Help me make my site look more professional

[Ruud]

You're getting there.

Most templates will respect the setting in WB if search is activated. This one doesn't so remove the complete form. From <form> to </form>.

The other one is also correct. Removing the <table> to </table> will  remove the copmplete box with the breadcrumbs and the date.

Ruud

[NotASingleWhiteFemale]

Ah. Light now dawns.

I'd like to remove the search box and the box with the day/date on it.

Do I simply cut these out of the index?

<form action="<?php echo WB_URL.'/search/index'.PAGE_EXTENSION; ?>" method="post">
                       <input type="text" name="string" class="inputbox" size="20" value="<?php echo $TEXT['SEARCHING']; ?>..." />
                       <input type="hidden" name="submit" value="<?php echo $TEXT['SEARCH']; ?>" />
                       </form>




<table width="98%" border="0" align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0">
                           <tr>
                               <td align="left">
                                   <?php show_breadcrumbs(); ?>
                               </td>
                               <td align="right">
                                   <?php echo(date("l, d. F Y, H:i"));?>
                               </td>
                           </tr>
                       </table>
           

[Ruud]

This is not the index.php, it is info.php. You should not change info.php (just put back the 2 $menu[] items for later use)

What you want to change (guessing you want the complete menu on the left) is the two lines in index.php that build the menu's.

on line 25, change "<?php show_menu(1,0,1,true,'<li>...." into "<?php show_menu(2,0,1,true,'<li>...."

on line 68, change "<?php show_menu(2,0,-1,true,..." into "<?php show_menu(1,0,-1,true,...."

Now the possible 2 menu's are switched.
Currently you will have all pages in menu 1, so that will be shown on the left.


Ruud

[NotASingleWhiteFemale]

Here's the complete index file

<?php


/*

WebsiteBaker Project <http://www.websitebaker.org/>
Copyright (C) 2004-2006, Ryan Djurovich

WebsiteBaker is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or
(at your option) any later version.

WebsiteBaker is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
along with WebsiteBaker; if not, write to the Free Software
Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston, MA  02111-1307  USA

*/

$template_directory = 'master_green';
$template_name = 'master_green';
$template_version = '0.1';
$template_platform = '2.6.x';
$template_author = 'Jean Perombelon adapted for WB from Matthias Gallas';
$template_license = 'GNU General Public License';
$template_description = 'This template is designed for developers to learn how to make templates easily. Please note this template only supports 2 page levels.';
$menu[1] = 'Leftmenu';

?>

[Ruud]

You must have done something wrong.

I cannot help with that, I cant see from here what went wrong 

Ruud

[NotASingleWhiteFemale]

Hmm. I had a go at the index file, deleting the topmenu but when I installed the modified template, the menu stayed at the top! I don't get it.

[Ruud]

Ok, one more.
Then you must do the rest.
I improved the logo a bit. You can use it if you like.

Ruud

[gelöscht durch Administrator]

[NotASingleWhiteFemale]

Hey that's great! I like that.

[Ruud]

I just took the standard Master Green Template.

I have a test setup with 2 menu's (read the help section of this site about multi menu setup)
You can set the menu to use per page you create.

I copied your logo in the header_leer.jpg and saved that to header.jpg.

Did nothing else.
Here is the result. (15 minutes)

(the top logo could be better if you use images without the glowing borders)


[gelöscht durch Administrator]

[NotASingleWhiteFemale]

Ok. How do I do that? I don't have much of a clue about web design which is why I go for out of the box templates.

[Ruud]

You could just set your about and contact pages to the top menu, set the galleries to the side menu.
I agree, you would need to do some work on the logo images to fit it in the border.

It took me about 30 minutes to make it look the way it looks now.

Well, good luck finding the template that looks the way you want it to look "out of the box".

Ruud

[NotASingleWhiteFemale]

I just tried it and it was horrible on my site.

The menu at the top went into two lines, mostly obscured by the background. The menu on the left that seems vacant was horrendous.

