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Web Design and Development |OT| Pixel perfect is dead, long live responsive design

So A lot of jobs I've been looking up are requesting me to know wordpress and to build templates from scratch. I am currently studying Front_end dev from the scratch I am onto JavaScript and J-query right now. Should I also learn how to do wordpress as well and combine the two or just focus on one route?

wordpress is the most commonly used CMS on the internet. It's definitely worth understanding how it works.

I tend to use the advanced custom fields module and with that you can knock up a nice page based site with a listing page very easily
 

Blunoise

Member
wordpress is the most commonly used CMS on the internet. It's definitely worth understanding how it works.

I tend to use the advanced custom fields module and with that you can knock up a nice page based site with a listing page very easily


Thanks! I actually just install wampserver on my PC and I am going to test out creating a site for a friend on wordpress. It looks like getting entry job as a wordpress developer is a lot easier. I still wanted to eventually get a good role as a front-end, so I'll study both.
 
Thanks! I actually just install wampserver on my PC and I am going to test out creating a site for a friend on wordpress. It looks like getting entry job as a wordpress developer is a lot easier. I still wanted to eventually get a good role as a front-end, so I'll study both.

To get a good front end role you'll be putting yourself in a great position if you are well versed in a couple of CMS.

For example i'm a front end developer but i specialise in magento. I know drupal and wordpress as well. This basically means i can work within the CMS's rather than providing flat HTML to a backend developer to plugin.

The front end role is becoming more diverse and there are now sections within the role you can specialise in.

Grunt/Gulp, Sass, webpack/require js are all key to the role these days and are the corner stone of the majority of fe projects i work on regardless of the platform
 

vern

Member
Hey guys, coming to you all for help and advice once again.

I have a wordpress site using a premium theme on my own domain. I know next to nothing about web development and design.

Since I last wrote a post (no other changes) the site basically stopped working, the main page doesn't show the images or articles, though you can still click the links (even though you can't actually see them on the page). Visual composer elements are missing too.

I wasn't sure what I should do so I updated to latest version of theme and updated all plugins, deleted cache, etc., and still it doesn't seem to be working properly.

If anyone has any advice on what I should do or would be willing to check out my site (I can kick down some cash if you can fix it) please send me a PM. I'm in China so our hours are probably gonna be off, but I'll get back to you for sure. Thanks Gaf, in advance!
 
Bumping myself in case anyone could help me.

A client site I worked on had an image map for a signfiicant page and they didn't have the budget to rework it down to be responsive. I used an image map resizer jquery plugin that helped assist in that : https://plugins.jquery.com/imageMapResizer/

THough from your description I'm not really sure if you're talking about the image map resizing or the image itself resizing.

Hey guys, coming to you all for help and advice once again.

I have a wordpress site using a premium theme on my own domain. I know next to nothing about web development and design.

Since I last wrote a post (no other changes) the site basically stopped working, the main page doesn't show the images or articles, though you can still click the links (even though you can't actually see them on the page). Visual composer elements are missing too.

I wasn't sure what I should do so I updated to latest version of theme and updated all plugins, deleted cache, etc., and still it doesn't seem to be working properly.

If anyone has any advice on what I should do or would be willing to check out my site (I can kick down some cash if you can fix it) please send me a PM. I'm in China so our hours are probably gonna be off, but I'll get back to you for sure. Thanks Gaf, in advance!

Sent you a PM. Won't have time to really get into your code but I can looka t it and put you on the right track hopefully.

It could be a lot of issues, but with the last point release, 4.5.2, WordPress core updated to a newer version of jQuery that introduced some conflicts for plugins that hadn't updated yet. This could be causing one plugin to quit, and then causing a cascade of issues through the other plugins that rely on jQuery. This happened to a client of mine and I wrote a small plugin to roll back to an older version of jQuery until all of your plugins can be confirmed to work with 4.5.2. THis isn't a long term solution but it can get you out of a pickle.

*edit*

This looks to be the issue.
 

