Re: [BlueGriffon] Why do you have to pay to have access to FREE CSS templates?

[Daniel Glazman]

Le 24/07/12 07:13, Yarrow a �crit :

> I just downloaded BG to make a website for a friend's small business. I
> have made a site for them already in an ancient program (microsoft
> publisher) because that's all i know how to use. I feel, however, that
> what I have made looks well, old and dated. Granted its better than what
> they have currently but I wanted to try to get them something clean and
> polished, a more modern and fancy kind of site. Since I know nothing of
> coding, other than CSS is the new go to thing for fancy sites, I decided
> I wanted to use a template. To my dismay, all of the fabulous templates
> shown say you must go to a site and pay for them, and in the description
> says you will then gain access to *2864 free templates. *If they are
> free, why must i first pay 12.11USD (approx)to gain access to them? I
> understand BG is currently free and a great option for those like me who
> are incapable of coding, but I feel showing us then denying us access to
> the templates till we cough up some dough is rather underhanded. What gives?

You pay for it because being we worked on a universal manifest for
template sites, implemented it, spent time gathering these manifest
and implemented a rather nice and super-simple UI above them.

You can still get free templates from the Web, download them, unzip
them, manually change the filename and directory architecture. We
do it in one click w/o needed tech knowledge.

</Daniel>

[Greg Chapman]

Hi Daniel,

On 24 Jul 12 08:35 Daniel Glazman <daniel....@gmail.com> said:
> You pay for it because being we worked on a universal manifest for
> template sites, implemented it, spent time gathering these manifest
> and implemented a rather nice and super-simple UI above them.
>
> You can still get free templates from the Web, download them, unzip
> them, manually change the filename and directory architecture. We
> do it in one click w/o needed tech knowledge.

All you say is, of course, true, but over on the KompoZer forum (Dare
I mention that here? :-) ) I found that many newbies expected that a
web template would solve all their web design problems. It never did.

The trouble is that many, come to web design with only experience of
word processing and desktop publishing behind them and a complete lack
any understanding of "styles", even in the applications they are used
to. Most only know how to apply visual effects to their documents by
clicking on various toolbar buttons and don't consider semantics at
all.

These folk download a web template they like the look of and start
using the same techniques they are used to and get in a hopeless mess.
(That's when they start posting questions on the support forums.)

The result is that I always used to advise that people should consider
that web templates are for coding geeks that understand HTML and CSS
but lack graphic design skills. They are NOT for those who recognise
good graphic design but know nothing of HTML and CSS.

What this means is that there is no substitute for learning the
principles that underpin HTML and CSS before one starts work on web
design and no point in looking for templates until you are at that
stage. (You don't need to know all the intricacies of of every HTML
tag and attribute or CSS selector and element - BlueGriffon can look
after that - but you do need to know the principles of what is going
on under the hood. In the same way, while you can't drive a car until
you understand the relationship between steering wheel, gear lever,
accelerator, brake and clutch - yet you don't have to know about
tappets, pistons and batteries.)

Why am I bothering to say all this? Well, I'm a frustatrated KompoZer
user and am thinking of adopting BlueGriffon and producing a
BlueGriffon "add-on", an extension to the official manual, that would
introduce new web designers to the principles and techniques required
- before they go looking for templates! I've done something similar
already, for Kompozer, on my site. I just need to convert the
information there to apply to BlueGriffon and present it as a PDF.
EMail me if you think the idea is worth following up.

Greg Chapman
http://www.gregtutor.plus.com
Helping new users of KompoZer and The GIMP

[Didier Charles]

In one of the responses to this thread this was written: 

"You can still get free templates from the Web, download them, unzip them"

I would be interested in checking that out. Could you supply the URL address for downloading these?

Thanks

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[Greg Chapman]

Hi Didier,

On 24 Jul 12 20:14 Didier Charles <didier....@gmail.com> said:
> I would be interested in checking that out. Could you supply the URL
> address for downloading these?

The URL depends on which of the templates you wish to use.

1. Open BlueGriffon
2. File > One-click Templates
3. From the left pane select a supplier
4. From the right pane click DEMO for the template you are interested
in.

It loads in your browser, from where you can save the page together
with all its associated support files.

As Daniel says, it is then a bit of a pain to sort it out to be able
to make easy use of it. That's where the add-on is a help.

[Yarrow]

I am one of those people! I know how to use graphics programs to get things how i want them to look but i have zero knowledge of how to make things like links highlight when you mouse over them, or have an animated drop down menu.

