10 Tips To Save Time With Web Designing
Sent by Maneet Puri on July 25th 2008 source
Getting a great website designed is good. But it’ll be better if it took just half the time. This is where the difference comes in between web developers and professional web developers. With no compromise on the work quality, custom website designers make use of tips and tricks that gets the work done faster.
Here are 10 tips that you can make use of to make your designing process a lot easier and with a professional edge:
Planning
Before you sit down to begin your designing project, take some time off to plan the process out. Draw wireframes or diagrams on a piece of paper to construct the whole look of the website. It not only gives you a chance to correct any mistakes but also you can explain your ideas more effectively to your clients.
Code by hand
No matter the numerous website building tools available on the internet, for you to be in control of your website, you need to know how it’s coded. The best way to learn HTML is by actually writing out some codes. It’s one of the easily-learnable things of the web and stays with you. However, try to write the leanest possible code for your website.
Stylesheets
There are two ways you can clip on an external stylesheet on to a HTML page but not every browser accepts both. However, you can use this to o your advantage by creating two different stylesheets for different browsers. For instance you can create a complex CSS for modern browsers at the same time a simple version of the same for older ones like Netscape 4.x.
Smart gradient backgrounds
CSS allows you to experiment with numerable background styles and themes. Moreover, you can also apply images to any DIV, block level or inline element. You can make the Background images scroll along with the web page or make it static while the rest of the page scrolls over it. Also, you can restrict the size of the graphics and make the images non-repetitive no matter the length of the page.
Commenting
Always make sure to add comments in your HTML. This will not only make it easier for you when you come back to it after a break but also for others to decipher what you intended to do with it. It will just add a kilobyte or two to your page but save you a whole lot of time later.
Simple PHP
You don’t need to be a PHP expert to use it on your website. You just need to have a server that supports PHP and you can use ‘server side includes’ to set up a library containing certain common elements and add it on your web page through a simple link.
Fonts
Setting your font sizes using pixels has one major downside- they can’t be resized in the IE browser. So, as the monitor resolution increases, the text size goes down. Therefore it is always better that you specify your fonts in ems. One em is equal to about ten pixels.
IE Box Model Hack
Internet Explorer contains a bug that calculates the width and height of block level items wrongly by incorporating padding values within dimensions of the box instead of adding them outside. The solution to this problem is Box Model Hack. You can use another bug in IE to make the browser use tags that otherwise go unnoticed.
Saving space
Forms should not be built in HTML lest it pads up further. Instead use CSS with your stylesheets.
Testing
The browser wars are on an all time high with many new browsers coming up in the market. So make sure you test your website on all popular browsers.
About the author:
Maneet Puri is the director of LeXolution IT Services, a top notch web development company based in India that specializes in providing a range of web maintenance services and KPO services. His ten years of experience in the industry has got him the expertise needed to flourish
