Revamping website

Hi,
This is probably a bit of a 'numpty' question but I'm looking to create a new website. I've got some web-space and it has Cpanel to install a variety of different galleries/blogs etc which is fine, but I'd like a site that includes a blog, a gallery as well as some pages that I create myself(I used to be able to use HMTL, Javascript, Php etc. but my skills have rather atrophied as I've been working with mainframes(laugh if you wish)). What I'd really like to do is to set up everything on my laptop try and give it a consistent feel, and then copy it to the server. Does anyone know whether it's possible to create a kind of 'Frankensite' like this, or is there a better way to do it? I haven't enough spare time nowadays to be able to build the whole thing from scratch so it would be really good if I could use ready made components but at the same time give some sort of consistent feel to the whole site.
Thanks,
Allan

I don't have a vast experience of Blog software, but would recommend Wordpress rather than trying to create your own. If you can find a theme or redesign the layout to your own personal taste, then add your own site to it.

My setup required a PHP5 & MySQL database for the blog, FTP client software for uploads. A bit of CGI. etc.

Google around Wordpress for requirements, or swot up on whatever solution you prefer.

you should be able to setup/install it all laptop - and you can create hybrid websites - but whether you can get same look & feel across different parts probably depends on your html/css skills

Assuming a Windows Machine (Linux machine - just install Apache & mysql etc)

Microsoft IIS webserver is part of XP Pro/Vista/Windows 7 Home Premium+ where you can install PHP (not the best combination - but should be enough to test things out) - you'll most likely need MySQL as well (you can get Windows versions )

alternatively if the machine is powerful enough - install Virtual Box and setup a Linux distribution with right components on (advantage is will be closer to what your host has)

Hi,
I've had a look and found some stuff about setting up static pages in Wordpress that looks like one way to do it.
Thanks
Al

Hi Kenneth,
I've got an Xp machine - still. I've installed XAMP, which is a wrapper round Apache, Mysql and more. Just have to sus out installing the blogware etc onto that. If I manage to get that done then I'll start fighting with CSS - I've got some of those books that never quite tell you what you want to find out
Thanks,

Sounds like a lot of effort setting up a development site locally - why not just develop it in place in your hosting space? If you're worried about people seeing it before it is fully complete, just use the cPanel option to password protect the public_html root.

If you do develop it locally, remember to make sure any links in the pages to local content are relative to the site root e.g /images/navbar/index.jpg not c:\my site\images\navbar\index.jpg

Depends what software you are using to put your pages together, but some is so utterly stupid as to insert links like the latter which will give you a headache when you publish it.

Hi GeeTee,
I guess you have a point about developing it in situ on the server, though that would mean working on a 'live' site whenever/if ever anything had to change. I used an early version of Dreamweaver that used to do that trick with links - or maybe it was the way I was using it
Thanks

Depends what software you are using to put your pages together, but some is so utterly stupid as to insert links like the latter which will give you a headache when you publish it.

The best HTML editor ever

In reply to a post by Allan1:

I've got an Xp machine - still. I've installed XAMP, which is a wrapper round Apache, Mysql and more. Just have to sus out installing the blogware etc onto that.

It would be worth looking at install instructions - I doubt it is much more than a set of scripts and configuration

In reply to a post by Allan1:

If I manage to get that done then I'll start fighting with CSS - I've got some of those books that never quite tell you what you want to find out

css - a black art, the books tend to tell you the mechanics but not how to make it work (or a lot of the tricks you need to work out) - I found The ZEN of CSS Design useful for that - but you have to read it not use it as a reference book.

Go with WordPress. You will have a basic blog that you can customise and extend as much as you like. There are loads of plugins and themes available. Install XAMPP on your laptop first. This will give you Apache, MySQL and PHP preconfigured. Unzip WordPress into your document root directory and off you go. When you've got your site as you want it, upload everything to a LAMP server and you're done.