Just want to start something here: Do you prefer to use website templates or make one from scratch?

Personally i use templates, i don't have the time and skills to make a whole website design.
One of the templates i was using a week ago had used frontpage's layer feature and wasn't displaying properly so i had to rebuild the whole template, using the original images. Really, the part that i don't have time for is the images, i am o.k at photoshop but not too good to make visually pleasing web images for my site.

What are your opinions on this?

This post has been edited by miCRoSCoPiC^eaRthLinG: Feb 22 2006, 04:25 PM

I've just recently started "designing" my own websites. I found templates to be very elegent, but limited to what you can do with them. Of course you can always add more links/content, but with a graphic intense template I found it hard to replicate the design flow. I'm not very good with photoshop/gimp either so, I went wtih a CMS. A CMS is great, but yet again I encountered templates (skins) for the different CMS's. I love the way that everything is integrated into the database, and how it operates smoothely with a lot of content. Content is great, but it supplies a lot of content. So much stuff, that I disabled most of it.

After that I wanted some practice so I ended up designing my own site. It's not the greatest, and I used snippets of free code for certain features (shoutbox, dhtml menu) but I'm proud of it. It gives me a "self-satisfaction" feeling even if it's not all that great. Learning CSS seems to be challenging. It's simple to change minor things with it, but using it to design you're entire site is very complex. I ended up using tables to layout my site, and it's probably full of bugs. I've looked at it on both firefox and IE, and it displays differently, but nothing major.

I would have to say designing my own site on this one. Designing your own simple CMS is what I would prefer. If there are any good design tutorials about CSS and designing your own simple CMS pls post a link.

I design my own, it so much better, and you can get the look and feel that you want.

I just recently finished one for a site i'm making but at work we have to make a few of them and to get the feel the customer wants an dcan start to get quite difficult.

And like minnieadkins said, you can add your own bits in for shoutbox, etc.

I suppose it really depends on what the site is for and who is in charge of it.

I usually pick a template that looks similar to what I want and was coded in a way that I like, and then rape it and make it my own haha. It's quicker for me then coding from scratch but usually eventually the code is like 75%+ my own. Just easier to get a working base up and online using a template. If you want it perfected before testing it online then it'd be the same no matter how you started it I guess.

Really it's whatever the individual will produce what THEY want with. If they'd prefer a professional level site even if they barely did anything on their own, templates. If they don't care what it ends up like as long as they code it themselves, obvious solution.

After trying unsuccessfully (and hopelessly) to make a good looking layout for my website, I finally opted to use a template and then customise it to my needs. I also realised that instead of developing my own code, it was easier to just use some CMS and customise that as well. Right now, I'm using Wordpress on my site. It's neat, quick and works seamlessly. That's something that will take me months to code on my own in PHP and it still wouldn't look as good or professional. The same with the template. You get custom templates for wordpress. Just install and use.

But, of course, it's always good to have a go at designing a layout on your own. That'll help you in customising templates to suit your needs if you decide to use them.

I'm just now learning how to code, and don't know anything about how to find templets to use. I'm having alot of fun learning coding. I find it a challenge and a its great to see my own results from making my own web pages. I've used templets in blogs and things like that but they've never been exactly what I've wanted, so I'm pretty sure I would prefer always making my own.

It's often much easier to use templates, but in the growing demand for individualism and cross-browser compliance, they are becoming a pain in the backside.

Templates (especially the free/very cheap ones) use the simplest way to get the effect desired. The authors only use a limited amount of CSS and use every IE tag in HTML possible. More-often-than-not the pages aren't even Doctyped, because their isn't a Doctype for REWRITE THIS SO THAT IT WORKS IN OTHER BROWSERS. You'll also find that they use tables. Why? Because it is easier and they are doing it for free.

That is why I prefer to use template images as part of my brainstorming sessions and create my own site from scratch. At least then I know what is going on and where.

I always try to use my own designs for my needs, as matter of fact I never used other people template, except not for myself, I think it is much better to create something of your own, but of course that requires knowledge. Some of the templates are really good, some are not for free, but there are a lot of good sites offering different templates and besides usually all of them have a link to the creator, that is really good for the site. I have a friend, he has almost no idea of html css and stuff, he got a free template, some editor, I think it is Evrsoft First Page 2006, created some graphics of his own in addition with Paint Shop Pro and created his own personal site about game programming, because that is his passion, well, I think free templates are useful, only if you have no knowledge how to create your own.

Talking about CMS, well most of them sucks, that is my personal opinion, I am creating my own, very powerful cms and when I will finish it, I will be very glad to use it, because I will know how everything works and when you use other people CMS'es you don't know a lot and if you want your own somekind of features, it is not so easy to integrate them, the best CMS is the one you wrote

lonebyrd, since you say you enjoy learning how to code your website (woo!) I would reccomend completely ignoring the idea of templates until you are satisifed with your knowledge. That's why I made sure I knew html and at least a solid understanding of CSS and whatnot before using templates, learning is half the fun. Plus there is nothing saying you CAN'T use a template once you know how to do alot of the stuff on your own, but having the options available is always nice.

Speaking of CSS, I don't know if its just the geocities webpage that wont let me do it or if I'm doing it wrong, but I just cant get it right. I'm doing it just as the tutorial says and I'm getting so frustrated. Let me see if I have one thing clear. You put the style sheet on a seperate page from the working page and just put a link to it right?