General Discussions

**TWD** · 09-01-2008, 08:22 PM

We all know that time is money and for anyone wanting to turn Web Design or Web Development into a profession, I think there comes a time when you have to take a serious look not just at your work quality but also at your own output productivity. Clients and bosses expect results by deadlines and if you are a freelancer you wont survive without turning over projects at a reasonable speed.

So my question is, what is the secret to rapid output of quality sites?

I suppose part of the answer is familiarity with the capability and functions of your tools such as Photoshop and part of it is perhaps having a stock of reusable code (client and server side scripting language functions).

Personally, I think maybe the most important part is communication with the client about what is expected and solid planning at the very beginning of what every page should look like, what the data tables should look like and how it all meshes together. But this is sometimes easier said than done as clients often dont know clearly what they want.

I know that WYSIWYG is a design tool favored by some but so far I have preferred hand coding since I dont like second guessing what kind of code a software tool is making. But I`ve been thinking recently that maybe I might have to modify that view in order to speed up my output.

Does anyone have any tips or opinions on the topic?

**thehuskybear** · 09-01-2008, 08:47 PM

Well, there are lots of things you can do to speed up your productivity. The most important thing you can do to speed things up is plan everything ahead of time... I try to get the client to do some of this:

http://cactusflatsdesign.com/planning.php

If you are using a server side language, you can use a framework. Most of my sites are build with php, so I am currently using Code Igniter. There are several others. I just wrote a little post on this:

http://bipolarkid.cactusflatsdesign....e-life-easier/

Another thing you can do is set up your own basic templates/frameworks for your css and html.

I have some other ideas.. but I will have to post em later.. they seemed to have disappeared from my memory! lol

**TWD** · 09-01-2008, 09:45 PM

Thanks Sam.

Could Joomla and Drupal be considered as "PHP Frameworks?"

**Learning Newbie** · 09-02-2008, 02:08 PM

In programming, the more time you invest in the design, the less you'll spend in implementation and impetus mismatch. The same concept seems to apply across the board. Where in code you might run into trouble when one person wrote a database procedure and others wrote services to communicate the data - in web design, you get in trouble when the client has a different idea than what you coded. So, a good, clear, design, with all the questions answered, that's agreed to on both ends, is my best advice.

**thehuskybear** · 04:40 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TWD

Thanks Sam.

Could Joomla and Drupal be considered as "PHP Frameworks?"

No problem...

Joomla and Drupal are considered Content Management Systems. A frame work is basically a collection of functions or classes that allow you to skip avoid writing the same stuff over and over. For example, every time you connect to the database to do a query in php, you might have something like this:

PHP Code:


			
    $dbhost = 'localhost';
   $dbuser = 'root';
   $dbpass = 'password';   

$conn = mysql_connect($dbhost, $dbuser, $dbpass) or die                      ('Error     connecting to mysql');
   
   $dbname = 'petstore';
   mysql_select_db($dbname);

$query  = "SELECT name, subject, message FROM contact";
   $result = mysql_query($query);
   while($row = mysql_fetch_array($result, MYSQL_ASSOC))
   {
       echo "Name :{$row['name']} <br>"     .
            "Subject : {$row['subject']}     <br>" . 
            "Message : {$row['message']}     <br><br>";
   }

In a framework, you would have a configure file for your database information and your page might look like this:

PHP Code:


			

$this->load->database();

$this->db->select('name, subject, message');

$messages = $this->db->get('contact');

foreach ($messages->result() as $msg)
{
        echo "Name :{".$msg->name."} <br>"     .
        echo "Subject : {".$msg->subject."}  <br>" . 
        echo "Message : {".$msg->message."  <br><br>";
}

It really makes life a lot easier... esp for code heavy stuff like uploading files, resizing image, etc...

**angele803** · 09-02-2008, 04:51 PM

I think the key to speeding up the website creation process is planning. I have wasted so much time dealing with people who don't know what they want. I hate when clients say "just be creative", then have six thousand changes and suggestions AFTER you have made the site. These kind of people need to decide what they want out of their site before they expect you to start working on something. Otherwise, you will spend hours and hours making changes to something that could have been done right the first time if a plan had been in place. The link thehuskybear posted looks like a pretty good planning tool.

**TWD** · 09-06-2008, 06:47 AM

So which PHP Framework AND Javascript Framework are most useful for rapid site building?

PHP - I`m thinking Zend
Javascript - I`m thinking JQuery

Any opinions?

**max3908** · 09-06-2008, 06:55 AM

i will tell you the best way! HIRE ME!

**thehuskybear** · 09-06-2008, 01:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TWD

So which PHP Framework AND Javascript Framework are most useful for rapid site building?

PHP - I`m thinking Zend
Javascript - I`m thinking JQuery

Any opinions?

Well, I think jQuery is one of the best js framworks. I don't have any experience with zend, but I hear it has some great features, however, I think it is a little more heavy duty. I use Code Igniter because it is very lightweight and fast.