Daffy Duck

Member
sounds like an agile approach. After working both with agile and waterfall Agile is king and waterfall doesn't work

It most certainly isn't an agile approach lol, as I say there is no planning/documentation/project map or anything, it's just all luck based if something goes out the door.

:D
 

Daffy Duck

Member
I must have miss understood the original quote.

Are you working with sprints?

Not really no, I did some reading about agile approaches and understood what it is, but literally there is no plan or anything set out at the start, no discovery at the start or anything, it's just a mess, hence my frustrations.
 
Not really no, I did some reading about agile approaches and understood what it is, but literally there is no plan or anything set out at the start, no discovery at the start or anything, it's just a mess, hence my frustrations.

it sounds like you need to get the client in a room and get some stories or tasks written which you can then put into sprints or you can adopt a kanban approach where the tasks are listed in priority order you start from the top and work your way down. Kanban is an interesting approach and is ideal for smaller projects. There is more to it than just working in priority order it's well worth reading up on if you have the time. I'm happy to help you out further if you want to dm me
 

Daffy Duck

Member
it sounds like you need to get the client in a room and get some stories or tasks written which you can then put into sprints or you can adopt a kanban approach where the tasks are listed in priority order you start from the top and work your way down. Kanban is an interesting approach and is ideal for smaller projects. There is more to it than just working in priority order it's well worth reading up on if you have the time. I'm happy to help you out further if you want to dm me

I'll do some reading, the problem is my boss is a disorganised mess. He's a total liability.
 
It's going to be a Sisyphean task to introduce an agile or kanban development process at a company if your manager or team are also not on board. You can't have one person working in agile and then an entire organization working in "whatever" mode.
 
It's going to be a Sisyphean task to introduce an agile or kanban development process at a company if your manager or team are also not on board. You can't have one person working in agile and then an entire organization working in "whatever" mode.

I agree with that plus it needs to sold to the client as it takes a responsibility from then to attend daily stand ups and other ceremonies. It's the only way to deliver a decent piece of software though. I have seen developers take projects by the scruff of the neck and turn them round. If this guys boss is the liability he says he is maybe he would appreciate him suggesting a better way to deliver a project
 

Cptkrush

Member
Are there any great resources for learning Wordpress development as a beginner that you guys would recommend? I am currently working through the php track of codecademy in preperation. I currently know HTML/CSS/javscript/jQuery, and I figure Wordpress is the next best skill to have on my list in order to start job hunting.

I found this book comes recommend by a lot of posts I found on google. But there's a second edition from 3 years ago that is 30 dollars cheaper, and I'm wondering if that much has changed for Wordpress in 3 years.
 
Are there any great resources for learning Wordpress development as a beginner that you guys would recommend? I am currently working through the php track of codecademy in preperation. I currently know HTML/CSS/javscript/jQuery, and I figure Wordpress is the next best skill to have on my list in order to start job hunting.

I found this book comes recommend by a lot of posts I found on google. But there's a second edition from 3 years ago that is 30 dollars cheaper, and I'm wondering if that much has changed for Wordpress in 3 years.

Yes, WP has changed a lot in 3 years. Not the basics of the_loop or the essential querying techniques, but if you want to become a theme or plugin developer, you should get something more recent than 3 years ago. There have been several new API introductions in the last 3 years that have considerably altered what's possible and the best practice for building something in WP.

WPBeginner is a solid place to start:

http://www.wpbeginner.com/

It's a good mix of introductory content editing from a users-perspective, but also a mix of tutorials, lessons, and code snippets on building common things in WP.

And the WP Codex, the documentation, is just really good documentation. Most WP development is centered around Theme Development, so starting with the WP Template Heirarchy is the best place to start, probably. And them from there WordPress Hooks and Filters. Then WordPress Conditionals. You can look up those 3 in Google, the first link should be to the Codex, and there will be lots of other resources online. Those 3 are the building blocks of modifying WordPress for most developers.
 

