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**taygull** · 09:36 AM

Hello all,

Just a little history, I'm a photographer and I have just finished building my first site. My current site was built by a friend but I wanted to clean it up and make it a little more simple.

I used the following process Photoshop>ImageReady>Dreamweaver.

I'm pretty much a novice with the Dreamweaver stuff.

Here is the problem I'm having. When you look at my new site, which is designed 775x600, in a larger browser the area around the site in the browser is white. I'd like it to match my background color. I don't want my site to get larger or skew...just fill the white area with the color "cccccc".

Here is the site....(yes there are a couple more changes I need to make so I may ask those later).

www.soundholeentertainment.com

Thanks in advance!

**basu** · 02:17 PM

hey. this seems like a pretty simple fix, so i'll try and help ya out.

first, i think you should surround your content with <body> tags, but maybe there's something special with the frames i don't know, in which case never mind.

then just type this in your <head> section in your <html>:

<style>

body {
background-color: #CCCCCC;
}

</style>

if your problem is using the actual dreamweaver program, you should be able to find an html edit mode where you see just a bunch of <tags> and then just paste it in. i've never used dreamweaver so somebody else may have a better solution.

hope i helped and didn't add to any confusion. good luck.

**adsenser** · 02:56 PM

you can also use this simple tag

<body bgcolor=#CCCCCC> while starting body

**LadynRed** · 09-26-2006, 03:18 PM

I guess I have to ask why you're using frames at all. I don't see the need on any of your pages. Frankly they are not the best way to go at all, for many reasons.

I would go with the CSS solution, easier to change your WHOLE site by changing 1 line rather than making changes to mulitple pages.

The PROPER way to insert a style into your HTML (inside the <head> section) is as follows:
<style type="text/css">

</style>

**taygull** · 09-26-2006, 08:44 PM

Thanks guys,

I guess I'm a little confused because I can pick the back ground color but that does not seem to do anything. I'll try what you guys are suggesting.

The reason the site is built the way it is, is due to me building it in photoshop, then doing the slicing and optimizing in Imageready and then saving the optimized file as an html. I then open the html page in dreamweaver and I have my site pretty much done other than adding the links.

I'll look at the code you are speaking of and try it.

This is the only way I know to build a site.

I'd be curious if there is a tutorial on CSS and doing it that way?

**taygull** · 09-26-2006, 09:24 PM

Guys, I did find actually a place in the HTML code where is showed a body color as fffff, so I changed that to cccccc and it worked perfect.

Now if I could just get the dang thing to upload with out connection issues I'd be happy! I think it is a propagation issue since I just set up my hosting account yesterday.

**LadynRed** · 09-27-2006, 03:39 PM

There are tons of tuts all over the web, but I would recommend a very good book instead: http://www.sitepoint.com/books/html1/

**ChipJohns** · 09-27-2006, 06:08 PM

Hi taygull,

LadynRed points out some tutorials. This is because you NEED to learn more about site development if you are going to design your own site.

If you are looking forwrd to getting traffic from search engines, things will need to change. from looking at your site, I don't think it is going to do well at all with search. Some people feel that when they hire and seo that we turn on the hidden switch and all of a sudden they start getting gobs of traffic from all of the search engines.

On the other hand, others feel that it isn't worth the effort because they will never do well. This isn't true either. I have a client who is a photographer in Sarasotta and he is getting 95% of his business from his web site due to search engine traffic.

You can take advantage of this too. But, it needs to start with a well built site.

It is well worth the effort to learn how to do it right if you are going to do it yourself. Take the time. In the long run it will assist you in making money.

**taygull** · 09-27-2006, 09:37 PM

Thanks Chip,

Obviously I'd love nothing more than to have the perfect site that attracts clients who are in my region and maybe even some who will buy prints.

Like anything it must be done in baby steps, kinda like the old saying....

The best way to eat an elephant is one bite at a time.

My first objective was to rebuild my site and not have to have someone else do it. The main reason for this? It is simply funds. I've got more time than money to spend on my website at this point.

I needed something up that at least had the look and feel I felt was needed to be my digital business card. My needs "today" are simply an on-line presence where I can send clients or potential clients as I meet them.

As time progresses I hope to eventually just pay someone to do the things needed to have my site actually generate income, either through online sales or like you say new clients via the search engines.

So if you guys don't mind I'm sure I will be back asking some more dumb questions. As time moves on I hope to make the changes that will allow my site to meet the needs of not only myself but current clients and future clients.

The #1 goal was to get a better looking site up, I've done that. The next goal is to make changes over the next 60 days that allow me to make very easy edits/changes on the back end. Long term hopefully the site will be searchable when folks look for a photographer, by then I hope to do photography full time.

I would suspect when that days comes I'll just give you a call and let you or Ladynred build the "perfect" site. I have no desire to be a true "webmaster" like you guys. I'd prefer to spend my time shooting pictures!

Again, thanks for all the help...and future help!

**ChipJohns** · 09-28-2006, 06:39 AM

That's the point taygull.. Keep coming back and asking questions. I hope things go well for your new business.

**SpacemanSpiff** · 10-02-2006, 07:55 AM

One of the biggest problems is not setting things to pixel sizes. Try and Use percents where you can because a browser with a different resolution setting will interpret everything differently. This makes your page distorted when you view it in different browsers.

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