Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with web and webdesign

Are there any worthwhile professional associations for web developers/designers?

Jairus — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 08:28:49 -0800

Are there any worthwhile professional associations for web developers/designers/etc?

How does HuffPo append URLs to copied text?

eyeballkid — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 10:05:39 -0800

I noticed today that text copied from articles on The Huffington Post appends the article URL when pasted and I'm wondering how it's done. Here's an example of copying and pasting text from the current front page story of the G20 meeting:

The three leaders, in their dramatic joint statement that overshadowed the G-20 economic summit here, hoped the disclosure would increase pressure on the global community to impose new sanctions on Iran if it refuses to stop its nuclear program.

Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/09/25/obama-iran-has-secret-nuc_n_299556.html

The "Read more at:..." portion never appeared on the page.

Repro steps:

1) Copy any random paragraph from a HuffPo story.
2) Paste elsewhere.

I'm using FireFox 3.5.3 on Windows 7. I don't see this behavior when copying from other sites.

How to apply a radial-subtle gradient to a 1px line Photoshop?

wildrain2008 — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 11:26:44 -0800

How to apply a web 2.0 radial-subtle gradient to a 1px line Photoshop? Hi All, I'm a freshman Web/Graphic design student and am looking to achieve the following:

How to apply a subtle gradient to a line tool in Photoshop? In other words I see a trend in web 2.0 graphic-rich websites that use these horizontal rules that fade on both sides.

I have been able to achieve all effects with linear gradients. But am unable to master the radial gradient. It seems that if I start from center it blends the middle of the line instead of the outer edges.

Essentially I'm looking to learn to achieve two effects:

1: http://www.cobblestonecn.com/
- the top-most tab's bottom border fades on both sides seemlessly

2: http://onwired.com/
- the border of the green strip fades on both sides and also has a shadow under it to make a pop effect.

Are there good tutorials for both web 2.0 effects?

I know my way around Photoshop, but have not had experience with achieving certain effects.

Thanks in advance!

Seeking best community-driven websites

Admiral Haddock — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 09:52:07 -0800

Looking for examples of websites that engage/inform/empower the communities and readers they serve. Examples include barackobama.com, greenforall.org and (in terms of content, not presentation/interface) this site for the UK Improvement and Development Agency. For a friend, I am looking for input on, and examples of, best practices in website design for organizations and institutions (but completely open to, say, the private sector or ad hoc projects, etc.) that inform and empower their community/readers.

Specific attributes and functions of interest include:
- a dynamic library / resource / research center
- incorporation of participatory technology (social media, wikis, etc.)
- dynamic translation of 2 languages (i.e. bilingual)

Additionally, are there any good resources on the net where (tech and/or non-tech) people discuss or critique projects like this (e.g., a blog that looks at community portals in web design)?

This question is entirely viewpoint/content neutral--I'm as interested in hearing about the Northern Michigan Bow Hunting Club as the Greater Osaka Chickens-as-Pets Collective.

Non-U.S.-centric web content and design

kalapierson — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 11:20:24 -0800

Non-U.S. residents: Aside from language issues, what issues can U.S. web designers keep in mind to make their sites ideally usable for you? I'm U.S. born/based and I'm working on a new version of my website. For the moment, it will be English-language-only (when I can afford it, my first priority is to get my short-form bio and a little practical info translated into as many languages as possible). I'm a classical composer and my non-U.S. projects & performances so far have mostly involved people in Europe and Australia/NZ. I want my site to welcome all users as much as possible, especially from regions I haven't dealt with much yet (Asia, Africa, South America).

This is oddly hard to Google (because in most cases, web internationalization = language encoding issues), but below are some things I've thought of so far. Please add your ideas. Thank you!

MATERIAL ISSUES:

• make any downloadable PDFs available in both A4 and Letter;

• be sure I'm not embedding (or linking to) media from any sites that only work for U.S.-based users;

• when offering anything for sale, use a payment/shipping method that excludes as few countries as possible (and on my site, mention the approximate prices in at least USD, EUR and UKP).

EDITORIAL ISSUES:

• use words, not numbers, for the month in all dates (10/11/2009 is bad notation -- is that in Oct or Nov?);

• in any random list of cities (e.g., when listing my upcoming events), name the country in every case so USA doesn't feel like the default assumption ("Lisbon, Portugal" / "Chicago, USA" / "Tokyo, Japan" );

• include free alternatives to phone numbers (email, Skype, etc.) wherever possible;

• express U.S. phone numbers without default-USA assumption (start with +1, not just the 3-digit area code).

[• this is just symbolic welcoming, but the front page will include a decorative list of non-English words for composer, with as many non-European words as possible.]