This template needs a ton of work before it's suitable. What I need is a plain black template with a nice menu on the left and maybe a space at the top for a logo.

[Ruud]

Have a look at this template:
http://addons.WebsiteBaker.org/pages/lorem-ipsum.php?template=master_green

I used it for this site:
http://www.autohandelwillie.nl/pages/occasions.php

Ruud

[NotASingleWhiteFemale]

I decided to work around the limitation of the templates.

I tried a few different templates today but couldn't find one that works and I liked. I tried some from other sites but none of them seemed to work - causing error messages galore.

What I'm looking for is a black template without anything fancy on it. I looked at global and queer-beat. I really liked those two but couldn't work out how to change the text on them. Looks like the template needs to be edited.

Ideally I want a black template because it accents photos better. I want the text to go the width of the screen save for a menu bar on the side and a heading at the top.

[Ruud]

How do my photo galleries look now?

I don't think a gallery without navigation (forward,back,stop,start) and some zooming feature is not looking professional.
A site like this (not built by me  ) looks professional.
http://www.grooten.eu/

The problem with your question is:
There are many webdesigners here.
You will probably get a different answer from all of them.
So the bottom line is: Are you happy with your site?

Ruud

[NotASingleWhiteFemale]

How do my photo galleries look now?

[Bramus]

You could also start with ordering your pages, most websites have Contact as last page in a menu, if you keep such things, more people will be able to easier find it, so order your pages good. And WebsiteBaker has also some nice gallery's, check out the Module page.

[NotASingleWhiteFemale]

Well, it seems to work that way although I took the black background out.

[NotASingleWhiteFemale]

It's labour intensive but...

How about if I put a wrapper for the slide show and wrapped around an html file like this:

<html>
<body bgcolor="#000000">
<meta http-equiv="REFRESH" content="3; url=1.htm">
<center>
<img src="../images/SampleWedding003.jpg">
</center>
</body>
</html>   

The first file would be 0.htm and I could work through to 20.htm. Only thing I don't know is whether the wrapper would wrap around 1.htm etc.

[Ruud]

If you are not afraid todo some javascript coding in your pages, there are lots of great scripts out there.

http://www.eyecon.ro/zoomimage/
or a nice overview of scripts
http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2007/05/18/30-best-solutions-for-image-galleries-slideshows-lightboxes/

a great free flash gallery: http://www.airtightinteractive.com/simpleviewer/ or http://www.airtightinteractive.com/projects/autoviewer/

Ruud

[NotASingleWhiteFemale]

What I'm looking for doesn't seem to be available free

I need a nice image gallery. Thus far those I've tried just aren't that great.

[hrioo]

You can start by visiting some websites that are in your line of business. Then take a piece of paper & a pencil and do a freehand drawing of how you want your website to look like and then modify your template to your drawing. Some of the most beautiful websites i've ever seen are photography websites so you shouldn't have to dig to deep.

If you can't afford paid service you either have to find a free template that suits your needs or learn html and css. i suggest larger sized good quality photos in your front page and a different template than the one you've selected. There are many templates in WB's download page that may be a better option for you and are not too difficult to modify if you know a little html. 

[NotASingleWhiteFemale]

I'm looking into improving my website.

I'm not into spending money on my website though - whatever it is has to be free - my budget is nil for websites.

So... How would you improve the site? I'm limited to free templates. I'm kinda happy with the template although I might change the image at the top (which shows 4 images) to something more corporate although I'm not sure what yet.

I might change the start page to be the portfolio since that's what people need to see.

I'm also thinking of putting in several different slideshows along the lines of:

Product, Wedding, Event, Brochures, Catalogues etc.

I'm not quite sure how to do the different slideshows however, I could have several on the lines of the one that I have on my portfolio page - all running simulteneously or I could have a simple menu on the portfolio page or I could have them as separate portfolio pages.

I am quite restricted by what I can do with website baker BUT it works and I want to make the best I can with it, not having the money to pay for websites. I am trying to get my business more on word of mouth than on webvertising.

My website is www.sagephotoworld.com