A few thoughts on Web Design

The design for the HTML and CSS behind this site was adapted from "Build your own Web Site the Right Way" by Ian Llyodd.

The first thing this book taught me was that you need two files to make a web site, an Hyper text mark-up languages file (html) and a cascading style sheet (css). When I first started building a web site all the instructions went into the html file, the fonts, the colours, the graphics. The problem with that was any change to the web site required a rewrite of each page.

The new concept is simple and can be thought of in these terms; the html runs to content while the css runs to design. That is, what is said on the site is written in html, and how the site looks is written in the css.

In a large scale example; a company "Green Fields Growers" has a web site with an Oak Tree logo and pale greens and yellows as a colour scheme. They get taken over by "Blue Sky Planters" who's site is in pale blues and whites. Using ther own css file Blue Sky could simply change the reference in Green Fields html file to their their css file. The Green Fields web site now appears to be a Blue Sky web site.

Naturally, it's a little more complicated than that. The references in the html have to be changed to connect to the references in the new css file but the principle is the same. As long as the references in the html can locate the references in the css any change to appearance can be made by a simple change in the css.

The Sydney PC & Technology User Group runs a Web Design Special Interest group (SIG) the third Saturday of each month.

Our Groups Web Design Site which I designed, built and maintain.