rhubarblover

Probably not.
Linkedin can work but it needs lots of nurturing. Your husband needs to start posting case studies with data on how changes to the copy increased X by Y. He needs to start building relations ships and following other. Commenting and interacting with others. His list needs to be managed to keep only likely leads. In other words he needs to decide if linked is going to be a source of work. If so, put all his efforts into this and not the blog.

Does the author want to sell books?
Nothing wrong with looking commercial, otherwise there is no point in having the website.

Linux I love it. It seems faster than Windows, there are fewer hoops to jump through, it doesn't try to force updates, and is customisable. The software available is perfectly adequate for my needs. I would probably have issues if I wanted to do a lot of design work (adobe) but I'm primarily a developer. There's also a significant performance increase with using Virtualbox. And I love using the terminal instead of graphical applications.
 
That said, there was a bit of a learning curve coming from Windows, but the Linux community are amazingly helpful, so it's not much of a problem.

It sounds like you want a developer. As Fisicx is saying, prices can be very varied - just ask around for quotes. The more detail you give, the more accurate the quote will be.

Surely in that situation - where translation wasn't available - the user wouldn't be able to read anything else on the website?

I never understood what's wrong with the word 'menu' followed by an arrow. :/

Do you have a laptop? Could you go somewhere else to work? I don't know whether libraries, for instance, allow people in with laptops, but if they do, that could be an option?

Surely in that situation - where translation wasn't available - the user wouldn't be able to read anything else on the website?

I never understood what's wrong with the word 'menu' followed by an arrow. :/

I never understood what's wrong with the word 'menu' followed by an arrow. :/

No, my comment is ONLY a reaction to your claim that some people are not used to the hamburger icon. I have seen you comment on other posts with the same argument so I took the time to post a lot of examples of high trafic websites.
 
Why?
Because the fastest, easiest, cheapest and often most reliable research is often benchmark results against high performing brands (If they have implemented something they have spended more resources on tests and research than we could ever have).
 
I was only referring to the icon itself, not whether or not it should be used on larger devices. Personally I don't like to have to click to open a menu if there is no need to do so, but on small screens efficient use of every pixel counts.
That said, I have seen some very clever new trends with expandable menus like enabling search functions just by typing or touching the menu when it is open.
 
Don't always trust the users!
I'm old enough to have been disliking a lot of trends in UI design but in retrospect many of them made life easier once I accepted them.
Like me, most users are conservative and do not like changes when they first see them, so if only the users was dictating the evolution of UI design the single design decision you would ever need to make was what colour the font in the command prompt should be.
 
I strongly believe it is our duty as web designers to explore new UI trends with an open mind BEFORE they are generally accepted by the users.

A little off-topic, but his profile picture is actually this guy:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aziz_Shavershian

Thanks for the feedback. I think I'll keep it, as more people seem to think it's a good thing than not.
 
Jakdothtml -
Okay, I'll have a look at that.
 
Jacobg830 -
Thanks! That's what I was going for
Yeah, suppose I'll have to re-draw it at some point...

Yes, I was planning on using BEM (thanks for introducing that to me, by the way - I've been meaning to mention that I had tried it out. Really liked it! ).

If the sidebar is set to a percentage width, then that means it is responsive and the actual width will vary depending on the size of the browser. I would assume your images should behave in the same way, so it doesn't matter about the size, just go with a larger image that can be scaled down.

I only had a very quick look, but try changing the ul element to position:relative instead of absolute.

Well, you could start here:
https://codex.wordpress.org/Theme_Development
 
Or there's a tutorial here:
https://www.siteground.co.uk/tutorials/wordpress/wordpress_create_theme.htm
(others on google)
 
If you haven't done it before, it might take a while to learn, but it's worth it It will help if you know PHP.

This is something I've been wondering about for a while now, as I have done one or two jobs that would be difficult to actually show in my portfolio, so a testimonial would at least show that I have done these things.
 
