h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Well, it depends on the size of the site, really... but if it's more than a couple of pages, CSS is a real time-saver...

As for server-side includes, they're also a big plus if you're doing several pages... basically you write, for example:

<!--#include virtual="/menu.html" -->

And the file 'menu.html' is included in place of that line. Again this cuts down on repetition... if you have a menu, top bar, copyright notice, etc, on each page, you can just do an include and if anything changes you won't have to edit multiple pages...

(as 'server-side includes' implies, the actual substitution is done by the server... you may have to call your files .shtml instead of .html to get that to happen)

Of course if you really want to go the whole hog you should be generating pages on the fly, preferably with a high-powered database backend in there somewhere

Look, I'm doing this for free, alright? Don't get ambitious.

B

I'd agree with 'keep it simple'

As an ex-part-time webmaster, there's also the first unwritten rule of design:

Some as*&hole in a suit is bound to want to change things in order to feel needed and important. If you've created something that's basically sound, consider leaving in one thing in that's obviously wrong (even if it's a spelling mistake), or give them a choice between what you know is right, and something plainly worse.

a couple of simple rules that cause no end of problems when ignored.

don't use frames unless you have to, and in that case include a text only equivelent as well. (problems include lots of stuff to do with search engines).

don't go for flashy animated this and that, especially using multimedia flash plugins. (I have seen sites that you can't enter without interacting with a plugin which of course was not disabled friendly).

don't include lots of data in proprietory formats, it gets in the way of your primary purpose, communication. (spectacularly bad for this are government departments who like putting small notes of a couple of paragraphs online as powerpoint presentations or pdf files, both of which are incredibly bloated).

Expect your users to be using a buggy dialup connection. this means that everything will be slow to download. hence make your background images tesselated small blocks, shrink your images down before putting them online (don't forget that just shrinking the parameters on the img tag still loads the big image), and try not to include images where text would be just as good.

NEVER under any circumstances do text as image. the number of problems it causes is just not worth the hastle.

don't assume the screensize of your users. I have seen problems with this where you are expected to be using 1200x1000 and it is unusable if you use anything smaller, or where you can't use 640x480.

with a council site, you want to aim to be able to read the site using a text browser or 640x480. the same with a charity site. it doesn't have to look good in those formats, but it should be usable.

you definately shouldn't have to upgrade to .

don't forget descriptions and keywords in the headers of your individual pages. it helps search engines find your pages, and thus your users to find you.

I hope that lot helps.

either http://www.pescu.net/ or http://www.xyroth-enterprises.co.uk/ give good examples of low cost site designs. feel free to steal the template files. (they are maintained by me).