Will this design work in Atahualpa?
 

I have created a design (using Photoshop) for a new site, but am not sure how to convert it. Can I recreate this design in Atahualpa?

http://forum.bytesforall.com/attachm...1&d=1298857369 (updated 2/27/11 8:44pm EST)

I an artist still learning my way around website design. My first site made use of Atahualpa and its awesome help forums: www.timothychambers.com

Thanks for the feedback!

You will have to create separate graphics for the various sections, use CSS to position them properly, and hope the positioning doesn't bread when new content is added. Often when you take a "design" that is static like you are showing and put it into a dynamic situation such as a website it starts breaking. For instance at the bottom of your page where the background starts curving in and meets up with the footer. If you added more content that curve would not align properly. Also you are getting into things like images for the menu items that change when you hover (the circle around home) will be a challenge.

IMHO it is better to start with how a website is put together and use graphics within those constraints otherwise you will run into a large amount of fiddling and frustration. I worked on a site that had a lot of positioning and graphics and it was a pain. It required special CSS for certain pages to position the graphics properly which sometimes though some positioning off on other pages.

I wish there was an easy way to explain what is required but it really needs for you to be more familiar with websites, WordPress, and Atahualpa. Atahualpa will make this process doable but I don't think it will be "easy".

Thanks for the quick response and advice. I understand working backwards; i.e. website platform > graphics. That's what I did w my first site (www.timothychambers.com) using the Atahualpa them. It made the learning curve a LOT less steep, and you were one of the people that helped in that.

One thing I'm wondering, though, is how to divide up the page to have not just one large window, but enable me to have a few things, like in a grid layout. I think if I knew how to do that, I could use Atahualpa for my design. I'd have a main head, then the menu, then the grid-like sections below. Is this possible?

You have the header, left and right sidebars, middle section, footer. Is that what you mean?

I know I have those parts, but it's the middle section that I'd like to have more control over. It'd be great if I could break that section up into like a grid, kind of like you can w Word tables. If I could, then I could create a page similar to my comp (see attachment in original post).

Or, if I were to use the sidebars, I'd have to figure a way to make sure that things line up horizontally across the entire page (sidebars, middle section). Possible?

Those are the fiddly issues you have to contend with which is why it is harder to start from an image and try to make the site look like that rather than knowing what the capabilities of the theme are and working withing those parameters.

so the middle section cannot be divided up? What do you think about having the middle section plus 4 sidebars...that gives you five sections, right? Is it possible to resize the middle section for just the home page so that it looks like I have two sidebars and three middle sections?

And...if this is possible, what is the method of lining things up horizontally across the three middle sections?

I am indeed trying to understand the perimeters (limits/capabilities) of the theme so I can proceed from there to build the webpage and website.

You can set some or all of the sidebars to not show on particular pages. As for lining items up it is a matter of the correct CSS. Where you run into problems is when you have images that don't allow for the dynamic height of pages.

I think it can be done with Atahualpa, but it will require some php and css to get everything lined up. Like you, I made a photoshop image of my website before implementing in Atahualpa. Here is the resulting site:

http://www.alphaprojectstudios.com/

Ot the alternative here:
http://forum.bytesforall.com/forumdisplay.php?f=34

:-)

- Vincent

Thanks for the suggestion! I saw a video on Themeframe and it seemed that Themeframe is kind of intuitive in the sense that instead of going to ATO (for Atahualpa) all the options are right there for you in pop-ups and menu items. Is there much of a learning curve if I'm already know Atahualpa?

A few questions that I didn't find answers for:
1. Themeframe isn't a WordPress theme. So does that mean that the WP Menu and other benefits don't apply/work in TF?
2. Is TF as newbie-friendly as Atahualpa is?
3. Does TF have anything to do w WordPress?
4. What are the benefits (pros/cons) of TF in comparison to Atahualpa? It'd be great to see a columned comparison of the two for people interested in exploring TF before they become ($80) members (for some budgets, $80 can be a big expenditure!).

Thanks.

Themeframe is not a theme. It's a theme creation tool. All those options you mention are the means of setting various parts of the resulting theme. The finished theme will not be like Atahualpa. It won't have user-changeable options. Maybe Flynn plans to add that kind of functionality down the road, but as I understand it now, a webmaster/designer would create a new, customized theme in Themeframe and present it to a client as-is.

If you don't need to design themes from the ground up, I'd just stick with Atahualpa.

Thanks, paulae. That clarifies things a bit. I was considering Themeframe as a means for recreating my Photoshop design (http://forum.bytesforall.com/attachm...4&d=1298857369) into a webpage.

However, the end goal would be for me to easily update the page and site just as I am able to in Atahualpa. Of course, I've no idea if a theme/template (one in the same?) that I create w Themeframe would facilitate that. Idea?

As I understand it, if you wanted to change the theme you created in Themeframe, you'd have to basically start over. It wouldn't be as simple as just changing an option in Atahualpa.

If I were you, I'd stick with Atahualpa and try to get the basic look you want using its options, widgets and plugins.

Surely not? I think you are able to open your project file and just make changes then export the new version for upload into your site?

- Vincent

By "start over," I mean that I think you have to import the settings of a certain theme, if you've already exported it and started working on another theme. You won't be able to manipulate a theme's settings from within the Wordpress themes area.

Or am I missing something?