The thing is, a point my husband brought up and one I had been considering, is that how does anyone know you haven't just made up the testimonial? Do people actually trust them? I personally do, in most cases; I am however very gullible and overly trusting in general.

Well, I just keep researching the answer - though if I'm getting too distracted/miserable, I do something else that needs completing and then try again later. If it's late, I try the next day, and usually solve the problem in a few minutes. If I'm not getting anywhere, I ask on here.

Could you explain why? Sticky menus are widely used and I, personally, never heard of anyone having problems with them when properly done (not taking up half the screen or anything)
 
Also, smashing magazine has this article about it, which suggests the opposite:
https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2012/09/sticky-menus-are-quicker-to-navigate/

Do you have Javascript disabled? You won't be able to see the website without it

I'm not completely sure what I need, so can't really do any effective searching. Thought someone here might be able to help me.

I am planning an application-type-thing. Currently I'm using a text file detailing various scenarios based on user interaction, but it doesn't seem like the best way of doing it, and I have the problem where a tree of events would lead to one event that also happens at an earlier point... if that makes any sense at all. I don't want to have to type out everything that happens after that point, again - if you see what I mean?

So I thought maybe there's a program that helps with this sort of thing.

If anyone has any recommendations, please let me know

Might be worth having a separate thread for this?

Fisicx -
Hmm... I suppose the area you live in is quite a bit different to here. We have a rather high unemployment rate, and the pubs aren't really the sort of place where you can just talk to people you don't already know. I appreciate the ideas, though.

Looks interesting What do you mean by stalled? It looks like it's working to me?

I will try my hand at making plugins/extensions. Magento - that's a CMS based around e-commerce, right? Haven't tried it out yet. I'll take a look at it if it's free to try, and see about making stuff for that.

Rbrtsmith -
Ah, I was meaning more contracting out to agencies temporarily rather than working in-house - I thought that was what you meant? That said, I've applied for two such positions - remote and 3/6 month contracts. Probably don't have a chance as they specifiy 3 years commercial experience though :/ People are always telling me you should apply anyway though, as they might not actually care that much.


I think you have both given very good advice and am very grateful. Admittedly I'm feeling a little conflicted about what to do I will try the plugin idea, since at the least it's good experience. As previously mentioned, I've applied for some freelance contract work that I can do from home. Probably won't get it.

What I need from this, which is probably relevant and I should have mentioned before - is a full-time income, enough to support two people (self included). And hopefully at some point three mountain dogs... While working from home. Not because I hate working for others, or anything like that - my personal circumstances would make it difficult, plus the fact we want to eventually live somewhere quite remote.

Also, I don't know whether either of you are familiar with this:
www.myfitnesspal.com

I've decided to create something along the same lines, but lighter (and frankly, less buggy/laggy), firstly for the use of myself and my husband, but I was thinking that maybe the finished project could be shown in my portfolio? I could put it on Github or something? I am incredibly excited about it
 

Fisicx -
Thank you for the detailed response.
Okay, maybe I didn't explain very well in my original post. Long term I don't want to be designing websites, I'd like to focus purely on back-end development. I love PHP.

But at the moment I don't feel competent enough to specialise like that, so my plan was to use the skills I have to create basic websites until I'm better at back-end development. Is this the wrong way to go about it?

Part of my problem here is that I don't fully understand what sort of thing back end developers do, so I don't know what to work towards other than gaining a better understanding of the languages. Maybe there's actually development work I could take on right now other than theming Wordpress/Drupal - but I don't know about it. I'm quite lost :/

In regards to marketing...well. That's not one of my strong points. In fact, my social skills are appalling. As an example: I've convinced two people who intially wanted to hire me, not to, over the last few years.

I have to ask, though - how do you do so many websites for local tradesmen? Are there that many?

Rbrtsmith -
Thanks for the advice - oh, also, congratulations on the new job, it sounds fantastic.

I will try and see if there are any agencies I could do some work for, that's a good idea. I don't know how much back-end work I could provide for a front-end developer at my current level, though :/