How do you approach making your sites?

3lsie
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How do you approach making your sites?

« on: April 04, 2025 @867.25 »

Hello!! I'm really curious to hear how you all actually go about making your cool websites.

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.


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Re: How do you approach making your sites?

« Reply #1 on: April 04, 2025 @913.03 »

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 !


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Skykristal
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Re: How do you approach making your sites?

« Reply #2 on: April 04, 2025 @929.39 »

I code from scratch, because its fun and rewarding

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 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 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.


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Re: How do you approach making your sites?

« Reply #3 on: April 04, 2025 @936.39 »

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.


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drmollytov
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Re: How do you approach making your sites?

« Reply #4 on: April 06, 2025 @52.62 »

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.


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toribytez
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Re: How do you approach making your sites?

« Reply #5 on: April 08, 2025 @92.91 »

Quote from: 3lsie on April 04, 2025 @867.25

Hello!! I'm really curious to hear how you all actually go about making your cool websites.

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.

When I first designed my website, 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.


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3lsie
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Re: How do you approach making your sites?

« Reply #6 on: April 09, 2025 @885.01 »

Hey everyone, thank you for all the insightful replies so far

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!


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cynderthekitsune
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Re: How do you approach making your sites?

« Reply #7 on: April 10, 2025 @168.47 »

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   

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.


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Re: How do you approach making your sites?

« Reply #8 on: April 10, 2025 @727.88 »

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.


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Re: How do you approach making your sites?

« Reply #9 on: April 10, 2025 @856.59 »

When it comes to code I pretty much have nothing mesmerized HTML, CSS, or JS

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


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toribytez
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Re: How do you approach making your sites?

« Reply #10 on: April 10, 2025 @920.16 »

Quote from: 3lsie on April 09, 2025 @885.01

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.


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Gizmo
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Re: How do you approach making your sites?

« Reply #11 on: April 11, 2025 @201.00 »

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.


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ABlueRose
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Re: How do you approach making your sites?

« Reply #12 on: April 12, 2025 @119.92 »

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.


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cynderthekitsune
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Re: How do you approach making your sites?

« Reply #13 on: April 12, 2025 @299.25 »

Quote from: toribytez on April 10, 2025 @920.16
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


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candycanearter07
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Re: How do you approach making your sites?

« Reply #14 on: April 15, 2025 @658.19 »

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.


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