Cptkrush

Member
Yes, WP has changed a lot in 3 years. Not the basics of the_loop or the essential querying techniques, but if you want to become a theme or plugin developer, you should get something more recent than 3 years ago. There have been several new API introductions in the last 3 years that have considerably altered what's possible and the best practice for building something in WP.

WPBeginner is a solid place to start:

http://www.wpbeginner.com/

It's a good mix of introductory content editing from a users-perspective, but also a mix of tutorials, lessons, and code snippets on building common things in WP.

And the WP Codex, the documentation, is just really good documentation. Most WP development is centered around Theme Development, so starting with the WP Template Heirarchy is the best place to start, probably. And them from there WordPress Hooks and Filters. Then WordPress Conditionals. You can look up those 3 in Google, the first link should be to the Codex, and there will be lots of other resources online. Those 3 are the building blocks of modifying WordPress for most developers.

Thank you for the advice! I checked out WPBeginner and saw they recommend the same book so I went ahead and just ordered the newish 3rd edition. I think I'll take a dive into the documentation and work on a personal blog in order to learn as much as possible as well.
 
Thank you for the advice! I checked out WPBeginner and saw they recommend the same book so I went ahead and just ordered the newish 3rd edition. I think I'll take a dive into the documentation and work on a personal blog in order to learn as much as possible as well.

If you're doing a learning project, I'd suggest starting with this starter theme:

_underscores

Underscores is a starter theme for WordPress, created by Automattic (the company behind WP) and open sourced, that gives you the most standard template files, hooks, filters, and theme structure of a typical WP theme. It doesn't come with anything fancy, no front-end frameworks, no advanced widgets or functionality, just standard components that you should start most themes with in a well organized, easy to understand way. It's all well documented as well.

The good thing about starting with underscores is that you learn the template heirarchy and how a WP theme should be created, and you won't get confused with a lot of extras that are put on top.

I'm a seasoned WP developer, have been for... eh probably like 10 years, and up until about a year ago I still used _underscores for almost every theme I developed for clients (I used a custom derivative of _underscores that had some custom components that I use in every project built on top of it). It was just up until recently that I switched to something else (FoundationPress), but I'd still recommend Underscores for a starter theme for anybody starting out in WP development.
 

mugwhump

Member
Doing my first wordpress project for a client, they said they'd buy a theme. (I want to make my own with _s, sage, or genesis, but I think it would be better to buy one to start with). People seem to recommend staying away from the very popular, bloated mega-themes like X and Avada. I was thinking of buying one from a design studio like themify, elegant themes or studiopress. Any suggestions? Am considering Ultra from themify, not sure if that falls into the "bloated mega-theme" category.
 
I've used Divi for a client from ElegantThemes. It's a great value, IMO. They're all bloated with features that 80% of clients won't use, but they're also quick and easy ways to make very good looking websites for not much money.

An issue with all of them is customization. It becomes difficult to customize outside of the large toolset that they give you.

This client that needed a site turned around in 7 days, and Divi worked well. They had wireframes but no design, and I think that's what you need if you're working with one of these premium themes. If they have a specific design it'll be more frustrating to work with, rather than just wireframes, because you end up doing more work un-designing those themes.
 

imBask

Banned
+1 for Divi if it's a simple, strict design and you're in a position where you can tell them "no" to certain feature because they don't fit in the theme
 
Hey guys. I am currently working on developing a small website using bootstrap and i need help with something. I am using the navbar-brand class for my logo and it's basically just text. Now I want subtitle underneath it but I can't figure it out. If I put a <p> tag that is fine but then when I shrink the browser i notice it moves out so that won't work. Can anyone help me out?

code:

https://jsfiddle.net/h4wbtrmL/
 

DogWelder

Member
Hey guys. I am currently working on developing a small website using bootstrap and i need help with something. I am using the navbar-brand class for my logo and it's basically just text. Now I want subtitle underneath it but I can't figure it out. If I put a <p> tag that is fine but then when I shrink the browser i notice it moves out so that won't work. Can anyone help me out?

code:

https://jsfiddle.net/h4wbtrmL/

You try this? http://stackoverflow.com/questions/21155060/how-to-put-text-underneath-a-navbar-brand-in-bootstrap
 

kevm3

Member
Huh?