Mission: From pretty pictures to useful pictures

ttyn — Sun, 19 Apr 2009 08:58:23 -0800

What are the best resources for me to look into if I want to create websites that support user-created information? Here's what I want: users to be able to login, upload data, be able to see newly-updated data in a chart.

Here's what I know: I know xhtml and css. I know absolutely nothing about programming, have pretty minimal knowledge of APIs.

What programming languages will serve me best for web-specific development? Where should I start (books, websites, etc)?

What CMS is this?

Finder — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 05:18:48 -0800

I really like the design of this site. Is there a way to find out what CMS they're using? And what's that picture scroller in the middle?

Custom fonts online... again?

electric_counterpoint — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 07:29:25 -0800

What're the best practices these days for including custom fonts in web design? Last time I looked into it, around a year and a half ago, sIFR was big, but I don't like the hit to usability (no right clicking, no highlighting regular and replaced text together, etc.). I know newer browsers support CSS embedding, but I don't believe that they have a significant market share yet. I'm guessing that, since I still don't see a range of nonstandard fonts on the web, there's still no perfect solution. Any other imperfect solutions I should know about, though?

This is all on a whim, understand — I'm only dealing with a personal website and a few nice, free fonts are my candidates. I'm only thinking of doing headers and page titles. If the state of the art hasn't advanced much, that's fine; I just thought I'd check in.

(To preempt any sidetrack, the free fonts I mentioned above are licensed for web display — I just checked.)

What is a realistic website to build for $2000? Can a non-designer be the client-side web project manager?

salvia — Sat, 06 Dec 2008 15:02:31 -0800

I owe an organization about $2000. We've discussed me paying this back by doing some work for them. The work they want is web design project management. Can you help me figure out a realistic plan? In one of the stupider things I've done, I accepted an up-front payment from a tiny organization I was consulting for without a clear plan for what work I would do for that money (end of fiscal year, accounting simplicity for them). The work I was doing fairly quickly wrapped up, nothing new arose in my area of expertise (we've waited about 18 months thinking something would, and it hasn't), so now I owe them somewhere between $1500 and $2300 (I need to add up the hours to know the exact number). I could just repay them in cash, but I'd prefer not to of course, and the other option they've proposed is that I help them make a website.

Now, I don't know much about web design, but it might work. My day job involves project management and report writing, so I can think about scope and approval check-points, and I can ask questions about their audience and goal. I also understand the content they'd be trying to get across, so I could help them organize the content and write some of the copy. There are plenty of technical things I don't know, but I have found CSS templates and modified the CSS and the HTML to change the content and appearance and put that online, so I do know the basics. My cousin is finishing his undergrad in graphic design and has taken several web design/programming classes, and he is willing to work for free because he is looking for portfolio work. So, I can imagine myself serving as the go-between between them as the client and him as the designer.

I am not underestimating the project management issues that are going to arise here. I think it's easily $2000 worth of work. These clients know little about web pages and have expansive, ambitious, and free-flowing brainstorms about what a website could do and what could be on it. Also, this is a hobby for them. And my cousin is a student, so though he does great work, he doesn't have a set process that he uses with clients. For example, he was going to do a basic front page for them for one of his classes, and they weren't available to approve the design at 11 pm, but he had to start coding it anyway to turn it in the next day, and they didn't quite like it. So, I'll have to be the one to create a workable process, set deadlines, and check up about whether people have done what they said they'd do.

My plan, then, is to potentially be the project manager -- write a contract, set up check-in points where people sign off on things, help narrow the scope to something realistic, help them shoehorn their ideas into that scope, etc. I could also offer my cousin some financial incentives if we meet the deadlines.

My first question is: do you think this will work? I know that people do this professionally, so is it crazy to think that my background in writing paper-based reports and doing project management for other types of projects will translate over?

My second question is: what is realistic? Narrowing the scope seems like a very important step here. What is a realistic website to build for $1500-$2300? I want to be fair to them. If a website of that scope is beyond my ability to manage, I don't want to take this on. But I suspect the website we've been envisioning is one that a design firm would charge $30,000 to build. (And of course, making it would take us 10 times longer than it would take that design firm.)

All help, and all constructive cautions, are welcome. (There's no need to waste your time typing up an explanation of how dumb I am. I won't ever get myself into this situation again.)

Theming multiple web applications

larsks — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 11:34:43 -0800

At my office we're running a number of different third-party web applications for things like blogs, ticket tracking, cms, and so forth. I would like to apply some consistent themes to these applications without having learn n different theming mechanisms. I'm hoping y'all can provide me with some suggestions. I'm familiar with deliverance, which so far seems like the best solution, although it seems to have wandered away from xpath queries, which made a lot of sense, into the mists of yet-another-*ml-query-language.

Are there any other solutions out there?

