RSS Feeds: Website Design Resources
One part of writing website software which can't be overlooked is the overall design of the pages. Besides the HTML that controls the layout, one or more custom style sheets (CSS) are needed to control the appearance of the HTML elements. I have found what I consider some of the best resources in this regard.
CSS Resources
There are actually two sites I'm using to build my layouts (or themes): The Dynamic Drive CSS Layouts and the Ultimate multi-column liquid layouts by Matthew James Taylor.
There are probably hundreds of resources for CSS design, but I chose these two because I've tested them across a lot of browsers (going back to IE6). Frankly, there are only so many ways to display headers, footers, sidebars and main content.
CSS Colors
Up until a few months ago, I tried to stick with the original 256 web-safe colors when designing web pages. And then I realized that 1994 wanted its colors back. Seriously, I haven't used a browser that couldn't handle at least 24-bit color since 1994 and that's like eons ago in Internet life terms. Does anyone?
Surprisingly, the best resource I've found for web colors is the HTML Color Names at w3schools.com. If the colors on that page don't quite float your boat, you can click on a link next to a specific color to find shades of it.
Changing CSS Elements
I've never found a custom style sheet which didn't have to be changed in at least one place, to suit my particular needs or taste. It usually has to do with padding, but it can sometimes be something as simple as stripping comments.
Lately, I've become fond of minifying the CSS. Removing unnecessary white space, combined with browser compression, makes web pages load faster and don't we all want to get to where we're going as fast as we can?
I applaud Google for pushing webmasters to speed up their pages. Perhaps when their ranking algorithms start including page loading speed as a factor, some of the annoying (and heavy) widgets you see on "blogger's" websites will start to disappear.
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I can read about this stuff all day long, thanks for the write up my friend! Happy New Years!
I am so new to all this online, the more I read the more I realize there's so much more for me to learn, thanks for the awesome post I will be back! Happy New Years!
yo buddy you are doing gr8 work
so keep doing it and whatever new you gotta know
then please share it with us!!!!!!!
thanks for ur resource tips. i want to design a new theme for my website. can i ask u if i dont understand about it :D
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You can ask.
thanks.. if i have something i will ask u later ^^
Thanks RT. I appreciate the links – I really must get better at CSS.
Nice list of design resources. That liquid layouts page is great.
If I remember correctly I think you use Windows. On the Mac (and maybe Windows too, I'm not sure) there's a small widget that runs in the background called Colorjack. It displays the full rainbow of websafe (or websmart, if that's what you want) colors–click on a color and you won't only get the CSS code for it but also for six tones of variance. In a typical week I find myself referring to it several times.
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It's not a default widget on Windows and yes, I use Windows (but only until I can get a Linux installation set up properly). There's a a color picker add-on for Firefox, but I don't find it useful for color codes.
Everything I need/use for my web development is desktop-based. I rarely use online sources, except when I need to look up documentation for a HTML or CSS attribute.
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wow, I haven't heard of dynamic drive in years! I used to use all their scripts back in the 90's, I'm glad to hear that they're still around!