I've been making websites for years but i'm very out of practise and looking to have another go and have a few questions.

1. How should i go about making a website that looks the same (or nearly the same) in all browsers/all resolutions? Should i be using percentages instead of pixel amounts, should i not be using HTML at all? In the past it's not something that's bothered me too much but i know that there are so many browsers and screen resolutions that it's something i should pay attention to now.

2. When it comes to making a website that corresponds well with search engines and still user friendly, should i not use any frames and just use layers or something instead?

I bet you're all wondering how i managed to design any website with questions like that, but as i said, i'm rusty And sorry if this is in the wrong place



This post has been edited by BuffaloHELP: Feb 14 2006, 01:54 PM

I suppose this forum is as good as any other to post this question in.
As to the question about display sizes, sizing pages in ems or %'ages work best for fluid designs.
As to Html, that is still the best way.
As to Browser compatabilities and producing consistent results across Browsers, begin by developing your site using w3c Standards and test the validity using the w3c Validator. Use a 'compliant' Browser like Opera or Mozilla/Firefox Explorer to start with. After validation, (check your css as well using the w3c css validator), check the site in Internet Explorer and other Browsers to see if the display is 'acceptable'. They will almost never be the 'same', but they should be similar. There are lots of web site that will help you to understand the problems which you will run in to, so when the page has a problem, Google on what you suspect might be the culprit and find a hack to correct it. There will be lots of trial and error during this stage, but it is easier to correct the problems in IE rather than force the standard compliant Browsers to behave incorrectly.

Hope this helps. As you develop your site, check in over at the trap17 html forum to get some assistance.

Don't use frames if you can help it! Write main content into your HTML file first and then add things. Site engines want to see the main points of your site before you know, your favorite movie or whatever. Second, I'm not really sure how Pagerank works exactly, but advertise - make little buttons, leave helpful comments, make friends.

HTML is slowly moving to XHTML, etc, but normal HTML is fine. What you want to make sure is that your site looks similar (as stated earlier) in most browsers. Opera, IE, and FF/Mozilla are the top three, I believe. If you can get a friend to check it for you on Safari (Mac), that'd be cool too. If it doesn't look like it's going to work out, simplify your layout. Add things one at a time so you don't have to go back and take out a whole lot of stuff just to get your site looking good.

And whatever you do, try to learn CSS so you can edit your site a lot easier. It'll also make your pages load faster by taking the design out of the content. Enjoy!