Design
Designing a website is a little like a jigsaw puzzle, you have all the pieces that you want to put in the correct place to make the picture but it is a matter of getting the right pieces together and making them fit. The web design package I used to make the website was Adobe Dream Weaver, I set fixed parameters so the content would always be in the middle of the page and there would be space either side of this content column for images and in the future advertisements.
CSS Code
Cascading Style Sheets are a form of code that can be attached to a HTML document through tags and id's it makes applications of several styles in font pictures and menus quickly accessible across many web pages. It is very easy to write CSS as the options are there and very accessible for you in Dream Weaver, after writing the CSS it is just a matter of adding it to you HTML Document, this can also be done in Dream Weaver.
HTML Code
HTML is the most common and standard coding language for websites, it has been used for pretty much as long as the internet has existed, however many different versions of it have existed, these allow it to function with CSS and Java Plug ins, of course a very important feature for any website that looks modern.
HTML has a set structure in which it is formulated
<HTML>
<HEAD>
</HEAD>
<BODY>
</BODY>
</HTML>
CMS
Whilst I am not using Content management systems for my site in any way , I thought it would be a worthwhile exercise to research them anyway. There are many well known content management systems that many companies use to make their websites far more manageable and easy to use. In my research I have noticed that several other eSports websites use the content management system 'Word Press' while various other companies use services like Wix and 1and1 to complete their sites.
CMS provide a GUI for the user to work in rather than having to deal with straight code as can be seen in the picture below. With Yola it is possible to drag 'widgets' from the panel on the side to the main page, and then fill in the content as you wish. You can even buy the domain name that you like and get rid of the Yola badge on the bottom of the page in essence disguising the fact that a CMS has been used. There are even options for E-commerce giving the user sales space in a way that is extremely easy to set up.
Other content management systems like Wix rely far more on Flash, making them look extremely presentable at the cost of space for actual wordy content. CMS are a great alternative to actually writing your own code and making your own graphics, this is simply because , they dont require any expensive software, you can often start your domain for free, and there are many features that are extremely easy to use. They are a time saving operation but this is not what I have been asked to do for my project.
Embedding
Embedding is the technique of taking 'Plugins' form sites and making them your own, for example, sharing a YouTube video using the embed feature will give you the code for putting the video on your website. This benefits video hosting services because they can then extend their reach out of their website.
Most importantly many social networking sites, such as Face book and Twitter allow for their users to maintain feeds on any website. As seen below in the current build of my website (Build 3) I have Twitter and YouTube Embeds next to each other at the bottom of the homepage, not only do these act as an effective route to my content but they also benefit YouTube and twitter by giving the users a opportunity to visit their site.
Embedding can give unparalleled connectivity to social networking and in a industry such as the gaming industry where the audience is mostly online this is incredibly important. Therefore it is preferable for me to have a comment box that is linked to Facebook. Facebook provides the code for these as well so when a user leaves a comment on my website it will be instantly linked to Facebook, this can also be seen on websites from much large organizations such as NME.
Although sounding simple many plug ins are not, they require excess coding, and effort, the photo gallery plug-in requires its own programme on your computer in order to make it work at all and then you have to be very intricate of where you put the files for this onto your server. As it can result in a error if you put the files in the wrong place.
The forum plug in also has to be paid for and moderated yourself, special care must be taken in the moderation of the forum also because anything distasteful posted on it would instantly breach the terms of use for the company that provides the code thus very strict forum rules must be in place to combat anything like that from happening.