I don't follow you there chief.

I basically mean laying out a schedule of work with deadlines a project will be finished by.

I basically had a "discussion" with my boss about actually planning work and working towards deadlines and his answer was basically you can't plan anything and it's a positive not to tie anything to a deadline.

You might think having him give you deadlines is cool until you get stuck on a problem that takes much longer to solve than you thought. Having a general timetable for when things should be accomplished is great, but if you don't have a strict timetable, don't go asking for one unless you want to put yourself in incredibly stressful situations.
 

kevm3

Member
What are the best resources for responsive design, as in a book or course that actually makes a responsive site that would be something that would be acceptable in production? Most books I see kind of have a smattering of ramblings about media queries, some stuff about responsive images, but rarely have I seen a course/book that makes a decent site that looks great on phones and desktop and thoroughly explain what they did without the use of a framework.
 

Daffy Duck

Member
Can I ask how you guys deal with custom 404 pages and outputting the correct 404 header error code? This is something I have never done before and I now need to do it.

Sites are on Apache, so the redirect itself is handled with the ErrorDocument 404 http://www.domain.com/404.html code, but reading on the Google support pages about 404 it says that the page should still produce an actual 404 HTTP status code, now looking in Chrome my custom page actually produces a 302 error for the incorrect page and then a satus code of 200 for the actual error page.

What should I be doing here? Do I create the error page in PHP and put the below code in the header to produce my code or is there a better way of doing things?

Code:
<?php 
header("HTTP/1.0 404 Not Found"); 
?>

the site does use the .htaccess for URL rewrites too, and also the ErrorDocument 404 /404.html doesn't work, it only works with the full domain, why is that? As some guides say this should work? Is this due to the previosuly mentioned rewrites going on?

Thanks,

You might think having him give you deadlines is cool until you get stuck on a problem that takes much longer to solve than you thought. Having a general timetable for when things should be accomplished is great, but if you don't have a strict timetable, don't go asking for one unless you want to put yourself in incredibly stressful situations.

Yeah I agree, luckily most of the sites we do are straight forward, and if I have a project to do that is a lot more involved I will build in some extra time in case things go awry.
 
What are the best resources for responsive design, as in a book or course that actually makes a responsive site that would be something that would be acceptable in production? Most books I see kind of have a smattering of ramblings about media queries, some stuff about responsive images, but rarely have I seen a course/book that makes a decent site that looks great on phones and desktop and thoroughly explain what they did without the use of a framework.

You'll have to look for some old tutorials because now most courses or tutorials start with "For your responsive design, let's use Bootstrap."

Check out these older articles from Smashing Magazine:

https://www.smashingmagazine.com/responsive-web-design-guidelines-tutorials/

Many were published when media queries were just becoming a thing that you could use in CSS3, and so they go into depth explaining how responsive design works.

For instance: How to use CSS3 Media Queries to create a Mobile Version of your website

https://www.smashingmagazine.com/20...s-to-create-a-mobile-version-of-your-website/

This is an article from 2010, so it's pre-responsive-framework-age. You can imagine many pieces are out of date, it focuses on IE8 support for instance, but this article and the other Smashing tutorials that are several years old will give you a stronger basis for responsive design that you won't get from something newer... which will really just say "Let's use a framework."

But really, you should use a framework because it would save you 1,000 hours of your own work and you'll get a more production-ready product. You don't need to have a really heavy framework either. Bootstrap 4, for instance, let's you pick and choose what you want to include and you can get just the grid & helper classes, without the buttons, cards, and everything else. So you won't have to spend time "unstyling" the rest of the elements.
 
I am starting to develop websites again after laying off for a while. I am mainly a designer but like doing small websites for small companies. Will it be a good idea to develop them from scratch or will that be a waste of time compared to using a framework? Also can anyone tell me everything I will need before starting to developing websites? Things like reset.css,etc. Also I should be saving my own templates like an html skeleton for future purposes right? Any other tips would be greatly appreciated.
 