Easiest way to set up a 'fake' torrent tracker?

JMB1138 — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 11:38:06 -0800

I need to create a website for a fake invite-only torrent community to feature in a short movie centering around said community. What's the easiest way to set up a customizable tracker? It's important to note that there will be no actual torrents shared, this is just for the purposes of the movie. I just need the colors and graphics to be customizable so it looks pretty on screen, and so I can 'update' it with fake accounts posting fake torrents as needed for the story. I already have a domain and a webhost with MySQL access. Do I need to go through all the trouble of setting up a real tracker script? Or you think I can just get away with a customizable BBS system?

Any thoughts appreciated!

How can I fix my weirdly rendering navigation tabs?

goodnewsfortheinsane — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 18:30:19 -0800

What's wrong with my CSS that makes top the nav render like this or this on some browsers, and how can I fix it? This is an example of a desired rendering, and here's is the CSS. Thanks in advance, guys & gals!

I'm looking for an objectively based survey of websites which use css-based positioning versus tables as layout.

jeremias — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 06:42:04 -0800

I'm looking for an objectively assessed survey of websites which use css-based positioning versus tables as layout. I'm not looking for inspiring sites or well-designed sites, just a recent survey of websites using css-based layout. Ideally it would be something like this w3schools statistic chart on Browser statistics and ideally it would also offer a comparison of table-based layout sites. My guess is anyone doing this would be using a representative sample as the sheer number of sites is overwhelming.

I want more design and less web.

Memo — Sat, 07 Jun 2008 14:29:44 -0800

I want to learn about Web Design. Emphasis on the design part. Most resources about the topic concentrate on XHTML and CSS and how to create a layout from a design. They take as a fact that the user knows how to create a design. The book "The Principles of Beautiful Web Design" is an exception, explaining color, composition, texture, among other things; but I would like more resources.

I know how to code a page. If you gave me a screenshot of any page from any CSS gallery, I could probably duplicate it with valid XHTML, CSS, etc. However, when I want to 'design' something similar, I can't really do it. It overwhelms me.
I can make a functional website but I can't make it as good looking as I would like.

Is it possible to learn this or is it something innate that I lack?

Caveats:
- If it has to be a book, make it a really, really good one as books+shipping are expensive.
- I can't take a class. I'm already in college studying something else and there's no related classes.

How do I give an interesting crash course on web design?

semi — Tue, 20 May 2008 03:03:43 -0800

I have a duty to teach my fellow peers the basics of web design, and I intend to not bore them to death. Where do you recommend I start? By web design I mean from basic web elements, compositions, typesettings, colors and coding stuff in no strict order, preferably in less than 10 hours. I'm going the valid XHTML/CSS path, of course. Target audience will be a few computer-literate undergraduates with prior exposure to HTML and WYSIWYG-based designing (though I intend to allow no WYSIWYG tools).

I'm thinking of starting from the box model, and continuing with semantics and then CSS rules. But I don't have much experience with the art part, nor really skilled in those areas myself. Does anyone have a suggestion on how to deliver all this and make it interesting? Should some parts be skipped? Should I just stick with tables and <font>s in the beginning? Any resources you'd recommended (preferably with little text, to be gentle on the ESLers)—slides, cheat sheets, or inspirational sites?

Thanks in advance for all answers!

Whose line-height is it anyway?

goodnewsfortheinsane — Sun, 04 May 2008 07:51:28 -0800

What's causing these unruly line heights in my web page and how do I solve it? It's the site linked from my profile. Most of it is dynamic content so it changes fairly quickly; the snapshot linked above is how it renders for me right now, FF 3.0 b5, XP. It happens only occasionally, sometimes the lines are all the same height, as I want them to be.

I'm fairly certain I'm overlooking something, but what is it? Is it an inheritance issue? Should some other value be cleared first? Is it not line-height after all but paddings and/or margins? Something else?

Thanks in advance, guys.

Batch replace a file in FrontPage?

Joleta — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 13:18:31 -0800

Can I change a graphic throughout a FrontPage web site? I updated a graphic that's used as a navigational image map on our company intranet. Unfortunately, this graphic exists in every subweb of the site. Is there any way I can change out the graphic for the updated one (which has the same filename) every place it appears in the site without actually going into each subsite and manually importing the new graphic file? (Please, no comments on this miserable site structure or the use of FrontPage in general. I already know and can't do anything about it until our redesign/CMS project is approved.)

Where does a small web design/development company find work?

petah — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 14:25:40 -0800

Where does a small web design/development company find work? We've been in business for a little over a year, and 100% of our clients up until now have been through word of mouth. Most of our work has been designing and integrating into a CMS like Wordpress or Joomla, with a few eCommerce sites as well. Lately though, it seems that our network has dried up, and we've been short on work.

