Luigi Donatello Asero said the following on 06/06/2005 13:49:
I want to point out that the kind of help which I would expect from this NG
would be to implement technical solutions and not to define my aims.
So, for example, I could ask: how can I let my buttons disappear and you
could answer: "by using the property [display: none;]" and not by saying
"but why on earth do you want to let the buttons disappear?"
This is a newsgroup, not an HTML help-desk! More often than not, posting
a question will lead to a discussion rather than a direct answer, as I'm
sure you are aware.
Although you refuse to believe it, when people say things like "Why on
earth do you want to ...", it is *advice*.
When people say "... is a bad idea", followed by a reason why, that is
*advice*.
When people say "here is a better way of doing ...", followed by a
reason why, that is also *advice*.
Obviously, it is up to you whether to take that advice or not.
If anyone is opinionated, perhaps it is you, because you refuse to
realise that maybe you still have stuff to learn about web progamming
and design. Commercial websites have been around for at least 10 years,
there have been thousands if not millions of them. In these 10 years,
people have learnt the hard way what is a good idea and what is not,
what works and what doesn't work, what is a good design and what is a
bad design. Why put yourself at a disadvantage by ignoring all of this?
An analogy:
If you were to design a car (or a TV, or a space shuttle, or shampoo, or
anything), would you ignore all the literature and knowledge about how
cars have been designed in the last 100 years, and say "That's just your
opinion. I know better"? I doubt it. You'd probably find some good
examples of cars that work well, try to understand why they work well,
and then take it from there.
Once you'd got to that stage, then it would be appropriate to say "what
can I do differently now that I have something that works?".
In this thread I had asked how to create a site map in the best way but I
have not found any answer about that.
That's probably because your pages are so inconsistent, that it's
impossible for anyone to figure out what would suit you for a site-map
or navigation.
Like I said, using a template system rather than loads of static HTML
pages would help you immensely. Design a page template that contains the
navigation menus and headings, etc., and use PHP to insert (or
include()) the necessary page-specific content for each page that the
user requests.
e.g.:
menu.html
=========
<DIV id="menu">
<H2>Menu</H2>
<UL>
<LI><A href="page.php">Home</A></LI>
<LI><A href="shoes.php">Shoes</A></LI>
<LI><A href="stuff.php">Stuff</A></LI>
</UL>
</DIV>
home.php
========
<!DOCTYPE ...>
<HTML>
<HEAD>...</HEAD>
<BODY>
<?php include "menu.html"; ?>
<H1>Welcome to my site!</H1>
.....
.....
</BODY>
</HTML>
Use the same <?php include "menu.html"; ?> line in every page.
Obviously, you'd need to work out how to get it to cope with different
language versions.
That's how I design all of my sites. It works. It saves me huge amounts
of time. It's easy to maintain. It ensures all pages are consistent and
up to date. It keeps page infrastructure separate from page content. You
have no reason not to at least try this!
There - that is direct, practical, sensible advice that answers your
original question.