The OP has a lot of those resources for getting started.

These days, I think you should start with a framework like Bootstrap or Foundation. This will give you the basic responsive structure of your website, as well as have a reset, and take care of a lot of the early work you'd have to do.

I'd recommend using an editor like Atom (atom.io), but many also like SublimeText or other more full-fledged IDEs. Downloading Atom and taking an Atom tutorial on YouTube would be a good start. And, sure, you can save out your templates if you'd like. If you're doing straight HTML without an application framework around it (like say Angular, Ember, or Laravel on the PHP side), then it makes sense to save out templates that you can use again in the future.

One other recommendation I'd make is to learn how to use a source control system, and I'd recommend Git for everybody starting small to medium-sized projects. Source control is often the gap between designers and developers. It's very light weight, provides almost no overhead to your project that wouldn't already be there, and it's a robust tool for tracking all of the changes you make to your code... So even if you didn't setup basic templates, you could always go back in time in your project to when you did have just a basic template set up, and copy that for another project. Again, I'd recommend taking like a 1 hour introduction to Git tutorial on YouTube.
 
The OP has a lot of those resources for getting started.

These days, I think you should start with a framework like Bootstrap or Foundation. This will give you the basic responsive structure of your website, as well as have a reset, and take care of a lot of the early work you'd have to do.

I'd recommend using an editor like Atom (atom.io), but many also like SublimeText or other more full-fledged IDEs. Downloading Atom and taking an Atom tutorial on YouTube would be a good start. And, sure, you can save out your templates if you'd like. If you're doing straight HTML without an application framework around it (like say Angular, Ember, or Laravel on the PHP side), then it makes sense to save out templates that you can use again in the future.

One other recommendation I'd make is to learn how to use a source control system, and I'd recommend Git for everybody starting small to medium-sized projects. Source control is often the gap between designers and developers. It's very light weight, provides almost no overhead to your project that wouldn't already be there, and it's a robust tool for tracking all of the changes you make to your code... So even if you didn't setup basic templates, you could always go back in time in your project to when you did have just a basic template set up, and copy that for another project. Again, I'd recommend taking like a 1 hour introduction to Git tutorial on YouTube.
I tried bootstrap and I don't like all the classes since they aren't semantic and are confusing. I also feel like I don't have as much control or if I want to then I need to go find out what is it that I need to overwrite. Will it be really bad if I code from scratch?
 

Cardon

Member
Don't know if this is too off topic, but I'm working on my site at the moment and was just wondering if anyone had suggestions for good, and affordable, design vendors that specialize in logos? Tried some very amateur folks already and didn't have good experiences so I'm open to any suggestions.
 

vern

Member
Hey guys, coming to you all for help and advice once again.

I have a wordpress site using a premium theme on my own domain. I know next to nothing about web development and design.

Since I last wrote a post (no other changes) the site basically stopped working, the main page doesn't show the images or articles, though you can still click the links (even though you can't actually see them on the page). Visual composer elements are missing too.

I wasn't sure what I should do so I updated to latest version of theme and updated all plugins, deleted cache, etc., and still it doesn't seem to be working properly.

If anyone has any advice on what I should do or would be willing to check out my site (I can kick down some cash if you can fix it) please send me a PM. I'm in China so our hours are probably gonna be off, but I'll get back to you for sure. Thanks Gaf, in advance!


Just want to quote myself and see if anyone else has any ideas.

Albatross and Daffy Duck both said it's Jquery issues and offered solutions, but still the site isn't working. Still willing to kick some money a gaffers way if anyone can get my site working again. Thanks in advance... and if no one can help, anyone got any suggestions on where to find a reliable wordpress dev that can fix it up for me?
 

Daffy Duck

Member
Sorry i didn't get back to you dude for further help, my week at work and home went from 0-100 real quick so had no further time to look.
 

GHG

Member
Hey guys, I'm making some (or trying to make some) changes to my website at the moment and could use some help.