When you say "The result is that I always used to advise that people should consider

that web templates are for coding geeks that understand HTML and CSS
but lack graphic design skills. They are NOT for those who recognise

good graphic design but know nothing of HTML and CSS. " is there any program/template good for me or am i just going to have to buckle down and try to learn about coding? (i tried before but all the letters/numbers/symbols sent me into panic attacks)

Also, when you say you are " thinking of adopting BlueGriffon and producing a

BlueGriffon "add-on", an extension to the official manual, that would
introduce new web designers to the principles and techniques required
- before they go looking for templates! I've done something similar
already, for Kompozer, on my site. I just need to convert the

information there to apply to BlueGriffon and present it as a PDF. " I think that would be awesome! but as an aside, could you post the links to what you've done? I know you say what you did was for Kompozer, but if the basic principles are the same would it be enough to teach me what i need to know?

[Greg Chapman]

Hi Yarrow,

On 25 Jul 12 07:32 Yarrow <yarro...@gmail.com> said:
> I am one of those people! I know how to use graphics programs to get
> things how i want them to look but i have zero knowledge of how to
> make things like links highlight when you mouse over them, or have
> an animated drop down menu.

The fundamental issue for those used to graphics programs is that what
underpins all web pages is TEXT. HTML is one language and CSS another.
The first defines the "content" (the text, graphics and, perhaps,
audio contained on the page) and the second its "style" - how it will
appear (fonts, font-size and colour used, layout and positioning of
text and graphics). Not only is appearance important, so is semantics
if you are going to get a site well rated by a search engine. (To a
search engine text marked as a heading is very different to text that
just happens to be the same size. It's position within the file may
also affect its treatment.)

While a program like BlueGriffon can hide the the business of
generating the text that goes into the files that make a web page from
the user so it can be claimed "no knowledge of HTML required", there
is no way to avoid making a graphically sophisticated site without
some understanding of the mechanics behind it all.

(And I haven't even got to JavaScript, PHP, and other technilogies
that are required to make various forms of interactivity work.)

> When you say "*The result is that I always used to advise that

> people should consider that web templates are for coding geeks that
> understand HTML and CSS but lack graphic design skills. They are NOT
> for those who recognise good graphic design but know nothing of HTML

> and CSS. *" is there any program/template good for me or am i just

> going to have to buckle down and try to learn about coding? (i tried
> before but all the letters/numbers/symbols sent me into panic
> attacks)

You don't need to learn all the detail of the syntax and grammar of
HTML and CSS to create a graphically pleasing site - BlueGriffon can
look after that - but you do need to have an appreciation of the
underlying mechanics. It is that which guides you to which of
BlueGriffon's menus, options, panels and dialogues to turn to to get
the effect you want.

You must always bare in mind that whereas a graphic artist is usally
producing a single work of art, a web site may be made up of scores or
hundreds of linked documents, all of which must have a common
appearance or theme. It is the norm to find that you need to make
changes to your basic design once you have already got a site with
many pages up and running. Times, and the nature of a site's content,
will change and new features will be required which have an impact on
the existing design.

This is the vital reason for the need to separate "content" from
"style", It allows you to make changes in the appearance of a site
that affects all pages, while not changing their content. (The site at
http://www.csszengarden.com/ is worth looking at to see this in action
- a single page controlled by many switchable stylesheets.)

> Also, when you say you are " *thinking of adopting BlueGriffon and

> producing a BlueGriffon "add-on", an extension to the official
> manual, that would introduce new web designers to the principles and
> techniques required - before they go looking for templates! I've
> done something similar already, for Kompozer, on my site. I just
> need to convert the information there to apply to BlueGriffon and

> present it as a PDF.* " I think that would be awesome! but as an

> aside, could you post the links to what you've done? I know you say
> what you did was for Kompozer, but if the basic principles are the
> same would it be enough to teach me what i need to know?

The site is in my signature. Go to:
http://www.gregtutor.plus.com/webdesign/index.html
and work down through all the linked pages. It starts with a little
"essential theory" and then goes on to just two exercises, one to
introduce the concept of a single external stylesheet to control the
appearance of a site and another, that uses a few additonal CSS
techniques, to create a site's "master page" - in effect a template
that you will have built yourself from scratch. It's very crude, so
the page finishes with links to further guides on how to add various
common features that a site may need.

If you absorb everything in the two exercises you will have the
knowledge you need to pick a web template from those found in
BlueGriffon's Template Add-on and have the understanding to control
and manipulate it.

There is almost no code mentioned on the site at all (except where it
is simpler to show the code because, by that stage you are expected to
know where to find the menu options and dialogues to generate it.) but
that means that it needs to be very KompoZer specific, so a newcomer
may find it a little tricky to apply to BlueGriffon directly - but
just skimming through it, may begin to help understanding, as I try to
explain not just the effect you will see at every step in the
exercises, but also why you are doing it.

[Yarrow]

Thank you very much Greg. I can pick up things fairly quick as long as I don't get overwhelmed so I will look over the links and try to learn what I need to know. I appreciate your responses!