jago25_98

I just had to reply to you Jason because I was really meaning to express the opposite really of what you're saying I'm not a webdev and I don't want to be. But I want to make my entrepreneurial ideas happen. I want to know how to do the basics to communicate ideas to someone who is and hopefully go a bit further where I can in time. I'd consider employing a webdev to help me create my sites, but I don't want to be completely reliant on other people because: - it's expensive and I've a LOT of ideas to try out - if you want something done properly, do it yourself - I like to be in the driving seat That said, I understand it would takes years to catch up on all the tech we have these days. So I'm planning a workflow where I can imagine bringing in specialists to carry out stuff like database backends (thanks T-G :-) Regards the ipad thing. All I'm saying is that the ipad has made me realize just how tactile things can be. I'm certainly not saying to use images, especially raster images... (well, maybe svg a little...) I'm saying that I don't really like the whole approach of designing the visual aspects of a website in code. Did Leonardo DaVinci describe a painting to an assistant who then draw it by numbers? I think it's just a fact I can't get round though; just the way it is that stylesheets and templates have to be done by hand. This isn't a major big deal for me. It's just that this was the thing that put me off webdev years ago because I'm visual person and I like to use my hands rather than a linguistic person who does well with code. I saw the ipad3 in particular with all those levels of pressure and also the ability to use a real brush and had a go at painting with it and kind of thought... I wish I could design websites this easily. However I think to do that you're only going to have a basic mockup and then pay (alot?) of money to someone who can make it happen and the end result is going to be limited to straight lines and compromises. I was looking to see if anything has changed on this front but I'm getting the impression that... no it hasn't really. There is a lot of new tech but the actual process is just as hard work. The only thing to help since I last had a look 10 years ago is a lot of progress in CMS systems afaik.

Thanks T-G that's the sort of thing I'm looking for :-) The only aspect I struggle with is the process of CSS then previewing what it looks like. I find it very slow. That said now I've seen your workflow I can reduce that part of the process now so it's just the framework stage. Personally I like things efficient first. I'm used to browsing over slow links so CSS and html is the stage I like to have beauty, things arranged nice, clean code. I get irritated at these >2mb pages that are becoming commonplace these days. It's a nightmare over satellite, poor 3G signal and 3rd world countries (I think it's more common than we think). I can see that for many the creative outlet can be in the images. Go wild at that later stage. That's an aspect that can be hand drawn and managed in the context of the stylesheet and template. Thing is, coming from years of browsing with images turned off old habits die hard! I'm currently browsing with images turned off in Chrome and outlook.com is now almost unusable on this 3-30kb/sec VSAT connection. Fewer and few people are even labeling the reply button; I'm having to hover to find it on many sites now.

The main thing I want to say is that I despise the approach of making the visual aspects in a non visual programming way. It was just about manageable in the early days of basic html4 but since then things have become so much more complicated. That's hwy I threw in the towel. Don't get me wrong, I understand that in handling other aspects programming is essential. But I don't like the idea of doing visual design by code. An analogy. I learnt music on Commodore Amiga trackers, the Atari ST & C64. That was great and a perfectly valid way of approaching music making and I'm not knocking that approach. But as soon as I picked up a guitar I found everything was a lot quicker and natural. I am overflowing with business ideas and most require a website. I just want to make these ideas reality but I had no clue on how to communicate the ideas to a web dev. At least now I've heard of Fireworks and CMS should make it a bit simpler. I guess what I need to see is a flow process of how a team design a website - who handles what and when, what is outsourced and how the requirements were agreed without people getting confused as to what the goals are. I only want to be the visionary, I just don't think I have time to learn all the tech to make these things happen alone. It was possible 10 years ago but these days there's so much to learn it doesn't make sense to me.

Thanks. Believe it or not I wasn't aware of Fireworks, only Photoshop/Gimp/Sketchup etc. Or rather, I wasn't aware that passing a mockup like that to a professional can be a good way to go! Since looking into it there's also other vector drawing stuff like the Pencil firefox plugin & Inkscape. Redhat have a tutorial for website mockups with Inkscape. There's a few vector drawing apps for ipad but none in a quick search I see mentioning website mockups. Since touch interface I can't stand using a mouse for this subject. I met a creative type once and I noticed he was using using a multitouch pad with his iMac. This also looks interesting but is probably rubbish: http://www.adobe.com/products/adobeideas.html I like the sound of Fireworks via touch interface. mmm ouch.

You'll notice I'm a new user. I'm here because I want to take a second look at website design. I'm a creative guy with a lot of entrapenurial ideas. I know if I could get my head round website design I'd find it really rewarding. It would be really useful to put some of my ideas into practice. 10 years ago I made a few basic sites. But at some point a knowledge of programming has become so important. These days I find it hard to keep up. I can't stand programming but I love to be creative. I started finding it frustrating to be designing visual things in code. I just couldn't get on with this and so I threw in the towel. Fast forward 10 years. The other day I had a go with the new ipad3. Using a sketch program I found I could draw pretty well for the first time. I always remember this was a sticking point for my websites in the past - designing quality media I found difficult. This made me think. Isn't there a way to design a website visually rather than by coding? Is it really possible to separate visual design from engineered coding? I've looked at paying companies to make websites for me but I found it incredibly frustrating and I'm not sure I want to go there again without a mentor. Any comments on that? One thing has changed greatly in the past few years and that's the availability of CMS systems. I'd like to harness this. I'm trying to imagine how I can make the most of all these things around me: - ipad for graphics - CMS systems - contracting database and coding backend for the heavy lifting in whatever idea I can think of Choosing an example that I won't be exercising, but it's an easy example, a bitcoin exchange. - Wordpress or various CMS systems offer a basic quick startup, front end only that can be customised - media drawable to give a brand image - using code from freely licenses intersango exchange code - ^ but that backend code is customised and checked by a contractor - also making use of any available code I can find for uploading ID documents etc - tweaking the CMS for better security (outsource this) (remember this is a fictious example, just an example of website design for bootstrapping an entrapanurial idea, not talking about legal aspect) I want to be involved in the creative process, but I also don't want to spend an age learning website design when that really isn't my goal. I just want to be able to throw up websites quickly and easily but reduce the reliance on 3rd parties.