We've tried looking at craigslist, with no success. ("$20 AND EQUITY TO CREATE FACEBOOK CLONE!!1")

We're currently looking at eLance as an option, but we're not sure if we'll be able to compete with all of the off-shore companies. (We're three guys from the U.S.)

I've seen a lot of those job boards that have been pretty popular on all the web design blogs, but they seem to be directed towards full-time hires or freelancers.

So I guess my question is, how do you guys find work as web designers/developers? Are any of you guys in a similar situation?

Thanks in advance for any tips/advice.

Create websites from the comfort of your own home!

clh — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 17:07:12 -0800

What's the best way to learn Dreamweaver at home? I am a graphic designer working mostly with print, but obviously am a little behind the times. I want to learn Dreamweaver. My immediate goal is to do single html pages (e-newsletters etc.), rather than whole websites.

How? I am looking for specific tutorial book recommendations, or online tutorials, or whatever. How did you learn Dreamweaver? Why did or did you not think that method was great?

Semantic markup and the world wide web: non-noob needs an explanation.

josh.ev9 — Sat, 22 Dec 2007 08:29:04 -0800

Semantic markup and the world wide web: non-noob needs an explanation. What is all this semantic markup talk about, and where can I learn more? I've been creating web tools/apps/etc. for years with well-written (as far as I can tell) and valid XHTML & CSS code. But over the last few years I've heard lots of people talk about "Semantic Markup."

What is this, and how can I tell if I'm already doing it? Why is it so good, and are there any problems with it? Finally, what are your favorite web and non-web resources for learning more?

Flash navigation/loadbar

Raff — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 13:46:44 -0800

How to preload images dynamically in flash so that the image navigation doubles as the load bar. Like http://big.dk/projects/lim/lim.html If someone could point me in the right direction would be great, since i am a bit rusty with flash and am not quite sure which way to look.

Help me find a web design firm in NYC

names are hard — Sat, 30 Jun 2007 12:48:04 -0800

I'm looking for a sleek web design company in New York City. I've got a website draft done, but need someone to make it sleeker, polished, better looking. It is a web 2.0 media company, so a firm that is familiar with the design ethic of this space would be ideal. Don't need a full website design from image to product, just a tweaking of what I've got. On the cheaper side would be ideal, as this is not a huge project.

Move mouse and panic

adamvasco — Wed, 11 Apr 2007 08:09:09 -0800

"How to" write a web page. Easy advice for a n00b. So I've bitten the bullet and borrowed an old copy of Dreamweaver Ultradev 4. What do I do now? I've searched, believe me I've searched and anywhere I search mentioning Dreamweaver takes me to books or pay tutorials. And anywhere I don't takes me to HTML, CSS Pearl,Ruby, Java whatever.
This place is full of helpful web savvy creators. Please point me to where to get started; hopefully to produce something not too revolting. Flash is not my friend. Out there somewhere is "A morans guide to web pages sub 101... How to for Idiots."

Help me find a menu that doesn't suck

TungstenChef — Thu, 05 Apr 2007 15:36:55 -0800

I need a good DHTML menu package. I'm designing a web application and right now I've got a basic Suckerfish dropdown menu, but I want something with a little more style. I would love to use something like radmenu but my app is written in ColdFusion not .net. I need a recommendation, it's no problem if it costs a few hundred bucks.

Many domains, one database?

iguanapolitico — Mon, 02 Apr 2007 19:14:19 -0800

What would you say is the best way to have 10 domains access one database? I am a web developer but my forté is definitely not the hosting or networking side. So, say I have 10 domain names along the lines of petcare.com, puppycare.com, kittencare.com, ferretcare.com, etc. I want each web site to display information about each of these different pets, but I want to store all the information in one database on the "master" petcare.com server.

Do I need to set up 10 hosting accounts to accomplish this? (I do already have the domain names.)

What I want to do is to visit puppycare.com and for it to go to one, "master" index.asp page which says, "ok, this time she typed in puppycare.com, therefore I'm going to retrieve all sorts of puppy-goodness from the database over at petcare.com." Or have it be able to say, "all righty, this time she wants ferrets." But just have *one* index.asp page process this, not 10 different home pages on 10 different web servers.

I am fully able to accomplish the above in a one-domain scenario by typing in "petcare.com/index.asp?pet=puppies," or what-have-you. But I'd like to just type in "puppycare.com" and have it get all the info from the database at petcare.com, and have it still display "puppycare.com/blahblah" in the address bar. How would *you* do this?

I needed to bounce this off someone (as I have no partners) to see what obvious answers I'm overlooking. My focus just isn't "there" in my web knowledge.

(Doubt this matters, but it has to be Access/.asp.)