Tough Choices--learning the new and tidy-ing up the old

[lilyofthevalley]

Background Info: I am trying to advance beyond sloppy HTML. Last year, I finally started dabbling in php, but only altered the skin and header buttons/links in phpbb on my gaming community site. I also built my first few .htaccess pages last year. In the last month, I have been reading all about standards, XHTML, CSS, Java, etc. The W3Schools site has been a big help in this regard. I have 11 sites I need to clean up, and have three new sites I will be building sometime before summer.My Project: I want to learn XHTML & CSS by creating one of those new sites from scratch. I have already started on it. The site is about the comic books/trades I'm reading, along with other pertinent pages to a fan site. I am doing this so I can cement those skills with a small non-commerce site before attempting to convert my other sites, or building the other two sites that will be commerce based. I am planning on adding AdSense at some point to try it out since I've been reading so much about it. My Questions:1. Is it better to wrangle the next step by focusing on XHTML/CSS alone, or should I put in the extra time to learn more php so that as I build, it will be easier to make across site changes by creating a header/footer? I'm going to be using WordPress as my base for writing/cataloging the issues/trades I'll cover, but I will not be using WP as the base for the site overall. One of the main reasons I am leery of taking the extra time for php right away is that I am a bit anxious to clean up my other sites now that I know how bad they are, and I'm concerned that if I try to tackle too much too soon with this new site, I'm going to have a heck of a mess on my hands before long. However, I will kick myself if I wind up wasting time spent on, say, across the site link changes, by not investing the time now. (If it's pertinent, I have a dedicated server, although I'm a fledgling with Server Side Scripting.)2. In the past, I have made customized buttons. I have also, on one site linked in a bit, used background images (and never quite got them to behave.) With everything I am reading about images slowing down load time--should I not do that anymore for useability's sake? (e.g. the gaming community site I built.)Any advice or recommendations would be greatly appreciated.

[aspnetguy]

you do not want ot do to much to soon as you said. Focus first on XHTML and CSS...that will be plenty for now. Move on to PHP after that.

[Jonas]

The way I make a new site is I first start making the XHTML and CSS - the layout - of the site. When I find a design I'm happy with, I can start a bit dissecting parts that are universal to all my pages, like headers, menus and footers. Then I'll put those parts in different .inc documents, and call them with php include or require for every new page. I would, however, as aspnetguy said, not go too far with PHP if you have so much already with xhtml and css. No more code than serverside includes at best.

[jesh]

As for your second question, images, once downloaded to the visitors computer, don't need to be downloaded again until the cache expires. So the first time a person loads the page it may be slow, but each visit after, the images will be loaded from cache. I would say that as long as the images aren't too large (say 50KB +), then anyone with a broadband connection will load the page pretty quickly.

[lilyofthevalley]

Thanks for replying, everyone. I know my plans for 2007 are rather ambitious, which is why I'm seeking advice--I suppose it's both info seeking and reality checking in one. :)I'll keep working on the XHTLM/CSS for CG, and when I've got something worth looking at, I'll let you know. Depending on how long that takes, I'll make my decision as to whether I'll try to include php or not at this stage of development.jesh: Thanks for the benchmark for image size. That's very helpful.Ok...off to review li and positioning again--trying to learn to dev without tables.

[boen_robot]

Just my 2 cents...Things WILL change. Be prepared that the more you add/alter, the more you'll need/think up adding/altering.You should not bother with more things that you need to. As others said, focus on XHTML and CSS now.Learn PHP only to the point where it is usefull for you. It's syntax will change/be built upon every now and then, so knowing the whole S3L is impossible.Personally, I go with XSLT exactly because it changes more rarely itself, but also because it's "plug&play"-able across S3Ls.But please, don't listen to me. Mastering CSS across browsers and devices, avoiding IE's bugs is tough enough as it is. I'm only saying that whatever you do, there will still be some good practice left.

[ste]

The way I make a new site is I first start making the XHTML and CSS - the layout - of the site. When I find a design I'm happy with, I can start a bit dissecting parts that are universal to all my pages, like headers, menus and footers. Then I'll put those parts in different .inc documents, and call them with php include or require for every new page. I would, however, as aspnetguy said, not go too far with PHP if you have so much already with xhtml and css. No more code than serverside includes at best.

this is sound advice. I only have basic knowledge of php myself but includes are great they make my life so so much easier.

2. In the past, I have made customized buttons. I have also, on one site linked in a bit, used background images (and never quite got them to behave.) With everything I am reading about images slowing down load time--should I not do that anymore for useability's sake? (e.g. the gaming community site I built.)Any advice or recommendations would be greatly appreciated.

dont worry too much about the load time, buttons are quite small and most people have broadband nowadays. The only really important reason you might not want to use images for buttons is for search engine optimisation. Often your navigation menu is actually a good place to put your sites keywords. Sure you can use alt tags on the images but it is better for rankings to have text links.

[lilyofthevalley]

boen_robot: The old adage, "The only constant is change," almost doubly applies where any type of developing is concerned, unless something gets declared dead or deprecated. As someone who only recently embraced a text editor other than notepad, and within the last two years finally tried to crawl forwards (as opposed to falling headfirst) into the world of webdev, I'm trying my darndest to work smarter, especially since websites are well beyond what some erroneously thought "just a side thing to help a business get more exposure". Trust me, I know I'll always be a n00b, but, really, that's not bad because as has been said, "The expert is one who knows more and more about less and less," and I know that's not going to help me in the long run. ste: Good note about the tags, but that one I do know. One thing I have started adding to my sites in the last year is main nav text links in my footers. I know that's considered SEO suicide on some levels, but it gives me a bit of peace of mind past whether my alt tags are getting read or not. I've been reading that because people are now abusing the alt tags, there's talk that the crawlers will stop reading them as well or at least have a better way of actually figuring out what's SEO spam and what's legitimate. (To that I say, HA! If they couldn't do it for meta, they can't do it for alt.) One of these days, the way things are delevoping based around tweaks of tweaks of tweaks to obtain sought after SEO results, the crawlers will stop looking at nav links--I'd put money on it. (I can see blogs & forums everywhere jumping on the wagon volunteering new workarounds.) But until then, I do play the game as best I can without leaving the sight-challenged or my snazzy sense of style behind.

[ste]

one other thing you can do is the Fahrner Image Replacement techniquebasically in the html you have plain normal text links;<a href="index.php" class="imgreplace">Home</a>then the text is concealed through a stylesheet declaration of display: none and you display an image with the css instead. this way you get the best of both worlds http://www.stopdesign.com/articles/replace_text/

[lilyofthevalley]

Thanks, ste! I don't have time to read that in full at the moment, as I'm trying to wrap up some other things before I head to Vegas tomorrow, so I'll take a closer look at that when I get back Sunday.