Official Luthiers Forum!

I just updated my website: http://www.hawleyguitars.com however this message really isn't about that. It's about the fact that two weeks ago I knew nothing about Dreamweaver CS5 and yet by following the tutorials offered here: http://www.timothytraining.net/ I was able to to create this site. I realize it's still on the amateurish side but, never-the-less, to go from zero to a site that includes slide shows, role-over effects, modal pop-ups and a gallery I think is kind of cool. I thought I'd need some formal training to be able to do this kind of stuff. So I just wanted to make others aware of this resource.

Pat

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There are three kinds of people:

Those that make things happen,
those that watch things happen,
and those that wondered what happened.

Looks great. Three things I noticed at a glance. Under pricing, I think it should read small 'allowance' for the cost...under the binding section, ivoroid was spelled wrong both times, and the photos in the details section don't line up with the text very well, which was a bit confusing first read through, though I'm on a phone so that may have influenced things. Other than that, great site, good looking pictures, clear text...well done. Sure you shouldn't raise your prices?

Thanks for your comments Meddlingfool. I appreciate that you took the time to read through all the text. I corrected the grammar errors you found. With respect to the "Details" page and the line up of text with images - my approach there was not the most elegant. I just used lots of html line skip tags to get the text to line up with the pictures. On my computer, the text aligns OK using both IE Explorer and Chrome. I would be interested in hearing if it doesn't line up for others. If so, I'll have to do something better there.

Pat

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There are three kinds of people:

Those that make things happen,
those that watch things happen,
and those that wondered what happened.

I think it's a great site Pat........very professional. 'Photos are superb (as is your work) and the flips / rollovers etc feel very "current" & work well.

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Dave
Milton, ON

Good looking site, great looking guitars.

My daughters are responsible for me getting back into building.

Pat, I use DW as well. Your site looks great! I had to dump all my flash last year as I wanted to broaden support for Safari on the iPad. Rollovers also don't work on touchpads so I have been reworking those too. My site is still a bit amateurish and someday will get an upgrade.

Good show!

Ken

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http://www.casperguitar.com

I've been using DW professionally for ten years now. I'd have to say that if this is your first attempt then you did a fine job from just a brief over view. One thing I would recommend is that you format the site for mobile. That's the big thing these days and everyone is going mobile, yes even for sites that have beautiful things to look at on a big screen. Big plus for having good quality photo's. That's the most difficult thing to work with clients who want a beautiful web site only to hand you a bunch of cell phone camera photos. Also the video section is a good thing. You should work on those spacing issues too. I used Firefox as a reference and can see spacing issues on your pricing page as well. You should probably also download Firefox to test.

Very nice job on the site! Looks like you are a guitar builder with a website building problem.

BTW, I first thought you meant you were trying to learn the song Dreamweaver. Now, that's been stuck in my head all day! (not to mention that made absolutley no sense... )

Mike

After downloading and completing the free trial, how much is the license, or is it possible to download the trial, complete the tutorials, and create your own website in the 30 days?

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Old growth, shmold growth!

Thanks for the comments guys. Wow, some of you have nice sites!

I've been trying to fix all typos etc. that have been pointed out to me. With respect to alignment issues, I went back into Dreamweaver and discovered the "grid" view and used that to improve the alignment of the figures on my "Pricing" page. Still not able to get it perfect. I think to do that I would have to try and find a font that had uniform spacing for each letter. I also checked how it looked in Firefox, and, to me, it didn't look significantly different than the other two browsers. I have no idea how to format a site to make it look good on mobile devices but I will look in to that to see if I think it's doable for me.

Following the tutorial that I linked to in my first post, it would be easy to create a site within the 30 days. To get the script files you pretty much have to buy the "Framework" from timmothytraining but it's only $29.00. A very good deal for what you get.

Pat

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There are three kinds of people:

Those that make things happen,
those that watch things happen,
and those that wondered what happened.

I love the site, very classy.
Personally I am curious about how you came up with the up-charges on the pricing page, such as the $100 up-charges for different binding and top woods, or a maple neck.
Are these due to the inconvenience of finding the materials and doing something different than usual, or just to keep things to nice round numbers?

Thanks Andrew.

As I said on my site, the up charges are due to a combination of the cost of the materials and the time it takes me to build a feature. There's also the "risk" element as well. If I take bindings as an example, I find it takes me longer to fit in place, and I sometimes break, bindings that are of highly figured wood. So I have to allow for that.

Pat

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There are three kinds of people:

Those that make things happen,
those that watch things happen,
and those that wondered what happened.

Pat - your base price seems to be pretty low, to me. Your customers could load-up with upgrades, and still come below many other custom builders base prices! I'm sure your clients are thrilled to get one of your guitars, and the waiting list must be getting lengthy!
Your web site looks very sharp and professional, and shows your guitars well.

Alex

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"Indecision is the key to flexibility" .... Bumper sticker

Hi Pat,

I just thought I would chime in. I haven't posted here yet because I haven't felt like I have anything meaningful to contribute yet (I am three quarters through my first guitar).

I would just like to say that I think you have done an excellent job. Well done.

I have been a programmer for 12 years and been doing web application development for about 7. I would like to extend and offer to you or any contributing poster on this site. If you have any technical questions regarding building your sites, please feel free to PM me and I will help you out free of charge. I am not a designer, but I have extensive experience with HTML, CSS, PHP, javascript and some other stuff not worth mentioning here .

I get so much from this site and give so little back, I would be more than happy to help.

Cheers.

Jeremy.

Very nice site Pat! It would be nice to have some sound samples that don't include a pickup system. I feel like you don't get a true sense of what a guitar sounds like if it being sent through a set of electronics. Your son is quite talented

Very nice. I just finished the Fred Flintstone Computer Users Course. I hope to have a website half as nice as yours someday. Pals, Vic.

Great work, Pat. Dreamweaver is a great program.

When I was learning, I'd grab the source code from other websites and play with it. That was great for learning the ropes of CSS. I also worked through a few Friends of Ed books on PHP, PHP for Dreamweaver, etc. Learning Flash and Actionscript coincided with all that and reinforced it.

Then the internet got complex! Pull up a modern site, look at the code, and hell if I know what's going on

Firefox has a great extension for looking at source code and playing with it in real time called FireBug. You can pull up and edit the code for any website to see what effect the changes have as you tinker away. It's editing what you see on your screen---not the actual site. Because none of the changes are permanent, it's a safe way to experiment with change to your site. This is a great demo if you want to watch it in action: http://www.woothemes.com/tutorials/customizing-your-theme-with-firebug/

Thanks again for the comments.

Welcome to posting on the OLF Jeremy and thanks for your generous offer to help people with web site questions.

Thanks for the tip on the Firefox tool James, I will check that out.

Pat

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There are three kinds of people:

Those that make things happen,
those that watch things happen,
and those that wondered what happened.