[UPHPU] html design templates

[Richard K Miller]

On Mar 3, 2007, at 2:48 PM, jtaber wrote:

> Everyone else seems to have nice web pages but our html page  
> designs are pretty ugly (probably due to a real lack of artistic  
> talent).   I'm talking of things like nice menu tabs, buttons,  
> gradient color schemes.   It's not like any of these can't be hand  
> built, but building components like a shaded button image just  
> consumes too much time.  I'm convinced there must be templates or  
> design tools that every else is using or they have all spent lots  
> of money to hire designers that can whip this stuff out.  Word  
> Press has a  bunch of good looking templates to choose from - I  
> guess that's what I'm thinking of.  Here's what I see as our options:
> 1) Download free source templates that we can just incorporate into  
> our applications and on our site.  This would be cheapest, fastest,  
> and easiest approach.  Is anyone else doing this ? 2) Use a design  
> tool that has a bunch of pre made stuff like buttons, menus, ....I  
> guess Dreamweaver does this but since we are on linux that doesn't  
> work.  Or is Dreamweaver that good that and we should go buy a  
> Macbook to run it on ? (we have no desire to use Windows). 3) Hire  
> or outsource a designer - while this might deliver the most  
> flexibility or original designs we don't want to spend that much.
> any thoughts?
>

I think Dreamweaver is powerful but not worth buying a new computer  
for.  You can find lots of free templates at http://www.oswd.org/, or  
you could find a designer at a place like http:// 
programmermeetdesigner.com/.  If you hire your own graphic designer,  
you can have it converted to XHTML for cheap at http:// 
www.xhtmlized.com/.