MelonLand Forum
World Wild Web => ☞ ∙ Life on the Web => Topic started by: 3lsie on April 04, 2025 @867.25
-
Hello!! I'm really curious to hear how you all actually go about making your cool websites. :dog:
Do you code everything from scratch? Use or edit templates? Do some from scratch and some from templates? Do you have things like HTML and CSS pretty much memorised or do you refer back to information? And so on...
I don't know anyone personally who makes websites, so I am keen to hear how you are all making these amazing personal sites!!
I was trying to learn HTML and CSS by heart for mine, since I'm a beginner and was scared anything else might be 'cheating', but look (at your own peril) and see where that got me. :ok:
-
When I started in 2023 I didn't knew anything about coding and I was very afraid. I had a very basic knowledge of HTML that was about <h1></h1> and the fact you had to separate things with <head></head>, <body></body> and <footer></footer>.
I will never forget the first day I made an account and opened the editor. I got super scared and thought that I'd need some kind of high maths diploma or something. I wandered around with a bit of panic, thinking "Oooooh, how do people do this ?! surely there must be something !" and while panic-browsing I went back to Tumblr where I saw the post saying that neocities was an alternative.
There was a link to sadgrl.online and in that website there was a template generator. After trying some, I made a copy-pasting and started learning with trial & error to see what did what when I removed or added things. Over time I did more extended tests, browsed a few websites and learned coding with an app on the mobile.
Now most of my website is that template touched to some extent and it still feels interesting to me. I will never be a pro coder and I don't want to make a career out of it. I've also looked on other peoples website code to see how they did things that I liked. Since I learn by pleasure and not by pressure I was able to be decent at it !
-
I code from scratch, because its fun and rewarding :smile: When you analize my source code, you will notice I use a framework, however I use it to speed up complex layouts and use a few pre-made classes as well as minimal js features because I understand js 0.01% XD. I don't use any themes from it. I could, it would be 500 times faster, but they're not my cup of tea and lack personality. I could technically downsize the BS CSS file and delete all the things I don't use.. but its just too exhausting for me to be completely honest...
My tiny nekoweb site (https://skykristal.nekoweb.org/index.html)is just my code entirely but its nothing fancy bc I don't really need the site for anything. Its just a fun little extra page of sorts I messed around with a while back. I find myself working and focusing on my main site instead.
Either way, I use responsive design.. I won't lie it's a pain in the behind. I'd love to make a much more creative, old-styled site sometimes. Like this (https://i.ibb.co/MDCtTtb/toyhouse-13-06-24.png) I made for my profile on the site toyhouse. Stuff like this 'flows' better. But I rarely focus on it. I really wanna create more pages of this nature. Even if its just some projects/sample pages I do for fun & add to a collection.
I know and remember a ton of HTML and css, but I find myself looking something up every now and then. Sometimes just to "make sure", too.
-
When I was a kid back in the late 90s, I literally just stole layouts. I didn't know the first thing about making layouts and none of my sites even used CSS, since it was really common to style with HTML back then. I would change the stolen layout around until you can't really tell I stole it. And then I fill it up with my stuff.
You have the unfortunate circumstance of being surrounded by people who pretend like they learned how to do everything from scratch on their first website. In my era, no one did that. No one really cared that you were an amateur who does what you have to do to make it work.
So fast forward many years later, I'm fully qualified in every aspect of web development. I know all of it. Most of the time I don't start from scratch because I'm more thinking about content and accessibility and I want things to look professional, but I like to do things from scratch here especially on the everyone site, because it's different.
The point is... You are new and asking yourself if its okay that you're taking short cuts. It's perfectly okay. It's normal to have no idea what you're doing for years, you add skills on top of that over time, and eventually you've just seen it all before.
-
I know enough HTML and CSS to understand what I'm looking at most of the time, but I have very little of it memorized and can do even less "from scratch." I regularly right-click -> "View Page Source" to see how other people build their stuff.
If I'm only doing HTML to plug text into an already-designed site, I usually do it in Emacs, because the keyboard shortcuts for common HTML tags make it much faster. If I'm doing both HTML and CSS from scratch, I usually write in Codepen so I can see how things look.
If I got my HTML/CSS from someplace else, I always work in Codepen so I can see what happens when I add/delete/change things. I've learned a LOT by doing this.
Honestly, website coding always makes me think of the WGI video series "Stuff Worth Stealing." It features snippets of choreography for colorguard/winterguard. At the end of each video, the voiceover encourages coaches to "steal" the stuff in the video and make it their own, saying that by adapting and building on others' work, we "honor the activity." Borrowing other people's code and making it your own feels similar to me - it's how we learn and how we honor the activity of building the Web.
-
Hello!! I'm really curious to hear how you all actually go about making your cool websites. :dog:
Do you code everything from scratch? Use or edit templates? Do some from scratch and some from templates? Do you have things like HTML and CSS pretty much memorised or do you refer back to information? And so on...
I don't know anyone personally who makes websites, so I am keen to hear how you are all making these amazing personal sites!!
I was trying to learn HTML and CSS by heart for mine, since I'm a beginner and was scared anything else might be 'cheating', but look (at your own peril) and see where that got me. :ok:
When I first designed my website (http://web.archive.org/web/20250306131800/https://toribytez.neocities.org/), I started off with a pre-existing template, so I can learn about both HTML and CSS attributes, of course by referencing others works and getting input and help from acquaintances. I'm currently in the process of making my site from scratch, and so far it's good! I primarily use phcode.dev, I tried Visual Studio Code but it's just too overwhelming for me.
As long as you're not plagiarizing other's code or using AI, you're pretty much good.
