After answering the Pre-Planning Questions you can start to plan the layout and look of your website. Think of where to put things on your site. How do you want your site to look? Where do you want a menu? How do you want each webpage in your site to be displayed? The best way to start this part of the pre-planning is to print out a basic template below, grab a pencil, and start to draw. Go ahead and print out the template below.
Note: You need to have the free Adobe Reader to view this file.
The template should look something like this.
Site Name:_____________________________
upperleft.inc.php
header.inc.php
upperfirht.inc.php
menubar.inc.php
sideleft.inc.php
sideright.inc.php
lowerleft.inc.php
endcontent.inc.php
lowerright.inc.php
bottom.inc.php
Colors
Background:
____________________
Font:
____________________
Menu:
____________________
Menu Font:
____________________
Border:
____________________
The lighter text in the background of each section of the template indicates what usually goes in that particular area. These are just suggestions. After all, it is your website. Make it the way you want it.
Ok. Grab a pencil with a good eraser and let's get started. Notice the first thing at the top of the page is a section called "Site Name". Write down the name of your website here.
Below that, there a larger box divided into little boxes. Each of these little boxes indicates a file that, when put together, creates your website. The names of each of these files are written at the top of each of the boxes. This is done so that when something is changed in these areas, you only have to make the change once. Otherwise, if to make a change, you would have to make the change on every single webpage on the site. Each file for each area will be gone over at a later time. For right now, scribble all over the paper to get an idea of how you want your website to look. Where do you want a menu? Where do you want the page title verses the title of your website? Write down anything and everything. Remember this is the page layout so that all the pages of the website are consistent. Individual page content will be added later.
Notice that some of the boxes don't have file names. These boxes are controlled by the individual web pages.
The little thin boxes are just to keep appropriate spacing so that each section doesn't look sloppy or jumbled.
The big box in the middle is where the individual content of the web page goes. This portion will make the individual webpage different than the other web pages.
Don't panic, this is just for planning. Scribble all over this template to help get an idea of what you are looking for. Remember, you don't have to use all of the boxes, just the ones you want.
