I usually setup a bunch of tables for my layouts in Dreamweaver, however I find that to be alot of work to get the formatting correct. I have been looing at doing the layouts in Photoshop first, then "slicing" out the graphics for the page. From what can tell this seems pretty straight forward, maybe even better than my current way of doing things. Any tips/tricks to be aware of? Also, what is the carvas size I should be using when doing my layout? Thanks, Brad
Ouch, you should really read up on using CSS for layout purposes and keeping presentation seperate from the HTML. If you are insiting on using tables though, photoshop can do all the slicing of images and generating of code, but the code it produces is cr*p. Canvas size: Depending on who your believe the most common screen resolutions are 800 x 600 or 1024 x 768. So your width could be just below 800 or 1024 to allow for the scrollbar etc. You could ofcourse use a fluid design and define the width of the page as a % of the resolution.
Do a Search for CSS Tutorials and especially CSS Layouts. The more you read the better but dont forget the doing part as you go! As I soley use CSS, I'm now using a Free Program called Inkscape to create my boxes and even graphics. I can name them (the boxes with class names so I dont get confused) and get creative with the graphics. Its a Scaleable Vector Graphic Program and it's got everything. Layers - lockable, visible or not. http://www.inkscape.org And it runs on all platforms - Windoze, Mac and Linux. There is a really great tutorial site - http://screencasters.heathenx.org It's all video - so you can watch, do and learn plus its Free too. Check out how to do the 3D Photo Effect and creating Sticky Notes etc. Cheers Tim
thanks for that info ausome very helpful, there is also a plugin for photoshop where it converts your design into a website, but its not free. maybe you wanna look at it http://www.medialab.com/sitegrinder/