JacksonAK92 Posted June 8, 2010 Share Posted June 8, 2010 Hey guys. I'm working on my first website right now. I created the design for it in photoshop, and I'm trying to bring it over to dreamweaver right now. I searched for a tutorial to do that on youtube and followed it. Basically I created slices where I had my buttons, and a slice where I had my content box, but unfortunately I ran into a little bit of a problem.Here is the design:Uploaded with ImageShack.usSo I created a slice over each button and told it where to link to. That part worked fine.The part that isn't working the way I want it to is the content box. I created a slice for the context box (the area under the red jagged line), but whenever I try to enter text into this box the entire slice's background becomes white. I know I can change its background color, but I want the content box to retain its paper texture as well.So should I not use a slice on the content box at all and just create things above it? Again I'm very new to web design, so I really have no idea what I'm doing. I'm pretty decent at design and all that, I'm just trying to learn how to bring my ideas to life with code and all of that...Thanks for any help you guys can give! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
justsomeguy Posted June 8, 2010 Share Posted June 8, 2010 It should be a background image if it's not already, not a foreground image. You'll also want to get a slice for that which will tile vertically, since the box may grow if the content is too long. It will probably be best to save the page's background image as one image, and save the paper slice as another image with a transparent background (without the scenery behind it, only the paper). That's the way you want it to work conceptually, you want a tiling background image of the paper to float over the scenery background. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JacksonAK92 Posted June 8, 2010 Author Share Posted June 8, 2010 It should be a background image if it's not already, not a foreground image. You'll also want to get a slice for that which will tile vertically, since the box may grow if the content is too long. It will probably be best to save the page's background image as one image, and save the paper slice as another image with a transparent background (without the scenery behind it, only the paper). That's the way you want it to work conceptually, you want a tiling background image of the paper to float over the scenery background.man that just flew over my head lol. Web design is so overwhelming, I don't know how I'll ever learn...So I should scrap what I have and just set the image as the background for the site and then I make a slice of the paper without the images on the sides. How do I get the background to be transparent for a slice though? I didn't see an option for that and if I recall right I looked fairly thuroughly for it.Thanks for your help. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
justsomeguy Posted June 8, 2010 Share Posted June 8, 2010 Just make a new image with a transparent background and copy the slice over it. When you save it in Photoshop, save it as a 24-bit PNG with alpha transparency. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chibineku Posted June 8, 2010 Share Posted June 8, 2010 My brother just got Red Dead Redemption and he loves it - he plays it all night. The graphics are pretty awesome, but it's so far from my kind of game.I like the mockup, it looks good. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JacksonAK92 Posted June 8, 2010 Author Share Posted June 8, 2010 Just make a new image with a transparent background and copy the slice over it. When you save it in Photoshop, save it as a 24-bit PNG with alpha transparency.I think I've gone over my head here. Learning web design has been nothing but frustration to me. I come up with good ideas for designs, I can create the designs well in photoshop, but creating functionality out of my designs seems like rocket science to me.How did you all get to where you are? Maybe I need to start with the basics and just make crappy websites and work my way up. I just hate to do that because I like to make websites that are actually functional and used, making fake websites just to learn takes away from the experience for me, but it seems like that is all I can do because making functional and good looking websites isn't a possibility right now.Anyone got any words of advice to offer? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JacksonAK92 Posted June 8, 2010 Author Share Posted June 8, 2010 My brother just got Red Dead Redemption and he loves it - he plays it all night. The graphics are pretty awesome, but it's so far from my kind of game.I like the mockup, it looks good.Yeah the game is great. I just felt like making a website of something I liked would help motivate me, and it did. Making this design was really fun until I got to the point I'm at where I'm just stumped and discouraged.Red dead is great though. If you like grand theft auto its like that but its gone even further in terms of depth and freedom. The game is really amazing I would definitely give it a try if I were you. It is by far the best game I've played this year. I think it will win game of the year. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chibineku Posted June 8, 2010 Share Posted June 8, 2010 I think I've gone over my head here. Learning web design has been nothing but frustration to me. I come up with good ideas for designs, I can create the designs well in photoshop, but creating functionality out of my designs seems like rocket science to me.How did you all get to where you are? Maybe I need to start with the basics and just make crappy websites and work my way up. I just hate to do that because I like to make websites that are actually functional and used, making fake websites just to learn takes away from the experience for me, but it seems like that is all I can do because making functional and good looking websites isn't a possibility right now.Anyone got any words of advice to offer?There's nothing for it but to start with the hello world examples and work your way up. It doesn't take THAT long - 6 months should get you pretty comfortable with HTML, CSS, basic JavaScript/jQuery (a JavaScript function library that greatly simplifies complicated actions) and maybe even looking at a server side language/database. But if you try to skip stuff you'll not get very far, I think. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JacksonAK92 Posted June 8, 2010 Author Share Posted June 8, 2010 There's nothing for it but to start with the hello world examples and work your way up. It doesn't take THAT long - 6 months should get you pretty comfortable with HTML, CSS, basic JavaScript/jQuery (a JavaScript function library that greatly simplifies complicated actions) and maybe even looking at a server side language/database. But if you try to skip stuff you'll not get very far, I think.yeah you're right. I'm just a perfectionist. If I'm making a website its hard for me to accept poor quality even though I have no idea how to add functionality to a good design, but I guess I'm going to have to get over that if I want to learn.Another thing is I don't know where to go if I don't have a kind of set mission. I mean I can make a "hello world" website, but then what? I wouldn't know what to try to work towards next. If I was trying to make a particular website work I would know exactly what kinds of things I need to learn in order to make that happen. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JacksonAK92 Posted June 8, 2010 Author Share Posted June 8, 2010 Alright so I'm starting with the very basics. I'm just trying to upload a "hello world" message to my website. I have a domain and hosting from godaddy.com I configured my site in dreamweaver to use the FTP info from godaddy and my website, and it says it connected fine. I named the one file I was uploading index.html, and clicked put. Dreamweaver said everything worked perfectly, but nothing has changed on my domain. Does it take a period of time for godaddy to bring my files live or has some error occured along the way?Thanks again guys and I hope I'm not being a pain here.Here is my website by the way: http://www.pacificsage.com/ Dreamweaver is telling me it connected to the FTP for my site fine, so I'm not sure whats going on. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thescientist Posted June 8, 2010 Share Posted June 8, 2010 which directory on the server did you put it in? you want to make sure its going into a folder called www, or htdocs, or something like that. whats the folder structure of your web server? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JacksonAK92 Posted June 8, 2010 Author Share Posted June 8, 2010 It's working now. Apparently it just took a while. Yay my first ever website is live!... its just a sentence, but still exciting. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chibineku Posted June 9, 2010 Share Posted June 9, 2010 Sometimes when you upload a new file it doesn't show because the old one is cached, so you either need to force refresh (CTRL+F5) or add some parameter at the end of the filename, like ?x=1, or #1. Changing to a new number will make the browser fetch the new page. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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