Hi James,

I just came to answer Podlod and saw your reply!

Since you looked at that page I have actually added three more pictures. What an ordeal! Remember, I am using the blockbuilder and I am slowly, inch by inch, learning html as I go along. (for anybody thinking about sbi...you don't have to do any of what I mention below with SBI...this is my choice to go a little advanced and out of the box)

I found an sbi article which talked about image galleries and had some html code to place the pictures in a horizontal view. It had code for three pictures (just replace the "variable code" with your own particular site names) and text below them. I copied and replaced....then somehow reached into the recesses of my mind from learning Cobol and Fortran many many many years ago to look at the code. Even though the specific commands are different, the basic concept of writing code still remains the same which you probably already now..anyway I am getting off track. So I was able to figure out sort of what the meanings of the codes were (I have also been visiting the w3 school site to learn some code.)

I deleted a bunch of bells and whistles in the template code and narrowed it to two pictures on each line. I also found the code to make the image clickable to the larger image. I didn't put the text under the picture because the copy on that page is so simple.

Do you think I should still make those thumbnails larger? Does it look more balanced now?

I have been trying to figure out how to make it say "Click here for larger image" when the mouse is hovered over the picture. I got it to do it...but then when clicked it brought me back to the home page instead of the larger image of that thumbnail, so I deleted what I had put in there and I need to figure out how to do it right.

Overall I think it looks good..but I am exhausted by this process of trial and error AND I am not happy with the way I am learning. It is too haphazard.

Can you recommend a good HTML and/or CSS book I can use while I am doing this? I would like a book to sit in front of me while I am doing it...rather than having to flip back and forth constantly between windows on the computer!

__________________
Jewel

http://www.your-camping-guidebook.com

"It is better to have enough ideas for some of them to be wrong, than to always be right by having no ideas at all."
-- Edward De Bono

Jewel,

There are several basic books on html and css but you have to be careful. Most books and the vast majority of online stuff is terribly dated, not standards compliant at all.

Sitepoint's book, Build Your Site the Right Way with html and css is really good. I haven't used htmldog dot com's book but I'm sure it is excellent based on the web site. Any of these I would order from Amazon for a much better price.

But I have used another that I really like a lot and would probably recommend most because it is fun to read as well as good in content. It is called Head First html with css and xhtml by Elizabeth and Eric Freeman. It is very colorful and graphical with such things as "pencil" drawn arrows pointing out examples and notes "hand" written in the margins pointing out important details. It also seems to focus well on stuff you will really need to do.

__________________
Good Success!

Douglas County Master Gardeners
"We don't always get what we want, but we always get what we expect."

Hi, I have studied HTML to a certain extent but my god to me it is so involved, and I know I could handle HTML but it seems easier for me to purchase SBI which you do not need, and once I have got my website on the roll, maybe I will start getting down to serious studying on HTML, but please explain to me why it is so involved???

Podlod

Perhaps you have been reading the wrong tutors? A lot of the stuff, especially the confusing stuff, is deprecated (destined to be dropped), anyway and is a waste of time. Try going to htmldog.com or getting one of the books I mentioned a couple of posts back in this entry.

Try taking your time. If you read and absorb just a little each day it is easier to remember and before you know it you have the basics of html and css down.

If you want to have any control over your site or fix things that don't work right you will have to learn these a bit anyway. Just be patient and soon it will start to click.

__________________
Good Success!

Douglas County Master Gardeners
"We don't always get what we want, but we always get what we expect."

Hi, I want to thank everybody for their help and will be purchasing SBI this weekend, but there is just 2 more questions I would like to ask, first being is, if my PC crashes after a week hypothetically and needs to be repaired, is it a prob to return to SBI and to continue with my building of a website? and second question is , I still cannot find out how many photos I can place on my site, as I will have approx 60 to 80 photos and each photo will be on a different page?
After this info it will just about wrap it up!

All of your files are stored on SBI!'s server which are accessed by your browser so if your PC crashes it has no affect on your site unless of course you have some backup files on your computer.

SBI! has a place called "graphic library" where you store all of your images. You will be given instructions for how to add pictures.

__________________
Don't put the cart before the horse.
Plan your website, then create it.

Your Free Guide to Starting a Website
http://www.ThePerfectSiteGuide.com

First, backup your computer. I use Acronis True Image, but there are many other programs available. If you hook up an external hard drive you can do a complete backup of your computer so it is easy to put it all back even if your hard disk crashes. It is clearly worth the effort so you wouldn't have to worry about SBI or anything else.

I can't imagine that the number of pictures would be any concern at all. I think Lisa said she had about 150 pages on at least one of her sites and I'm reasonably confident there are images on all of them. I see that Lisa has already answered with other information, too.

__________________
Good Success!

Douglas County Master Gardeners
"We don't always get what we want, but we always get what we expect."

You can set up your pictures so you have however many you want on each page..you don't have to do one per page.

You can set them up so they are small and load up quickly and then your visitor can click to enlarge..and that doesn't count as a page. You can set them up so they are large as well...it is up to you. There is lots of flexibility. The only restriction is that they have to be under 100kb each to be uploaded to the sbi graphic library.

If they are larger, you will have to upload them to another host and tie them in to your sbi site...there is at least one article on how to do this in the TNT article area of sbi (where I have found a wealth of information) so it is all explained to you if you need it.

James...thanks for the htmldog recommendation. I went through most of the beginner html course and will be continuing on with the intermediate. I did like that site.

__________________
Jewel

http://www.your-camping-guidebook.com

"It is better to have enough ideas for some of them to be wrong, than to always be right by having no ideas at all."
-- Edward De Bono

Hi Lisa, Jewel, and James, again thanks for the info,