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Question - Web Designers - Mobile Web Design Literature? (1 Viewer)

Joined
Jul 1, 2015
RedCents
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I'm looking for some advice from fellow web designers that have knowledge of coding websites for mobile users. In particular I am curious what literature you found helpful in teaching you how to code for mobile. I just recently switched Almar's Guides to https and I am currently planning on redesigning the website to be mobile friendly. Needless to say though, I don't even know where to start.


I use Dreamweaver and my website is .cfm so that may play a role in the information that's relevant to me. Also to be clear, I'm only looking for literature on how to do this - I've no intentions of bugging with 500000 questions on how to code a mobile friendly website. I just need someone to point me in the right direction since when I google about this subject.... I find TONS of information, a lot of it poorly written and not what I need. It's all "design tips" for a mobile friendly website. I don't need design tips, I need instructions on where to start. So far I have found two websites that I *think* are accurate/pointing me in the right direction:

https://www.w3schools.com/html/html_responsive.asp

https://www.thesitewizard.com/css/mobile-friendly-responsive-design.shtml

w3 schools I have used before so that's likely where I am going to start if no one here has a better alternative.
 
What version of dreamerweaver are you using?
Why coldfusion? How much of your site is database driven?

Dreamweaver is what I was originally taught to use which is honestly the only reason I am using it at all. I don't even know what the alternatives to using Dreamweaver are (I'd be happy to be educated though on what's better than Dreamweaver), my knowledge of coding is very limited but so far I have always been able to Google and learn what I needed when I wanted to change something on my website.

I'm open to switched away from Dreamweaver (I also wanna switch from .cfm to .html at some point in the future) but that's probably a project for another time. I just got my SSL certificate recently and setup cloudflare so my website is https secure and now I am trying to make it look better for mobile users since it seems like 75% or more of my retro traffic is people using their damn phones.


And if by database you mean the SQL database, my website doesn't have one.
 
How long did it take you to get good with WordPress? I have used it a bit but no idea how to host it myself and make my own layouts and stuff. Also can you make a database driven website in Wordpress really easily? I tried it once with html and it was just so beyond me. But wordpress seems like you can just install plugins for everything and they do all the work.
 
WordPress is one good option as it's ready to go almost right out of the box for any server type. Anyway, there's that. There's also Angular with java and html + css. I'm sorry, but I have never used dreamweaver before so i'm not sure how much exp you may need to use it as far as navtive html and css goes. It really depends on your server and your needs on the front end. Of course, If the server is running/capable of running IIS instead, then you can always use .NET.

microscope: Every WordPress I've used required a database to be installed. check this out. https://wordpress.org/about/requirements/
 
You could go the boring, simple, easy, and free route and move everything into Wordpress. It's PHP driven and you can either develop your own "theme" for both mobile and every other browser, or you can just download a free one that comes with a mobile theme already and tweak it to your liking using nothing more than then CSS code.

Some really big websites are powered by Wordpress... http://www.wpbeginner.com/showcase/40-most-notable-big-name-brands-that-are-using-wordpress/

If it's good enough for Katy Perry and Beyonce...... ;)

- - - Updated - - -

Just read the other Wordpress recommendations above... not sure how I missed that.
 
I do websites for a living. As in a 9 to 5 job. We ditched Dreamweaver 3 years ago and only do WordPress sites now.

My advice is leave all of that stuff behind and learn WordPress.

If you want really learn html 5 and all the stuff that goes in to a responsive modern website. Learn and use Bootstrap 4.

https://getbootstrap.com/docs/4.0/getting-started/introduction/

My friend is a web developer that uses primarily wordpress, I've been talking to him the past few days too since he's going to be setting up a second website for me. It'll be unrelated to Almar's Guides but it'll still be operated/run by me. It'll most likely be about hiking/cooking while backpacking. Recipes, tutorials on how to cook, spices that go together and with what food, gear tutorials and survival basics most likely. There's a serious lack of information online about this sort of stuff so I figured I would add to it.

Anyway, I plan to learn some of wordpress once that website goes live and I pursue that avenue. That said though, from what i have seen of wordpress so far I am displeased with the customizability of it. Maybe I just don't know enough about it -- or am retarded -- but it seems like you need to "pick" a template and then you can't really minorly tweak that template into what you imagine it to be. Like say I wanted 5px of spacing between words/icons in my nav bar instead of 2px. Or maybe I wanted the banner moved 100px to the right instead of where it currently is. The last time I toyed around with something like wordpress.... 8 years ago maybe.... It lacked the ability to do a lot of that stuff.


Then again, I just used whatcms.org and according to that website, one of my favorite looking websites uses Wordpress: https://www.zeldadungeon.net


A lot of my inspiration for Almar's Guides current layout came from that website. I haven't seen any wordpress templates that look even remotely like Zeldadungeon.net either... However whatcms.org says it's wordpress 4.9.5 *shrug* I guess maybe I should start looking more into wordpress and how it works. I've been living in ignorance assuming that you can only make a website look like that by avoiding the "build-your-own" web design companies/software.


Thanks, this is the information I needed. I guess my minor two day project of going mobile friendly just became a whole lot bigger
 
To tweak your CSS.
Login to your word press site
Then up in the black admin bar hit customize
a side bar will appear with lots of options.

Explore all the settings. Most of your settings will be in there.
On the main bar at the bottom. Is additional CSS.
Click on that and add all of your CSS tweaks.
 
My friend is a web developer that uses primarily wordpress, I've been talking to him the past few days too since he's going to be setting up a second website for me. It'll be unrelated to Almar's Guides but it'll still be operated/run by me. It'll most likely be about hiking/cooking while backpacking. Recipes, tutorials on how to cook, spices that go together and with what food, gear tutorials and survival basics most likely. There's a serious lack of information online about this sort of stuff so I figured I would add to it.

Anyway, I plan to learn some of wordpress once that website goes live and I pursue that avenue. That said though, from what i have seen of wordpress so far I am displeased with the customizability of it. Maybe I just don't know enough about it -- or am retarded -- but it seems like you need to "pick" a template and then you can't really minorly tweak that template into what you imagine it to be. Like say I wanted 5px of spacing between words/icons in my nav bar instead of 2px. Or maybe I wanted the banner moved 100px to the right instead of where it currently is. The last time I toyed around with something like wordpress.... 8 years ago maybe.... It lacked the ability to do a lot of that stuff.


Then again, I just used whatcms.org and according to that website, one of my favorite looking websites uses Wordpress: https://www.zeldadungeon.net


A lot of my inspiration for Almar's Guides current layout came from that website. I haven't seen any wordpress templates that look even remotely like Zeldadungeon.net either... However whatcms.org says it's wordpress 4.9.5 *shrug* I guess maybe I should start looking more into wordpress and how it works. I've been living in ignorance assuming that you can only make a website look like that by avoiding the "build-your-own" web design companies/software.


Thanks, this is the information I needed. I guess my minor two day project of going mobile friendly just became a whole lot bigger

Easy peasy... To find out if they are using a theme, do "View Source" in your browser and look at anything ending with CSS. See image:
2018-05-16 10_03_14-https___www.zeldadungeon.net_.png

In this case it looks like the theme "zi5" is a customized version of another theme. So either look at the source of other websites and see if they are using a theme you can download/duplicate/tweak/edit, or find one you like on your own and change it.

Check out these magazine themes that look similar to Zelda website you linked: https://justfreethemes.com/themes/magazine/page/1/

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Also, watch for the term "responsive" in your WP themes. That means it will automatically handle any device/browser at least with the bare minimum content.
 
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