Hello, would really appreciate some advice

[stroutman81]

I'm in the process of building a website over at homestead.com. I decided to build it there and have them host it simply b/c I'm not very computer literate and their sitebuilder is basically web developing for dummies. My site is www.body-improvements.com

Only now did I learn that other hosts have the same sitebuilder (or something similar). I heard that hostgator is one such place, is that true?

Anyhow, I've been nothing but pleased with homestead so far (expect for price) until I learned they aren't compatible with vbulletin, which is the only forum software I want to run my forum through.

So now I'm stuck in either paying for another host to host my forum and place a link to that on my homestead site, which I really don't feel like paying for two hosts.

Or I have to move to another host that is compatible with vbulletin. The problem is, I have a suspicion that it would be real messy. I've heard that homestead's sitebuilder uses proprietary coding with their sitebuilder and it's pretty wacky. So if I moved it over to something like hostgator (which I wouldn't even know where to begin) it could end up being a nightmare.

Honestly, losing what I've done so far scares the hell out of me.

Any advice would be sincerely appreciated!

Thanks in advance.

[herpherp]

Just took a look at your site and to me it looks like it would probably be one of the easiest transfers! Doesn't seem to be any databases or anything just your basic html. I would get with sales, they should be able to transfer your site without a problem. They do utilize sitebuilder which there is a demo http://sitebuilder.websitewelcome.com

[striddy]

HG does provide a free site transfer service. They will help you move your site over. You just got to ask them for help, and help they will give you.

You will find HG support is fantastic.

[gwyneth]

The OP's real concern, which nobody has addressed, seems to be the homestead proprietary sitebuilding software...and that renders "looks simple to move" meaningless.

stroutman81, HG does have a sitebuilder, but you're in the process of learning the big drawback of all such--they may be difficult to relocate.

There are lots of HTML editors and sitebuilding tools that aren't much more difficult to use. Many are free. IMO, you'd be better off downloading something like NVU now because the more work you do with a proprietary hosted site builder, the more you're locked to its host.

[stroutman81]

What is NVU... and thanks for the adive.

[gwyneth]

NVU is an authoring system that's open source (free) and pretty much lives up to the "for people who don't know html" claim. (Its pages will also infuriate you less as you progress, unlike many "no knowledge" and wysiwyg apps).

Nvu - The Complete Web Authoring System for Linux, Macintosh and Windows

[whatrevolution]

Nvu project died. It was picked back up in the form of Kompozer.

[gwyneth]

Originally Posted by whatrevolution

Nvu project died. It was picked back up in the form of Kompozer.

Sort of...NVU is still very much alive, and work on a new version is proceding. The link above goes to its development site.

nvu.com gives a brief explanation of where the two stand, and has links to each (the nvu one going to the site above).

[gwyneth]

Here's another free sitebuilding app:

Amaya

[episkey]

stroutman81,

As gwyneth has noted, you've used proprietary software to build your site at homestead. Simply "moving" the site would not only be technically difficult, it also would be illegal. As you now know, using a sitebuilder locks you into a specific web host and also places limits on the design techniques and other tools you can use. Sitebuilders are great for quickly putting up a temporary website. As a permanent solution, not so much.

My advice is to recreate your website using a tool like Kompozer. Do it now before you've put even more work into it. If you're not able to do it all yourself, hire someone to help you.

Using a tool like Kompozer, it should be fairly easy for you to create a page that looks almost exactly like your home page. (Caution: If you got any of your graphics from Homestead, you need to either verify that those images are public domain or you need to find/make substitutes.)

Once you've recreated your home page, you can use it as a template for your other pages. To recreate some pages, such as your Exercise page, you'll need to do a video embed. If you need help figuring out how to do that, you should be able to get help from forums like this one.

The main difficulty will be recreating the calorie calculator on your Nutrition page -- unless you imported this from someplace other than Homestead. If you created the calorie calculator using the Homestead sitebuilder, you most likely will need to hire someone to write new javascripts and help you integrate them into your website. You can't use a wysiwyg tool like Kompozer to do this. It requires an actual knowledge of javascript and HTML.

[episkey]

gwyneth,

Nvu is generally considered to be discontinued.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nvu
http://nvu.wikispaces.com/NVU+vs.+Ko...an+explanation

[gwyneth]

Originally Posted by episkey

gwyneth,

Nvu is generally considered to be discontinued.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nvu
http://nvu.wikispaces.com/NVU+vs.+Ko...an+explanation

Not according to www.nvu.com and www.nvudev.com, as I already explained earlier in this thread to whatrevolution.

[whatrevolution]

Be that as it may, Kompozer latest release is 2 years younger than Nvu's, and otherwise is the same thing; so until Nvu catches up their release, I would choose Kompozer over Nvu.

[herpherp]

As I stated in my original thread, your transfer should be very simple, the only difference is how you are going to edit your site. I see that NVU is suggested and can be used, just remember though that NVU has not been updated in years and there has only been a bug fix release for Kompozer close to a year ago, their forum hasn't had a post in over a year etc... so you may want to invest in something that is kept current Dreamweaver or microsoft expression web) but NVU would be a start. If you are wanting to stay away from utilizing software and just want to stick to the web based site building then SiteBuilder would be an option as well, You could simply copy and paste the text and image paths etc into Sitebuilder. There is of course the option to have someone else design and build the site for you as well. Looking over your current providers plans the pricing is a little outrageous for what you get, in my opinion anyhow. I can understand why they do not allow vbulletin as you are limited to 300mb space for 49.99 a month etc... I would suggest setting up your site at hostgator before transferring your domain name, once your site is completely set up you can make the changes needed to direct your domain to your hostgator account. It's not as complicated as you might think, and is a good learning experience for any webmaster!

