Today we looked at beginning website design. I have a limited amount of experience in web design -- I did do some "learn to make a webpage" classwork, but long, long ago when manual html entry was the norm. Since then, I maintain a wiki on obsidianportal.com, and have maintained a blog (sadly currently lapsed) for a year and a half. So I understand a few pieces of basic web design, but also have some very different expectations than I should. For example, I'm used to the idea of wiki design through Textile--on Obsidian Portal, should I need to create a new page, I just need to [[bracket]] the name while editing another page, and then that'll create a new link that I can simply click to in order to create that new page. The idea of creating each page first and THEN linking them is strange to me, and I miss the ease of use of wiki design.
Of course, wikis and blogger pages have very simple design capabilities, and all of Obsidian Portal's layout must be typed in with code, which discourages anything complicated. So learning more about creating websites is an exciting if imposing concept.
We started by looking at online editors, and I ended up with edicy, a simplistic and yet overly complex web designer. The number of options I had was absurdly small, with a confusing layout and a tendency to bug out. I was much more interested when we got into Dreamweaver, which is more versatile and, while complex, seems more intuitively designed. Plus, I love right-clicking, which is never possible in Flash-based online programs.
I think I'll set up a small site about my philosophy of teaching and discipline, see if I can expound on those ideas in an interesting way, for the project.
Out!
