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KillerSites.com Web Design Forums » Posts by Susie
Thanks for your input, everyone. I just sent an email today that basically consisted of an intro paragraph, a bullet point list of what's included for the price, and a closing paragraph with the ballpark price. It didn't contain any details or explanations as to what everything is. I guess I could have put all that on letterhead and made it look more official. Maybe I'll just do that from here on out.
Thanks again! 
Just curious...how are you guy responding to quote requests these days? Do you take the time to draft a detailed proposal or are you simply replying via email with only the necessary details and price?
I've been receiving several quote requests per week lately, and I wonder if it's okay (professional enough) to respond via email with details and price. For one, I'm finding that when I take the time (sometimes an hour or two!!!) to write out a detailed proposal, my potential clients are confused by all the information. They just want the facts. And for two, I'm getting a little tired of spending the time on the proposals just to hear nothing back from these potential clients. It becomes obvious that they are just putting their feelers out and getting quotes from several designers (totally understandable!).
So, how are you guys handling it?
Ben is correct. The widgets have to be set for each individual theme.
Is the sidebar widgetized?
Another option is to do the design work yourself, but outsource the Joomla production part. And if you're lucky to have a friend who knows Joomla, maybe he or she can give you useful pointers while doing the major share of the work for you.
I personally would like some basic photoshop tutorials. For example, I have no idea how to make a seamless repeating background. I've googled for tutorials, but I haven't found one yet that helps me. I would love to do it myself rather than outsourcing it...
Well, that was quite a trip! lol I downloaded 3.6 (I never do it myself...just always let the auto updates take care of it) and everything crashed. But I'm back in business WITH firebug installed and working.
Thanks!!
This is so strange! Has anyone else experienced Firebug just disappearing? It must have happened when I was automatically updated to 3.5.8 recently. I've been googling for a fix, but I'm not finding anything yet. It doesn't even show up in my add-on list, but when I try to (re)install it, it acts like it's doing it correctly. 
Are you planning to have different effects on each page or will all your slideshows have the same fade type, speed, etc.? Regardless, you should put that info in the <head> section of your page.
Basically what you need to do is implement something like the suckerfish/superfish menus. Really, it has nothing to do with PHP. It's javascript and CSS. Here are some links to get you started:
Here's a WordPress plugin that you can purchase to easily create the drop downs: http://pixopoint.com/products/suckerfish_css/
http://users.tpg.com.au/j_birch/plugins/superfish/
And then once you have the drop downs working, you would just select the page's parent in the WordPress admin to make it drop down from the main menu item.
Oohhh...that's good!
To add...I've decided to develop most future client websites using WordPress as a CMS, too. I like CMS MS, but there are just so many more options with WP (one big one I'm dealing with right now is automatic database backups!!). I will use CMS MS if WP absolutely cannot do what I need with ease.
Personally, I would go for the WordPress blog to match. I've played with the CMS MS blog module, and to me it just doesn't seem on par with WordPress. The commenting system is not easy to figure out (for me) and it just doesn't seem as robust as WordPress.
You can add your business to Google's Local Business Center to appear next to the map in local searches. So, if someone googled "computer repair whitstable", you would possibly show up right next to the map.
Although...I'm not sure if that link is the right one for someone in the UK....
Well, there you go. 
There's always a plugin for "that". 
I honestly don't know of a way to give partial access to the WordPress dashboard. I've seen it done in other content management systems, but not WordPress. I wonder if there's a plugin for that.....
Clients will be able to edit/add/remove both pages and posts from the site, but they won't be able to edit/add/remove page/post templates through the Wordpress interface.
Actually, they can edit the templates through the WordPress dashboard. All you have to do is go to Appearance > Editor.
When I launch a website, I provide a PDF tutorial on how to use the site. I let my clients know what to do to edit pages and posts, but I never mention the templates (unless they need to choose templates for the page/post which is done right in the page/post edit section). I've never had an issue of my clients messing things up. But, if they do, I have a backup and I can just reupload the templates to the server.
I'm not really sure what to call this effect, so I'm not finding any tutorials while googling. Can anyone point me in the right direction on how to create something like this?
http://6outof5.com/
http://madebytinder.com/
http://www.bythepond.co.uk/
See how the background has a very subtle gradient and an area of light within? How is that done??
I don't use any special plugins nor do I modify the back end. You can use WordPress as is. Here's an example of a site using WordPress as a CMS that I just launched last week: http://tinyurl.com/yksu4lt .
Have you ever looked at the dashboard of WP? If not, maybe you could sign up for a free wordpress.com account just to get your feet wet. Either that or you could install the default on your own server somewhere.
To make it act like a CMS, just go to Settings > Reading > and then select a "static" page to be your front page. Then select whichever page you want to hold your blog. Of course, these pages should be created first before you can set them in the Reading settings.
So, on the site that I linked above, the front page is set to "Welcome to .... " and the blog page is set to "Blog".
To edit or add static pages, you would go to Pages > Edit or Add New. These would be like the regular pages of a website.
To edit or add blog posts, you would go to Posts > Edit or Add New.
What advantages does it offer over creating a static website?
I'm leaving in a few mins, so I don't have time to post links to tutorials (I'll do it later), but the #1 reason why I develop my clients' websites in WordPress (or other CMS) is because I want to give them the ability to log in and edit their content on their own. I don't have the time to perform small edits to all my clients' sites and this allows them to do minor changes themselves. If my client has a static website, chances are they don't know code and I would have to do all the updates for them.
WordPress is more than a blog tool. It can be used to power an entire website when used as a CMS (content management system). You can power both your blog posts and "static" web pages all from within the same WP dashboard.
Google "WordPress as a CMS" for some interesting links on the topic.
Do you mean when you point your mouse at it, you are not seeing the alt text? I believe I've only seen alt text while in Internet Explorer. If you want to see "Back to Home" in Firefox and maybe the others, add it as a title to the link. So...
<a href="index.html" title="Back to Home"><img src="images/iheartarec.jpg" border="0"alt="Back to Home"></a>
As far as the design goes...
I would like to see more padding on the sides - more space between the edge of the page container and the text.
On the navigation, if you want to keep the borders on the links upon hover, I would add a border on the normal state so the text won't jump when hovering, You could make the border match the background so you won't see it if you want.
I would add some "back to top" links so that after someone is finished reading about the poodles, they don't have to scroll a bunch to get back to the top for more navigation options.
KillerSites.com Web Design Forums » Posts by Susie
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