[stroutman81]

First, let me say I can't thank you guys enough. You've been a great help. And yea, this is a big learning experience for me. I've been with homestead for years and set up a real simplistic fitness website when I didn't really care. This year I'm at a place where I wanted to set something serious up and just stuck with homestead since I knew how easy it was to use... not realizing all the downside potential.

Someone mentioned above that moving my site from homestead would be illegal. How's that? None of the stuff on the actual site is homestead's. They're my pictures, my calculators, my videos, etc. Am I missing something?

I'm at a crossroad right now...

I have to decide if I want to completely move everything away from homestead now and if so, do I go with something like HG or Dreamweaver.

Or, do I leave the site where it is and if it's successful, a year from now pay someone to re-create it based on what it looks like over on homestead and then transfer the domain name.

The only reason I went the do-it-yourself dummy route was I had no clue what I wanted and figured I'd just get my hands dirty and design as I go. I didn't have a clue what I could tell a developer/designer besides I want a fitness/online training site.

I have a lot to think about. One post above mentions that the transfer from homestead to HG would be rather simple. I wonder how much would get screwed up since homestead uses their own, proprietary sitebuilder and coding... or so I've heard.

[gwyneth]

Originally Posted by stroutman81

Someone mentioned above that moving my site from homestead would be illegal. How's that? None of the stuff on the actual site is homestead's. They're my pictures, my calculators, my videos, etc. Am I missing something?

I'm at a crossroad right now...

I have to decide if I want to completely move everything away from homestead now and if so, do I go with something like HG or Dreamweaver.

Or, do I leave the site where it is and if it's successful, a year from now pay someone to re-create it based on what it looks like over on homestead and then transfer the domain name.

The only reason I went the do-it-yourself dummy route was I had no clue what I wanted and figured I'd just get my hands dirty and design as I go. I didn't have a clue what I could tell a developer/designer besides I want a fitness/online training site.

I have a lot to think about. One post above mentions that the transfer from homestead to HG would be rather simple. I wonder how much would get screwed up since homestead uses their own, proprietary sitebuilder and coding... or so I've heard.

The person who said it was simple is overlooking the proprietary homestead software, which is also what makes it illegal.

The longer you wait, the more complicated it's going to be. Right now, you need to make just eight or nine pages--you can copy and paste the text.

You are paying a fortune at homestead for the privilege of the proprietary software.

In the next post, I am copying the contents of a post in one of the categories here that you don't have permissions to view--it may provide some useful info.

[gwyneth]

Copied "Sitebuilder Alternatives even novices can use":

Several recent threads have discussed a few of the issues associated with Site Studio/Site Builder.

These include (but aren't limited to) non-portability, quirky formatting, and trouble determining what to input so you get what you want.

While Site Studio seems to have one overwhelming advantage--the ability for even a total novice to publish a professional-looking page almost instantly--there are other ways for total beginners to achieve this.

IMO, one of the biggest drawbacks to using Site Studio is that it creates its own frustrations...leading novices to think 'if this is bad, the other ways must be even worse'.

Well, the other ways don't have to be worse, and offer much higher paybacks for the initial frustration, time, etc. that are inevitable even with Site Builder. And, ironically, it's much easier to find help when you're using the alternatives. (Hypothetical parallel--expert cookie makers wouldn't know the specific features of Cookeeze, the easy sleazy automatic cookie maker.)

One of the sites mentioned below discusses the issue here: Is It Better to Use an Online Site Builder or a Standalone Web Editor? (thesitewizard.com)

Believe me, you can do it. Here's how.

Option (or step) one

This site includes a very easy-to-follow set of explanations; an online page builder that lets you build and save to disk a simple page; and a free editor. There is help every step of the way.

* HTML for the Conceptually Challenged

Option (or step) two

Download NVU or KompoZer . Complete handholding and getting started info is available at:

Nvu Tutorials (thesitewizard.com)

KompoZer Tutorials (thesitewizard.com)

The first link in each list gives you a step by step guide to get you through your first page. Other info shows you how to use the program with existing pages, such as...

Templates and more

Each of these sites has more easy-to-follow information and templates you can download and customize.

So, you want to make a web page

The Web Diner Introduces Your Web Adventure!

Iron Spider

Easy lessons

The first site has lessons for every aspect of web publishing, but this part is particularly valuable--a set of interactive page components ("HTML tags"):

HTML Examples (interactive)

This site, while downright cheesy-looking, does have some of the easiest-to-follow lessons anywhere:

44 HTML Lessons and Tutorials

[episkey]

Originally Posted by stroutman81

Someone mentioned above that moving my site from homestead would be illegal. How's that? None of the stuff on the actual site is homestead's. They're my pictures, my calculators, my videos, etc. Am I missing something?

If "moving" involves copying code -- e.g. html code, css code, javascript code -- that has been generated by Homestead, then that would be illegal.

If "moving" involves copying your content (text, pictures, video) into new web pages that you create, then it's OK. It's also OK to copy code you have written yourself, or that you have created using an editor like Dreamweaver or KompoZer. It's not legal, however, to copy code you have generated using a sitebuilder on one host to another host.

How did you create your calculators? If you wrote the html code and javascript for them, then they're yours. If you used the Homestead sitebuilder to generate the code, then they are not yours.

[episkey]

herpherp,

An active forum for Nvu/KompoZer can be found here:

http://wysifauthoring.informe.com/forum/

There are people posting on this forum every day, and it's a good place to get help.