HELP: My Website needs some TLC.

[GlitchyZorua]

Hello!

I've been kinda giving up on my website a lot lately, mostly due to the fact that the code is messy! 

I've been through pain and sweat, trying to get leaky ring and eSheep working. but to no avail. If you didn't know, I have this nice settings menu where you can adjust things on my site to your liking. (Example: if you want the leaky ring to be disabled, you can do that).

it remembers this via your Cookies. and for some unknown reason, it likes to break a lot, and sometimes, it doesn't output the error in the console.

Neko works, but.. eSheep, Leaky Ring, and Pony Mode just doesn't work, and doesn't show an error in the console at all.

I tried everything, and at this point, i didn't even care that i was even using AI to fix my code. It failed. and now after hours of pondering, i decided to give up, and resort to asking you all. I really want to move away from the screen (well i was forced to, actually), but my site just needs that TLC.

So... I know this is a lot to ask for but.. can someone please help me clean up and this code, or at least, the cookies part.... or tell me what I'm doing wrong, exactly.

Here is the source code to my site: https://github.com/GlitchyZorua/retrojcities.neocities.org

Thanks.

[Melooon]

Sooo while I’m a fan of messy code, I can see why you have trouble just looking at your index code 

My quick advice would be… 

• Remove all your scripts to separate document.
• Run your site through a html validator and keep validating it until you sort out all the basic html issues (you can ignore warnings like img alt text)
• Then start to add your scripts in one by one. Keep all your scripts together at the end of your page, not mixed in like they are now; and make sure each one works before moving onto the next.

I would also suggest getting the Prettier extension for your code editor and using that to format your code to its easy to read ^^ (it will only work if your code validates correctly first)

Good luck! 

[GlitchyZorua]

alright ty so much!

(and thanks to the person on github for helpin me out!  )

[DougsShack]

I am happy to help 😀

I did everything quickly, so I only did minor testing to make sure everything turned out all right. (I had family over at the time)

I'm hoping it gets you going in the right direction. I am also happy to answer questions or help fix things in the future!

[GlitchyZorua]

I am happy to help 😀

I did everything quickly, so I only did minor testing to make sure everything turned out all right. (I had family over at the time)

I'm hoping it gets you going in the right direction. I am also happy to answer questions or help fix things in the future!

So i tried, and well, I didn't try because i was busy setting stuff up-

 

and uh.. well. I don't think its suppose to look like that... 



This is a problem I have with organizing code, it sometimes messes things up, and i don't know why. I'll try my best to rectify it!! 

Either way, thank you so much for trying to help.

[futurearcana]

First off, quoting the words of a wise yellow magical dog: 

“Dude, sucking at sumthin’ is the first step towards being sorta good at something.”

In other words, it's a great thing to be learning something new, and while it can be frustrating, nothing bad's gonna happen if you keep failing. You're just gonna get better!

As for practical suggestions for approaching coding a personal website: I know looking at melonland and other sites you see all of the cool gadgets and gimmicks and leaky pages and scripts etc... and of course, you want them on your site too!

But my suggestion is to hold on, and avoid integrating them to begin with.

Get a solid foundation down, nice tidy pages, and get some of the actual content you want people to see. A homepage and an about page are a good start. Make sure you understand what's going on and go from there.

Glancing over your code it already looks pretty alright, and this tells me you actually know quite a bit already.

One thing it seems you're struggling with is showing some elements in the menu depending on the mirror. I would just keepm them all up, but just for educational purposes, I can suggest you a better way.

First off, just write the html you want to show on the actual html part, not inside the script. Yes, there's gonna be the links for both mirrors initially but that's fine.


Now with some actual suggestions, for the links you only want to show up on the github mirror, add class="no-neocities"

Similarly, for the links you only want to show up on the neocities mirror, add class="no-github"

Finally, in your javascript script, you can figure out which mirror the user is currently seeing, and hide all the elements with class no-neocities or no-github, like this:

Code

for (const elementToHide of document.getElementsByClassName('q')) {
    elementToHide.style.display = "none"
}

And just like that, they will disappear!


For detecting which mirror you're on, you can greatly simplify your code in two ways:

• make the strings you need to compare all lowercase, so you don't have to account for uppercase at all
• use include

Code

if (location.href.toLowerCase().includes('.neocities.org')) {
    // hide no-neocities stuff
} else if (location.href.toLowerCase().includes('.github.io')) {
    // hide no-github stuff
} else {
    // I would just keep all of the links if this fails
}

Another thing, you can use backtick characters in javascript if you want to make a long string with newlines, like this

Code

const myLongString = `
<ul>
    <li>hello</li>
    <li>world!</li>
</ul>
`

Sorry for the long post, I hope I've been helpful! And I know all of this info can be a bit daunting, but don't worry, just take it step by step and read the excellent documentation you can find online (MDN, W3Schools, etc) and you will be perfectly familiar with all of this in no time!

[GlitchyZorua]

alright, i tried to follow y'all guides, but i keep on running in to more issues.

i just don't know what to do anymore, i kinda gave up. 

[Melooon]

just don't know what to do anymore, i kinda gave up.

Sorry to hear that! Based on what you've said; I do know why your widgets are showing up in the wrong place, and I also know how to fix them! However, as @futurearcana pointed out, the issue is that, it sounds like you've gotten in over your head; you've added a lot of things without understanding how they work, and without having the foundation knowledge you need to figure out how they work and use them they way you want.

With that in mind, I think everyone here can keep giving you good advice, but you're not gonna be able to apply any of that advice to your site if you don't have the foundational knowledge you need first

So I would say, simplify. Start over with a simple basic HTML site; and only add things that you 100% understand! Gradualy build up to the more complex stuff; get the HTML right, then the CSS right, then start with some basic JavaScrips and work your way up; only including what you understand and can modify comfortably.

Keep thinking back to the site you have now, because there will come a moment when you understand what is wrong and you'll realise that you know how to fix it. You will get to that point if you keep working, however you have to get there at your own pace and in your own time

[GlitchyZorua]

I'll think about it.

Not sure if I'll get there, I have bad feelings about it, and feel very overwhelmed by it already, but I think i can try and achieve that.

I'll create a back up of my old site, so I won't forget! 

[Melooon]

I'll... I'll think about it.

Creating and learning are both destructive processes You create until you've gone as far as you can go in a particular direction and then you are forced to start over and create something else and learn something new!

The more you learn, the more that process tends to slow down, and the longer your projects last. Thats why kids tend to finish a painting in 5 minutes, but an older person can work on a painting for years.

It's totally fine if you decide that you're not ready to move on yet and you still want to keep working on this particular version of your site; only you can decide when you're done! The reason I suggested it though, is because it sounds like you're unhappy with it and it's starting to hold you back. When that happens, it's a good moment to ask yourself if it's time for a reset and a new direction.

I'm actually fully in favour of getting in over your head and including things you don't understand as a process of learning; just make sure you actually enjoy it and use it to learn, rather than having it turn into something that frustrates you and limits your ability to learn!

[GlitchyZorua]

I hate to say it, but I feel much, much, better if it was just working the way it was, before I messed something up. I didn't care if the site had crappy code, (unless if it was affecting performance) til it worked, i had more fun adding more features, and less trying to fix them.