(https://i.imgur.com/7EVfmbZ.png)
-
Hey everyone, thank you for all the insightful replies so far :ha:
It seems like there are lots of different approaches ranging from editing templates to inspecting other sites (a feature I forget exists!) to writing it all.
I think it's great that website building allows for individual approaches, and it seems very fitting that this is the case for personal websites like these. I'm pleased to hear that!
There seem to be a lot of parallels between learning to code sites and learning to draw. While I was reading the replies, I couldn't help but think of methods like taking your favourite elements from different pieces of art and combining them into your own drawing.
I'm curious, do you view website building as a creative hobby? I'd guess so from the visual element and the customisation including in how you put the code together - I'm interested to hear thoughts on it!
-
i've always wanted to make a website, even when i was a kid (that's the 2010s lol)
when i finally signed up for Neocities (early-ish 2024), i was completely lost; i kinda thought i needed to have done university and all that just to make it, lol
though, i used AI to primarily generate bits of my stuff. i'm a kinesthetic learner, so i just fucked around with bits of it, and eventually i got to a point i could no longer rely on something other to do it for me.
i think though, before 2024, i literally just stole templates online, but i don't remember exactly what i made let alone took it from. i think it might've been Google Sites? though i did remember at some stage attempting to 'code' in Notepad on Windows :ha:
this year, i've ended up migrating to Nekoweb; i thought it was generally nicer and more 'connected'? which i didn't really feel on Neocities - internally i kinda felt on Neocities that i had to be the best out of everyone, which to me felt kinda similar to social media, in a way. though Nekoweb isn't exactly perfect, i think it's a really good place to be on for me personally lol
i tried GitHub Pages, but i ended up... not doing it? it felt a bit too complex (especially since i don't use my account to make things on GitHub myself), and the community vibe didn't really feel there.
-
I first started by taking a class back in middle school that taught us a bit of html/css/js for web dev (very basic ofc) but I really enjoyed it and started working on a site then. I kept expanding and expanding until I liked it a lot and originally hosted it on neocities but I didn't like how it was limited on what you could do on it, so I moved to Vercel for hosting and used Gitlab for storage (combined with the fact that Gitlab has a nice WebIDE based on Visual Studio Code). At one point I didn't like how it was extremely bloated so I revamped the entire thing from around 150 MiB to 50 MiB and made it way cleaner (which you see now!).
My word of advice?: Keep On Keeping On.
-
When it comes to code I pretty much have nothing mesmerized HTML, CSS, or JS :drat: Although this thread did get me thinking about having a notepad of sort filled with all the more commonly used code on my site.
Everything is hand coded to an extent except my home page I had no idea what to do so I used some layout builder I found I don't remember the name, but it's a site where you can create your own blank template using some squares. I created something that I was happy with, and that was how I found out about divs, and holy crap finding out about divs completely changed how I code upside down.
Other than that I got to agree with what you said with coding being similar to every single art form out there we all use different pieces for inspiration, and break down other pieces of work to figure stuff out that's fine, and that's how we improve at our crafts :4u:
-
I'm curious, do you view website building as a creative hobby? I'd guess so from the visual element and the customisation including in how you put the code together - I'm interested to hear thoughts on it!
It's more of a genuine hobby for me, though it'll be useful for my future as a professional software or web dev.
-
I code everything from scratch, but I do a lot of copy & pasting for individual directories / posts to avoid typing everything out each time I want to update the site. I know the basic structure of HTML / CSS by this point, however I usually turn to Google when I want to add new features since they can be really confusing at times. To be honest it can be a little intimidating seeing all these amazing, artistic sites when I hardly know how to do anything, but I see it as motivation to keep learning more to improve my work.
-
Years ago I took bits and pieces of different codes to customize my tumblr blog, but when I decided to make my own website I wanted to go all in. I didn't want to fight a template to get everything how I wanted it, I wanted to just have to fight my own code. I have some of the basic stuff memorized, but mostly I just reference what I did before, or look it up on W3Schools.
-
genuine hobby for me, though it'll be useful for my future as a professional software or web dev.
same actually. i'm pretty good at HTML and CSS so far, though it's more intentionally looking "bad" for me
i've already memorised a fair bit of HTML and a little bit of CSS, mostly since i've already learned it along the way, plus my way of learning (kinesthetic) kinda helped lol
-
Same way as most of my projects, a ton of messing around and finding building blocks to add on top of my site at the start, then almost nothing once everything is more solidified.
-
I already knew a bit of basic HTML, but I started by looking at tutorials and copying the code there to see which worked for me. I also copy some of the code I like for other stuff to save time typing. I eventually stylized the stolen code from the tutorials to eventually make it my own.
I also encourage people to copy my website (with credit, of course!) Now that I think about it, I'm not sure if I should experiment a bit more, and learn how to make templates.
-
When first learning, I started off with a step-by-step youtube tutorial (no idea which one) and just messed around with things to see what changed when. Then, I did a Bad Thing™ and copy/pasted the source code of my carrd to play around with it and figure out how it worked. From there, it was sort of just repeatedly testing things to figure out how they worked, and occasionally googled things I wanted to do or didn't understand.
As of now, I have a pretty good understanding of HTML and CSS, and use that as my basis! I do reuse some snippets (https://lockheart.love/webmastery/snippets) I've saved, but that's mostly for metadata or just for the ease of it. As of recently, I tend to use 11ty to speed up the process, as I tend to use consistent layouts across my sites, but I still prefer coding it myself to using pre-made layouts. I love seeing sites that use pre-made layouts because I know that means the person wanted to make a site and found the tools to help them do so, but I personally prefer making my own :3