Hello.

I have an understanding of basic HTML code from my highschool days but was recently thinking about making an actually halfway decent website. I'll elaborate further in just a moment. Here is a basic drawing of what I would like the page to look like.

I hope its self explanatory... and no, in case you're wondering, it's not a how-to-draw website.

The Blah's are the text of the individual pages, which will be different on each page. The lines on the left of the blah's will be my menu. This is the bit which I need help on. When I do HTML I can do each page, but if I add another, I'll have to update all the pages to have the link.

Say I've got four pages which all have these links down the side:

September 9, 2006
September 10, 2006
September 11, 2006
September 12, 2006

And I go to add September 13, 2006. I'll have to go back to all four pages and code in the link to the new page, so they all have it, so anyone can get to the new page from the one they're on. Is there any way to have all the pages realise there is a new page all at the same time? I understand this may not be HTML any more, but that's alright with me. I can learn. I think.

Also, I'd like a comment's page where people can... well, leave comments. Is there an easy way to do this? Such as, for example, having a form for people to type in their information... eg. name, their site, email (optional) and comments, with a button for "post" and "forget" and I'll be able to edit them or delete them if they're spam, etc.

Sorry if this is over board, you asked me to be descriptive in what I wanted. Oh, and sorry about the terrible picture.

How's this?

http://realworldstyle.com/2col.html

This is usually done with server-side includes (PHP or ASP/SSI, depending on your webhost). See the replies to this topic and this FAQ entry.



That sounds like a guestbook (or possibly blog). Again this is done with server-side scripts (e.g. PHP, ASP or Perl). Most PHP-based guestbook scripts I've found seem to require a database as well.

It sounds like you are looking to create a web site that you intend to update often and would like for everything to look nice and professional.

Might I recommend that rather than going through the entire process of building this thing from scratch yourself, you might want to check out the free and open source Wordpress blogging software (http://wordpress.org).

Wordpress is unbelievably easy to install, and with very little practice it is also easy to use. There are a ton of themes you can install to make the site look exactly the way you want, and also plugins to add a lot of functionality. On top of all of that there is a strong user community to help you as you encounter issues.

In order to install it you will need only the following:

• A knowledge of how to use FTP.
• A Web host that allows you to use PHP and MySQL database (which is basically every host on the planet).
• The uncanny ability to follow simple directions.

Check it out.

John

That one Peter posted looks the best. I tried WordPress but it was very, very much not what I wanted. So, anyways, for the "2 column css" it looks good, but how do I get it to not go as wide as the browser? I'd like some whitespace on both sides. Thanks for your help.

body { margin-left: 4em;
margin-right: 4em;
}

Change to suit, obviously.

Not everyone is a fan of Wordpress - like most pre-made PHP website scripts, it's template-based, and despite the well-meaning claims of its followers, it can become a mess if you change things to a degree with any WP template.

It's by no means unique to WP (phpBB, PostNuke, etc, suffer the same problem) but if you don't understand the templates and how PHP ties in to the CSS then you're in a world of hurt.

Sorry. I know I'm overlooking something completely obvious here, but where does that margin bit go? I can see the page and the source code for that page and I can also see the css thing the guy links to, but I just don't see how they connect and I can just tell its something obvious, isn't it?

The HTML document includes the linewhich tells the browser to use the style sheet when displaying the HTML document.

See also Linking Style Sheets to HTML in our CSS guide.