Website v2.0

Since the last post I got my hands on a copy of "Serif Internet Design Suite 2009" to test thanks to a friend.  Perfect for testing on the old laptop which only has the power of a handful of hamsters and can't handle the big flashy fancy programs.   To test it properly I tried to recreate my first website idea from scratch.  Serif IDS 2009 requires no knowledge of coding or html, and works entirely on a DTP format to move and adjust images and boxes, and was quick to get used to and the results were impressive and looked sleek.  Once ready, you then "generate" the website by publishing it either to disk (where it saves on your PC as the html files and attachments) or direct to web.

I saved mine to disk, as I wanted to see how it all looks from the inside, curiosity may have killed the cat, but I'm human - just about.   The deisgn is clean, and very easy to use for someone unfamiliar with web design, however since I like to tinker with it all I found one issue.  It creates copies of all picture files, and names them with its own random alphanumeric code.  Should I want to replace an image I'd started off with called house.jpg, it would have probably been generated out as wp0177tu90.png.  Not a massive issue, but when it also generates every coloured background rectangle or shape from within the web site as its own .png, you quickly end up with so many image files you've no idea where to begin.

On the positive side, the resulting website is very fast to create and so I'm using the Serif generated site as the one linked to my domain.  Personally I want more control over the web design and I've not yet tested it in various browsers, but when viewing it on my mobile it has issues displaying all the image files which is a pity as it means the menu (which saves out as images) isn't shown.

For the moment, it's a good basic site maker with plenty of easy to use functions and certainly something I will play more with, but it isn't the permanent answer unfortunately.

The hosted site can be found here: http://sarahg2.atspace.com