This is topic WEBSITE HELP! in forum Film-Yak at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.
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Posted by Andrew McCrea (Member # 674) on 12-24-2000, 02:32 PM:
I've been trying really hard to get stuff on my webpages working, but it just doesn't work! Everything but what I try to do works! What I'm trying to do is make the 'forms' work! If you have no idea what i'm talking about, I'll tell you! The forms are those things where you type text in on webpages and hit the submit button. The text forms I guess you could call them. I know how to build webpages really good, but these stump me! I'd really like some advice if anyone could help me!Andrew
Merry McChristmas and Happy Holidays!
P.S. This is the only thing they don't teach you in middle school!
Posted by Adam Martin (Member # 641) on 12-24-2000, 05:39 PM:
Sizzling Jalfrezi has a great HTML reference site. Complete with a forms tutorial!
http://www.academy.net.au/jalfrezzi
Posted by Andrew McCrea (Member # 674) on 12-24-2000, 05:53 PM:
Adam, The link isn't working... But it's looks like it could be a good site!
Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 12-24-2000, 06:48 PM:
Like a visitor guestbook, or what? What program (if any) are you using? What server are you hosted on? Need to know specifics. Frequently things like this are nothing more than permissions not being set correctly.
Posted by Adam Martin (Member # 641) on 12-24-2000, 08:59 PM:
Whoops. Try http://www.jalfrezi.com
Posted by Andrew McCrea (Member # 674) on 12-26-2000, 03:20 PM:
What I'm trying to do is get people to be able to subscribe! There's a box for them to type their e-mail and then a submit button. How do I get the submit button to send the address to my hotmail inbox?Also, Anyone know how to build a survey/vote? I'd like one of those on my site too!!!!
Andrew!
Posted by Andrew McCrea (Member # 674) on 12-26-2000, 04:30 PM:
Brad,
I'm using Microsoft Word 97 and I have AOL Press, but I hardly use it because Word is by far, way better. I'm trying to build a subscribtion part, where they just type their e-mail address and hit submit, but I can't get it to actually go to my inbox. I'm also trying to put in a vote where they click a radio button, hit the vote button and then it goes to a site where it shows the number of votes!
Andrew
I'll be back, forums!
Posted by Adam Martin (Member # 641) on 12-26-2000, 11:19 PM:
For the voting thing, try www.mycomputer.com. They have one that I have used before.For the subscription/mailing list thing, I use www.listbot.com.
You set both of these up on their sites and they give you the appropriate HTML code to put on your webpage.
Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 12-27-2000, 04:57 AM:
For what you are doing, many webhosts have such scripts pre-written for guestbooks and such. What webhosting company are you using?
Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 12-27-2000, 03:02 PM:
All guestbook and messageboard scripts require that the web server allow the execution of CGI scripts. Make sure that you have this permission (which isn't normally allowed for standard $20/month dialup accounts which include web space, due to resource and security issues) and make sure that the scripts are in the right directory (usually ~/public_html/cgi-bin) and that the permission modes are set correction (usually 0755 or 0705 should work). If you have access to the web server's error log, see what error you're getting. These scripts usually need modifications of various types (for example, you may have to know if Perl is located in /usr/bin/perl, /usr/local/bin/perl, or somewhere else entirely on your machine).
Here's another tip: ditch MS Word. It's an absolutely horrid product for generating HTML, since it appears to be incapable of generating valid HTML. I'd suggest doing the HTML by hand (do a search for "Beginner's Guide to HTML" at UIUC). HTML isn't rocket science and hand-coded pages will load faster and appear cleaner than "generated" HTML. (end of rant...sorry)
Posted by Andrew McCrea (Member # 674) on 12-27-2000, 06:17 PM:
Do you know how to do pop-up windows when entering or leaving sites? I'd like to do those too!Brad, I don't quite, exactly get what you mean by webhosting company, but I could say Videon @HOME Cable Internet Service...
Andrew McCrea
I'll Be Back, Forums!
Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 12-27-2000, 06:57 PM:
The pop-up window thing is done through a bit of Javascript code. There should be plenty of places to grab pre-written pop-up-window code to let you do this.Personally, I think it's tacky and annoying, and pop-ups won't display if the user has chosen to turn off Javascript in his browser or is using a browser which does not support Javascript (either by choice or by necessity), but I won't get into that here.
Oh, BTW, here's the link to the "Beginner's Guide to HTML" which I highly recommend:
http://www.ncsa.uiuc.edu/General/Internet/WWW/HTMLPrimerP1.html
Posted by Adam Martin (Member # 641) on 12-27-2000, 10:25 PM:
Here's another site I use when I can't remember exactly what I'm doing. www.htmlgoodies.com Lots of great tutorials, including javascript.
Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 12-27-2000, 10:26 PM:
Andrew, try and stay away from popups and force-played music on a web site. Sure this is my own personal opinion here, but I absolutely hate those. Navigation is what I feel is most important in a web site. Also, as much as you may want to put your text in a graphic so you may use a certain font, this will severely slow down the load time of the web pages. Film-Tech.com may not be the flashiest looking site on the internet, but the way I've always looked at it this site is about information and speed is of high importance to me.
Posted by Randy Stankey (Member # 64) on 12-27-2000, 11:16 PM:
Amen!I HATE sites that do that stuff!
If a site does a pop-up on me, I close it without reading it. It will only slow down the loading of the rest of the site. If the window pops up again. I go off the site.
Sites that do gratuitous graphics and sounds will lose my business almost immediately. I will put up with that junk ONLY if it doesn't slow the download or if I REALLY want to see something. -- Sometimes Brad's "Pictures" pages load slowly but I WANT to see them so I will wait.
I have a modem connection and it can get pretty slow sometimes. I can be a real bastard about sites that use up bandwidth without asking me first. (eg: "Click here to download a bunch of pics.") -- Use "thumbnailers"
I give a site about 10 seconds to show me what it has to offer. If it doesn't interest me in that amount of time... CLICK!
Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 12-28-2000, 05:07 AM:
I think Randy just summed up "most" people's opinions about surfing the internet. I am out of town right now myself working and am stuck to my laptop and dialup via AOHELL. Egad, I miss my DSL line!By the way, the picture pages were a tough call on how to do those. 50% of people that I knew at the time surveyed making thumbnails and clicking to see each one. The other 50% said to put it all on one page for convenience. In the end, I went with the "one page" solution, as more and more people are getting high speed access and dialups will soon be a thing of the past. At that point, I believe it is better to have everything on one scrollable page to eliminate constant mouse work.
Posted by Randy Stankey (Member # 64) on 12-28-2000, 07:13 AM:
That's what I thought about the pics page. It's a Hobson's Choice. I think is okay the way it is. The only thing I'd say is keep the files as small as you can without scarificing quality... ANOTHER Hobosn's Choice!