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Related Articles + Define a site in Macromedia Dreamweaver MX Related Links |
Build your own website from scratch. 8. Define Layout. This step is the conclusion of all the design steps above, this is where all the design work joins together and works as a whole. If you have followed the steps closely, you will have now knowledge of what kind of navigation will the site have, what colors will it use and what images will support the whole design. Now for the layout, there are several approaches that seem to do the job just fine. The first one is the classical approach; this means one, two or even three columns for dividing the content. The one column page /example/ is useful for long texts that require little to no navigation. Usually there is an index / links table at the beginning that can help the user find its way around. The use of "Return to the top" links is also mandatory here. Examples of sites that can use this kind of layout are: Manuals, essays, e-books, FAQ's (Frequently Asked Questions), blogs and all similar documents. One layout that derives from here is the multipage, one column site /example/ that follows the same scheme only that this time each topic or chapter is divided into different pages and the links are used to travel between them. The two columns layout is probably one of the most common layouts to be found around the web. It is usually made out of this modules: a banner at the top that conceals both columns, a thin column (normally on the left side) about 100 - 150 pixels that serves as a navigation menu and the main column that is the placeholder of the main content of the page; sometimes a footer is included as well. It comes in two forms, Frames or no-Frames. For the frames there are two choices /frame layouts 2 columns/, but the main functionality remains the same. This kind of layout is especially useful for small to medium sites that don't require complex navigation schemes. It leaves much space for the content and can be used with most resolutions, from 640*480 to 1024*768 without problems. If you are just beginning in web development this is probably the best way to go on your layout design. /Examples of 2 columns layouts/. The other layout possibility is the three column design, much like the last layout this one has a banner at the top, a main columns and possibly a footer, but the main difference is its two thin columns, one on each side that serve many different purposes. The sides are interchangeable, but normally the left one is the navigation menu and the right one is the advertisement, services and extras column. But this is not the only possibility, much can be added to this columns. /Examples of three columns layout/. Although there is the possibility to use frames /3 columns frames layout/, it is far less common to find this kind of layouts. This design has become more and more popular due to the fact that it fits very well the needs of the dynamic content management software. Usually found as server side scripts, the content management systems serve dynamic content to the sites providing many services as polls, calendars, who's online?, shout box, news and RSS feeds features. This is becoming the new trend among web designers because of the growing accessibility to server side scripting and just as well because of the growing number of users who demand this features. One of its limitations is that this layout usually requires at least a 1024*768 resolution screen to look fine, but since the number of users with this resolution is growing it might be soon a minuscule issue. |
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