layout design advice for static website ideas and some other questions
 

Firstly just to let readers know I am brand new to web design no CSS experiance also!

I have some design questions below I need feedback on and advice please....however, do not want to get into learning and figuring out to much how to do code etc ( I know and accept you need to do certain things that will show up) but gosh looking for things in forums to solve and spend ages figuring out how to specifically do things is not good use of ones time!:)

that said- some quick questions firstly:
I' d love to have some advice for various boxes and text flowed into them as a design idea for ONE of the pages I have in mind for my static website using Atahualpa theme I will show you a link to look at and you will see exactly what I actually mean...

What I have in mind for one of the pages I plan to do is the way this site has been laid out http://www.matrixreimprintingbook.com/ please notice the round corner boxes and the text/graphics flowed in and the separate header graphic at the top etc can such a design be done very similar in Atahualpa i.e.

My question is how easy is it to do with Atahualpa ?
Please advise....

I want to create some websites using wordpress mostly content managment so in other words they look like a normal website and yes I will have a blog link standing out etc as part of the menu structure readers can click on to go the blog page and any posts/archives etc....

Because having a Blog will be good for SEO (if one thinks about the usual SEO tactics etc) is that correct folks?

I wanted to have most pages in 3 columns i.e. say have a left and right side bar and in the middle will be the main content area-which brings me to my next question

How easy is it using Atahualpa theme to actually go in and adjust the left and right side bar width?

and important to me- How easy is it to on these side bars simply to be able to 'drop in' various graphics into them?
What I mean is you may have say, designed something in photoshop and saved it as a gif/ or j-peg file i.e. a simple graphic and added text description over it about a service or product (that people to click on them to read more when they see in the right/left side bar on most pages) ....

so my question .....IS it easy to drop in such graphics into the right or left side bar once created within Atahualpa theme?

and lastly, how easy is it to insert a different header graphic on various pages rather then always the same one?

what is the easiest way to go about doing this?

many thanks and bless you for any advice/feedback and help folks on any of the above and pointers and if it is not to hard I will go ahead and install Atahualpa theme and contribute

Jenny

In order to build and maintain any website, some learning is necessary, especially when you want to customize your site.

If you don't want to learn how to do it, then you should be hiring someone to do it for you. Put a request in the 'Customization, Design, Programming...' section of the forum

Your reply sorry to be blunt please forgive Mmm well- does not really help me

I would like to try doing these things and yet I am non the wiser as you did not address any of the things even let me know perhaps well yes or no regrading the layout boxes with round corners on the web URL example I gave ....That I wanted to duplicate for ONE of the page ideas etc...

or even here you would need to do this code and put it here for say having a different header on each page and this previous link in our forum will help you to do the other thing you said etc.

I said I understand one might need to place code and give what I wanted to do in my few bullets all I asked was- how hard was it to do these things?

given I'm a newbie to wordpress and code etc(otherwise one does not get to learn) ...I'd rather 'try' a few things see how I get on and what I want to do all or some of the bullets points I asked would it need code (or just setting tweaks etc in the Theme panel?)

hence I am non the wiser from your reply juggledsad I know you meant well.... if it is all going to need code let me know where I might find the code from past peoples threads likely to be and anything causing way to much time and issues figuring it out or going back and fro I would seek some deisign help ...

I also wanted to let a large number of people I have an assocation to who are consultants/coachesd/therapists etc all about the Atahualpa theme and if it is user friendly and can do a lot just within settings-which was really my questions in my post i.e. how hard is it to do etc the things I mentioned

so can anyone address and advise me still ?

Please see my first post.
hanks Jenny

Hi, Jenny. I'm jumping in here because although I'm not a forum moderator like Juggledad, I'm a serious user of Atahualpa and Wordpress, and I'm personally interested in making this forum the best place it can be. Part of that means helping Flynn and Juggledad budget their time in the best possible way.

The fact is, Atahualpa and Wordpress can make designing a website a lot easier than doing it "by hand," but you still need to learn quite a lot in order to even get started. There are tons of how-to sites online, books, videos, etc. This forum is for help using Atahualpa, not a place to get answers about particular HTML and web design issues. In fact, to help you understand what the forum is about, please take a look at this post.

Spend some time at wordpress.org too.

And read a lot of the posts here, and when you've done some basic work, come back for help. Or hire somebody to do the work for you. You can post about that in the Wordpress Marketplace forum.

Hi Jenny,

I have found Atahualpa quite easy to use, mainly because of the interface, but you do have to dive into the forums to figure out how to get the theme to do what you want (just as you would have to learn any new piece of software). Mostly the questions you have will have been answered before, so you have to be willing to search for them, if you decide to go this route.



Having a blog is good for SEO if you update it regularly. I have found Atahualpa excellent with Wordpress because it allows you to easily add keywords, descriptions etc.

Very easy. There is a place in the Atahualpa options to set the sidebar width.

You would use a simple text widget in Wordpress and copy in the code for your graphic and links. (This is 'easy' once you are comfortable with your Wordpress dashboard. You're going to have to play around a bit, but I think it's worth it)



I'm a little hazy on this one since I haven't done it, but there is a built in 'rotater' that will change the header image every time someone visits a page. That might be enough for you. If you must control which image goes on which page, do a quick search of the forums and see.

I understand you don't want to waste time, but I highly recommend that you install Wordpress and the Atahualpa theme and play around with them for a while (it's free!). Try to do some of the things you want to do, read the forums both here and at Wordpress, and if it gets too much for you, hire someone. The Wordpress/Atahualpa combo is powerful and about as simple as it gets, and it can still be a huge time-sink if you're a learner (like me).

Best wishes,
Julie

PS If you do decide to use Atahualpa, please contribute. They deserve the support.

I've done this using the "Dynamic Headers by Nicasio Design" Plugin.