.Map :: MoHAA Mapping

I am makeing a website and don't know what to use to make it . I have used html and know the basics and have been experimenting with flash . I have seen some web sites I think made with php is that better ? Is there an editor for php is it like html ? Is flash ok to use or do ppl like or dislike flash sites ?

PHP is a scripting language that's used for preprocessing web pages. If you don't plan on doing anything interactive, forget it.

There are a lot of PHP editors. I recommend (and personally use) SciTE/WSciTE (the latter is a wincrap port of the first one) - it's a very good, flexible text editor with syntax highlighting for quite a lot of languages.

As to flash, I never used it, therefore I can't really tell. Anyway, I always managed to get what I needed without it, so if you don't need any eye-candy stuff, forget about it, too.

- HTML is more or less static ( you decide how the page should look, and uopload it to the server and it stays the same way ).
- PHP is more into the realm of programming, its basically sever side programs that generate HTML pages each time you access the script. Using PHP you can fetch data from databases, randomize content of a page, change content based on url parameters and so on.
- Flash are small programs that you download and run in the browser. Flash can be made in a graphical editor, or you can create them by programming then with code. Usually you do some graphical designing and some programming to make it move. Depends on how complex stuff you want. It lets you create more graphically intense sites, but it can also get rather heavy to download. And not everybody has flash. I'd suggest using it for smaller "cool looking things" ad not for important things like navigations and stuff like that. I generally just get pissed off by sites made completely in Flash. This is a good way to use flash: http://kontraband.com/ ( Just a cool banner basically, the rest is regular HTML and CSS ).

I'd suggest starting with HTML. If you need dynamic pages later: look at PHP.

Or just do like I do: throw a Wiki or a CMS ( content management system ) on the server and dont bother with HTML or PHP

( http://gronnevik.se/rjukan/ is grown from a PmWiki app that I just dumped on my server and changed the skin. PmWiki site: http://www.pmwiki.org/ )

Well I am a sucker for something flashy I have been to a site and was reading an ebook about php so now I can see it is not just something simular to html . I don't know if either of you clicked on my sig to go to the site but I have used a flash textbox and scroll bar for the news area that I have ( not anything news worthy yet just a couple of lines ) I like it because it uses a txt file I made so all I have to do is change the txt file to add content to that part of the page . At the bottom there is a download button also made with flash . I am working on a page for my mohaa mods and maybe some tutorials for them or maybe other things as well . With flash I can make flash movies on the page to demonstrate the mods . That is the page I am really not sure about . Flash seems to have lots of cool things to navigate the page so you can click on a button maybe and that mod will show in the display area of the page and there will be an area that describes the mod , an image and a download button lets say . With flash I can make the page interactive in a way instead of changing from one page to another for each mod . What do you think about frames ? Are frames a good way to do that ? I am not so sure that some ppl like frames either or can't browsers be set not to show frames ? What is wrong with frames ? I don't know what way to go really I want a nice web site but I don't want to do things that will turn ppl off .

bdbodger wrote:I don't know if either of you clicked on my sig to go to the site but I have used a flash textbox and scroll bar for the news area that I have ( not anything news worthy yet just a couple of lines )

Those flashes are good examples of what can be the problem with flash: the text is not selectable. Say if I find it interesting and want to copy paste some of it into a search box, I cant.

Making stuff out of "images" kind of violates the informational use of the internet. A search engine wont be able to read your news postings, so someone searching for that info will not be directed to your site...

I don't know why people don't like frames either. My site is built of 6 frames with most of the visual stuff done via CSS - click my sig to check it out. I use PHP for switching between Polish and English and smilies.

I have been working on a dynamic gallery for flash, its really simple to update, you just save out your images and edit some simple xml, then the flash movie automatically lays out your thumb nails and and generates the links list for each page of thumbs.

If you check the code frames inside the .fla you can find where you control the layout of columns for the thumbs, and also the spacing between them

Its pretty simple to adapt, its for flashMX, you can download it here:

http://www.monkeydevil.com/simon/xml_gallery.rar

Please feel free to use it if you find it usefull.

ps. you can make text fields selectable in flash, its just a lil checkbox on the textfield properties palette.

Thanks that all helps . I like the clean look of Bjarne BZR's site and the gallery Jack Ruby has done looks good as well . I see Rookie One.pl {sfx}'s site is not quite finished yet but I agree what is wrong with frames . My site looks like every other site I have made and I want to get away from that . I want it to be somewhat dynamic and not made of page after page that I will have to make for every mode . The php downloader on Rookie One.pl {sfx}'s site looks interesting . Still have not done CSS so not sure how that is done . I think maybe a combination of all these things is maybe what I am looking for . Hopefully my site won't be too simple or the other extreme and be too over done with clutter . Thanks again for your suggestions .

Well the mohaa section of my site is up thanks Jack Ruby for the template . I made a few changes to it but it is almost the same basic idea except I am useing it to select downloads as well .

The flash section is sweet and I like the overall look for the site. Keep up the good work!

Yay !

good work bodger, glad you found it useful

Jack