Advice Please! Which way to go in my site development

Hi All:

I am new to the boards but have been lurking around for some time. I have a question that is pretty important to me, and maybe interesting for some others, so I thought I would throw it up here and see if anyone wants to give their 2 cents.

I have done my prep work, by the way, learning parts of MODx and also css and xtml web design. I am still new but have some concept about everything.

I would appreciate any constructive feedback, so don’t be shy! I am almost a total n00b so don’t think you will embarrass yourself, we might just both learn something!

Anyway, here it is:

I have a static site that I need to put into MODx so I can add content and take real control of the site. My friend is a good designer who knows dreamweaver and did a great job on the site. She will be able to provide custom artwork as well.

The site is www.rayxi.com

I went through the pain of learning CSS already, and made a site that is part-way there, and I think clean enough code (if not pretty perhaps) that its a real solution for my needs. Warning, the site is ugly, I have been concerned with proving that I can do certain things in css and html rather than worried about colors. I still need to handle colors and pics and some stuff is still messed up, but I do think I can take this one and get there pretty quickly with some fixing. If I am wrong about that someone pls tell me! ;-)

The site is:

http://dev.m289.net/

From a business standpoint, I need this site operational like yesterday or at least by tomorrow. A six month fix for me right now is a fix, period. I can always revisit the site and handle any long term problems. I already know my code and so its not a big issue.

Eventually of course I expect to have a total css site. But that’s not a problem either, my knowledge level is sufficient at this time. I do plan to tinker in the near future

My current site looks really good. I like that big header she made, and would like to use it if possible. The whole top area is constructed together, with a long jpg used vertically across the entire top of the page behind the buttons.

As I said, I need a solution, need to know which way is quickest to the site going live. My clients are searching for me and I need better SEO and lots more content.

So, my question is:

1. Do I port the cool header from my current site, which has some javascript in it to grab those cool buttons across the horizontal nav bar and replace them on hover, and then build out the part below that with css and divs? If the porting isn’t too terrible, I have to think the bottom area would be fairly easy. I do like that header, and the sidebar I have already handled, so it might be the quickest way.

2. Or, do I go with the css one? As I said my knowledge level is coming along, and I do believe I can finish this one with some original artwork and be up and running fairly soon.

Finally, I don’t care about quality, really, between these two options, nor do I value my own css knowledge, nor do I value any purist notions. Not after 3 weeks of this css crash course. I will learn css in due time, right now I need a dynamic site.

Whew! I wrote too much. Any one want to weigh in? How about porting standard dreamweaver javascript? I have not done my prep work there, yet, that is next up, I planned to write this post after I did that but can’t get to it for another day or so and so I figured I could put this up first.

Anyone? Bueller??

I’m not sure I completely understand your question, but Porting a DW template to a MODx template is usually pretty straightforward. MODx usually has no problem with JS.

The only thing that comes to mind is that if the menu will be changing, you might want to try to duplicate the original cool menu with the Wayfinder snippet. It’s certainly doable but might be a lot of work.

This might (or might not) be helpful: http://bobsguides.com/porting-your-site-to-modx.html

I second above. You can do both. The javascript can be simply included into the template or if you have multiple templates using it, create a chunk and add that into the templates.

Besides Bob’s site which is a good source to get started with MODx, I’d also recommend to take a look at this tutorial.

Thanks so much to you both, I was hoping someone would stop by and point me in the right direction. I had done a lot of the initial research and got part way through the learning curve, but finally kind of burnt myself out a bit. Then I realized maybe I should just port the header, but hadn’t had time to research that yet.

BobRay, yes I thought about the fact that changing the header would be tough, but I can live with it as it is for some time. I already plan to take advantage of MODx’s abilities to change the left side-bar according to the type of content, so that will have to do for now. I do know the designer of those buttons, though, so I could just ask for a couple new ones and change the code by hand if I really wanted different options up top. Obviously limited but still workable. I used the/your site already a lot, its great, just I was wasting my time on the structure of css and the interplay with xtml instead on importing javascript! ;-)

N!Ce, yes I will try to do it right and put all the javascript into a chunk. That increases flexibility a lot, doesn’t it!

Everyone’s advice really helps a lot. I have a much clearer path than before. Which I really needed just now!

Thanks again!