For the purposes of illustrating what I want to achieve please look at the following image (please excuse the horrible styling):

sectorsblueprinta1orl.png


Basically I want to make it so that when the user clicks on one of the images text appears in the box below corresponding to that image, giving a description of sorts. I've tried searching the usual resources but can't find anything. What should I be looking for and what is it called?

It's also worth noting that my website is in bootstrap, is it possible to do this in a way that is also responsive?

And would it be better to have the text appear/disappear on mouse hover rather than on click?

Thanks in advance.
 

Cptkrush

Member
You can put the text in three divs with unique id's and use jquery on mouseover events to show/hide those divs when the user hovers your images.

Here's an example I built recently while doing a DailyUI challenge:
http://codepen.io/chadmcartier/pen/rLWLaB

Basically I have a nav bar with text that contains the same characters as the div id's for the objects I wanted to hide and use a function to pull the text from the link and use it to switch the active div.

In your case, as I don't know how much programming/jQuery experience you have it'll be probably be simpler off with seperate commands for each image.
Say you click #img-one: in jQuery your code will look something like this:
Code:
$('#img-one').on('mouseover', function(){
     $('.active').hide();
     $('.active').removeClass('active');
     $('#text-one').show();
     $('#text-one').addClass('active');
});

You'll want to set your initial text box with the class 'active', and if you want a smoother transition between the switch you can add a delay before the show() command. You're going to also want to make sure you set your text-two and text-three to display: none in the css.

You could honestly do it with less jQuery if you set up the css on active correctly, but I am way too tired to type that all out right now haha. And if you don't want the text to permanently stay, you can just use css hover pseudo classes to show and hide descriptions, but they will disappear when you stop hovering.
 

GHG

Member
You can put the text in three divs with unique id's and use jquery on mouseover events to show/hide those divs when the user hovers your images.

Here's an example I built recently while doing a DailyUI challenge:
http://codepen.io/chadmcartier/pen/rLWLaB

Basically I have a nav bar with text that contains the same characters as the div id's for the objects I wanted to hide and use a function to pull the text from the link and use it to switch the active div.

In your case, as I don't know how much programming/jQuery experience you have it'll be probably be simpler off with seperate commands for each image.
Say you click #img-one: in jQuery your code will look something like this:
Code:
$('#img-one').on('mouseover', function(){
     $('.active').hide();
     $('.active').removeClass('active');
     $('#text-one').show();
     $('#text-one').addClass('active');
});

You'll want to set your initial text box with the class 'active', and if you want a smoother transition between the switch you can add a delay before the show() command. You're going to also want to make sure you set your text-two and text-three to display: none in the css.

You could honestly do it with less jQuery if you set up the css on active correctly, but I am way too tired to type that all out right now haha. And if you don't want the text to permanently stay, you can just use css hover pseudo classes to show and hide descriptions, but they will disappear when you stop hovering.

Perfect thank you for pointing me in the right direction. This helps a great deal.
 
Code:
<img />
<div>some text</div>
<style>
div {
 opacity: 0;
 transition: opacity 300ms ease-in-out;
}
img:hover + div {
 opacity: 1;
}
</style>
you could do something like this if you want pure css
 

egruntz

shelaughz
I need your help guys. I've went through the codecademy courses (HTML, CSS, JavaScript, jQuery, etc.) multiple times. I understand each of these and complete the exercises perfectly. But even after that...I still have no idea how to create a website. Something just isn't clicking with me. I don't know how to take that coding knowledge and create a website with it.

Do I have the wrong idea? Should I not be able to create a website with those? Instead I'd have to use something like WordPress, but those languages help me design it?

I'm thinking I might need a different course if not... Maybe with an instructor. Because the logic of coding makes sense to me, but its practicality...where each language is most applicable...doesn't seem to click. Any advice?
 

Cptkrush

Member
I need your help guys. I've went through the codecademy courses (HTML, CSS, JavaScript, jQuery, etc.) multiple times. I understand each of these and complete the exercises perfectly. But even after that...I still have no idea how to create a website. Something just isn't clicking with me. I don't know how to take that coding knowledge and create a website with it.

