Break Away From The Standard Site Build It! Design - Page 3

lisa · #21 (**permalink**) 02-28-2008, 11:57 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jewel

This may be already answered in here and I am not understanding yet again since I have not been through the process...but, say I start out my site using the SBI template, then later on when I feell I know what I am doing I go to something like Dreamweaver...do I have to retype all of the content, basically redo everything from scratch? Or do I have a way of easily bringing it over once I finish designing and setting up the page?

Thanks.

Jewel

Kevin answered this very well. You don't have to re-write everything from scratch but there will be some copying and pasting as you move your content over to the new design. It did take a few days for the complete transition and if you have a very large site I would imagine it would take longer. So the sooner you can do it the better. I probably wouldn't have been as quick to do it had my SBI! site had 150 pages or something like that.

What I did was completed my entire design in DW, then I opened every single page in my web browser and just grabbed the content and pasted it into my new design.

Quote:

Originally Posted by KevinCamon

Thank you so much Lisa. This really helps. Can't wait to get started with SBI. I will keep you updated of my progress.

One more thing, I had a really neat idea for you. Have you ever thought about doing weekly conference calls for your forum members, for 2createawebsite training or brainstorming questions, etc? I think that conference calls or teleseminars (whatever you want to call it) will stick out like a sore thumb and grow your community here.

What does everyone else here think?

KevinCamon

I have thought about this and have gotten requests from friends as well. I think I have enough of an interested audience to pull off something like this now. Stay tuned... ya never know.

Jewel · #22 (**permalink**) 02-28-2008, 02:01 PM

Hmm..since I am so green at website building, I was going to go with the SBI builder to learn the ropes and wait until I had a better understanding before "graduating" to the design software. I also felt it might get me going faster. Do you think I should stick with this route or just take the plunge and go for it. I probably would have to go with Coffeecup at this stage though as I am not ready to plunk down the money for DW yet.

Doesn't mean I will do it....I am just curious about your opinion with regard to this though.

Quote:

Originally Posted by lisa

Kevin answered this very well. You don't have to re-write everything from scratch but there will be some copying and pasting as you move your content over to the new design. It did take a few days for the complete transition and if you have a very large site I would imagine it would take longer. So the sooner you can do it the better.

I have thought about this and have gotten requests from friends as well. I think I have enough of an interested audience to pull off something like this now. Stay tuned... ya never know.

I definitely think you have the audience for this.

Jewel

lisa · #23 (**permalink**) 02-28-2008, 04:32 PM

One thing at a time. I think if you are going to go with SBI!, stick with the basic web templates they provide. No point in getting sidetracked with the coding, etc. while you're trying to learn the basics of what makes a site successful.

Then when you're ready to move to Dreamweaver, you can. Once you get more comfortable with HTML (and you will probably pick some up even using the SBI! builder) you'll find that the switch-over is not so intimidating.

I'm so glad I did it the way I did. If I had used DW from the beginning I probably would have been so focused on learning how to redesign my site I would have not focused as much on the brainstorming tools, research, etc.

Star · #24 (**permalink**) 03-02-2008, 01:30 PM

Hi Lisa

VERY NICE! I was just about to post a question "should I be changing my SBI
site using CSS?" I am ready to start learning about it. It can get labour intensive making changes on each page using the SBI block builder. Having said that without SBI I would not have a website at the moment. SBI is the perfect choice for me right now.

I know that I just need to set some time aside and start creating a style sheet now before I have 50 pages to manage.

Thanks and well done!!

Gigababbler · #25 (**permalink**) 03-02-2008, 02:49 PM

Great Design! It has its own unique tingle.

How did you put those subject separators (the words)? I really need some of those on my site.

Gig

lisa · #26 (**permalink**) 03-02-2008, 04:41 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gigababbler

Great Design! It has its own unique tingle.

How did you put those subject separators (the words)? I really need some of those on my site.

Gig

Thanks, Gigababbler. They're just H4 tags, nothing special.

JKW · #27 (**permalink**) 03-02-2008, 05:55 PM

Hi

Great site - very inspiring.

I have been reading around SBI and all looks very impressive. I have not been able to find a bad review yet - do they control them going onto the net?

I get the 1st year costs etc - no mention of the second year costs? Anyone know. Also I assume you have to remain hosted to them or can you opt out after the 1st year?

Looking forward to lots of chats. I'm off to update my profile!

Thanks
JKW

ssmorgan · #28 (**permalink**) 03-02-2008, 06:32 PM

JKW,

the annual price is $299, so it's the same every year when you renew.

if you opt-out and subscribe to a different hosting plan, then you will probably (not 100% sure about this) lose the content... the domain is still yours, but you have to back it up/transfer it to the new host.

Also, if you opt-out, then you will lose access to the brainstorming, MKL, and other SBI tools.

By the way, Welcome to Website Babble.

Sherif

KevinCamon · #29 (**permalink**) 03-03-2008, 09:49 PM

Lisa,

I have a question about the CSS template download that you offer. Okay,
I've made a few changes to the header, leftnav, sidebar etc. However, let's say that the pre-text that you already have in the leftnav and in the sidebar explaining how to modify is expanded as you add content. Meaning, I added some general text just to see if they will vertically grow and they do. i did the same thing with the sidebar and it grows too. This is what i want. However, the main content in the middle that sits in the container also moves downward as you add content in the leftnav and sidebar. This leaves a big white, untouched space in the center of the page. I've looked at the css.style file and I don't see anywhere I can modify it so it can be at the top. Can you shed a little light on this.

KevinCamon

lisa · #30 (**permalink**) 03-04-2008, 01:39 PM

I know exactly what you mean and there is actually fix for that with CSS. I plan on implementing it but haven't had time.

I found a site a while back that shows you how to fix it and I bookmarked it.
http://articles.techrepublic.com.com...2-5268973.html

This is one way of doing it and maybe some other experienced CSS users have another alternative.

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