, if you just want to brush up on your html, this site is great for that. However, they won't teach you any of the fancy layout tricks.

 

[Gregor]

Hey Crusader X,

Did you get my email?

I'll whip up a few templates for you today and then we can talk about implementing them.

Cheers,

 

[CrusaderX]

Yep, I got your email Gregor. Thanks! If you want to continue this either here on the board on in emails, either way is fine with me.

 

[Gregor]

Hey Crusader,

It was crazy at the office today but I managed to create 2 table-based templates (they essentially mimic the websites you used in your first post). However, I was unable to add in the comments to guide you through putting in your data.

I'll send these out to you sometime tomorrow.

Cheers,

 

[CrusaderX]

No problem, Gregor, I've been rather busy with other things myself. There's no rush.

 

[Halivar]

Another great place to get reall, really good web designs is www.oswd.org (Open-Source Web Design). I contribute from time-to-time, but some of that stuff blows my designs out of the water.