Do I have the wrong idea? Should I not be able to create a website with those? Instead I'd have to use something like WordPress, but those languages help me design it?

I'm thinking I might need a different course if not... Maybe with an instructor. Because the logic of coding makes sense to me, but its practicality...where each language is most applicable...doesn't seem to click. Any advice?

Codecademy isn't for everyone. Give video lectures a shot, and if that doesn't work, try reading some books. Find the right learning style for you.
A lot of people recommend Codeschool, but Treehouse might be more your speed, they get really in depth into the basics so everyone can understand. I was personally turned off by it, but it might be helpful for you.

Also, practice practice practice. Use W3Schools or the MDN as a reference site and build yourself a basic hello world page, then style it. Leave javascript/jquery for until you are comfortable with HTML/CSS. Then build a more complex page, like a bio for yourself. Master HTML and CSS before moving onto anything else.
 

GHG

Member
I need your help guys. I've went through the codecademy courses (HTML, CSS, JavaScript, jQuery, etc.) multiple times. I understand each of these and complete the exercises perfectly. But even after that...I still have no idea how to create a website. Something just isn't clicking with me. I don't know how to take that coding knowledge and create a website with it.

Do I have the wrong idea? Should I not be able to create a website with those? Instead I'd have to use something like WordPress, but those languages help me design it?

I'm thinking I might need a different course if not... Maybe with an instructor. Because the logic of coding makes sense to me, but its practicality...where each language is most applicable...doesn't seem to click. Any advice?

Get familiar with Bootstrap and start making random websites would be my advice. Grab some of the free themes to get you started and then start playing around with them and adding features using what you've learnt so far. Then you can start trying to make some themes of your own and use those as the basis for any website you want to build moving forwards.

You will only find out what you really do/don't know by building random sites. That's when it all starts coming together (or falling apart lol). You should have all the conceptual knowledge necessary, it's now about putting it into practice.

Code:
<img />
<div>some text</div>
<style>
div {
 opacity: 0;
 transition: opacity 300ms ease-in-out;
}
img:hover + div {
 opacity: 1;
}
</style>
you could do something like this if you want pure css

A bit belated but thanks for this advice. I ended up going the CSS route for now (also added some subtle slide up transition effects) and once I have it looking how I want I'll probably attempt it again using jQuery.
 

grmlin

Member
I need your help guys. I've went through the codecademy courses (HTML, CSS, JavaScript, jQuery, etc.) multiple times. I understand each of these and complete the exercises perfectly. But even after that...I still have no idea how to create a website. Something just isn't clicking with me. I don't know how to take that coding knowledge and create a website with it.

Do I have the wrong idea? Should I not be able to create a website with those? Instead I'd have to use something like WordPress, but those languages help me design it?

I'm thinking I might need a different course if not... Maybe with an instructor. Because the logic of coding makes sense to me, but its practicality...where each language is most applicable...doesn't seem to click. Any advice?

People study years to get a degree in computer science, so it's not like this is the easiest thing to learn :)

For webdev, it's all about practive, at least in my opinion. You can learn all the basics and theory, using it is a totally different beast.

Things we often do when someone applies for a job is telling her/him to build a site we did in the past. So maybe it's a good idea to re-build an existing site from scratch.

The best thing would be some real work with some senior developers on your side, helping you out.
 

egruntz

shelaughz
Thanks guys. So to recap the advice I'm getting: Just start creating basic sites and experiment. As time goes on, it should sink in. This is a stupid question, I know...but how do I actually create websites? Do I need to get a domain name and web host for each site I create? NameCheap + Dreamhost? This is the kind of information I'm lacking. The setup and installation, and the actual way to apply coding to turn it into a website. Is there a resource available anyone is aware of that can teach me these rudimentary things?

I know how to enter the HTML, CSS, and JavaScript in the Codecademy terminals, and the preview shows me my work. But how do I do this for an actual, reachable website of my own?
 
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