Topic awaiting preservation: Help needed with a site I am working on

I am a "hobby" web designer, learning html and javascript on my freetime. At the moment I am reading Osborne's Complete Reference in HTML by Thomas Powell.

Now, I have become rather good at html, but far from professional, so people that I am working with have started asking me to help them making web pages for them.
The last html job that I have got is from a composer working at the same Music Academy as I work at. He currently has a very badly functioning site (http://www.rolfmartinsson.com) made by a friend of his, and he now wants a professionally looking and functioning site, on the same adress, which will be a helping tool in his work as a composer. He also wants to be able to update it daily by himself without knowing anything about html.
I use MAX's HTML Beauty++ ME (Thank you MAX for that great program!) so my work progress a little faster than when I wrote everything by hand. I use only "home-made" pictures for backgrounds and stuff, and also I have a few hundred photos to choose between that the composer gave me.
So far I have made only the basic structure with about 35 html documents, lacking about 10 more basic pages and probably about 50 more documents that will be pop-up windows with comments for his works. This basic structure can be seen in a "hidden place" at http://w1.404.telia.com/~u40416789/rolfmart/index.html .
Rolf, the composer, is extreeeeemely picky - more picky than I am - and wants total insight in which colours, sizes and placings I make. So, making only the very basic structure without any content, has taken me about 100 hours. That is including changes after Rolf's comments, and after noticing that my nice layout in PC with latest Explorer looks like crap in his Mac with old Netscape. Yes, I have told him to download a newer version. Long story. What does it look like in your computers? Consider it is only a structure, and will still go through several changes and face liftings.

Here's the deal:
* I will make this site with about 100+ documents, with CSS and javascripts. The site has to look good in both PC and Mac, Explorer and Netscape. I have abandoned trying to make it look or work alright in other browsers. The site will in its complete be in Swedish. It will contain photos on every page, and also a download photo page for the Press.
* I also will make a linked English version that will be a little smaller. Rolf translates, but he would like my fiancé from America to check the translation.
* I will make a script/form/program that makes it possible for him to update daily directly to his site. Just write in the text and click - it's on the web. I will come back to this...
* I will be his webmaster until the end of 2003, doing the needed changes and major updates that can't be done by himself.
* Deadline will be 1st january 2003 (since I work fulltime already and also am moving to a new apartment).
For this he suggested to pay about 1500 dollars (in Swedish money) by the end of the year. This of course considering that I am not professional and that the work takes longer for me than for a fulltime working webdesigner.

My first question is: Is this price alright, or should I ask for more? We haven't agreed about payment yet, this is just a first suggestion from his side. We are collegues and friends, and it always seems difficult to ask for a lot of money for a work from a friend.

Next question:
I suck when it comes to javascripts and forms, but I have an idea about making the updating for him with a form page. You know, like when you fill in a guestbook.
* Maybe a pulldown menu to choose which page he wants to add text to.
* One field for Title that will come out as bold text
* another field for the text.
* A submit button that loads the text directly to the right page online.
Would this work? And what if he wants to remove text from a page? Is there a better or easier way of doing this, without me having to learn ALL about programming C++, javascripts, DHTML, and so on? I still have to read up alot about the scripts and forms I am currently working with...

I would be most happy to get some feedback in these issues. Hope you didn't fall asleep reading this long question above. Thank you.

Kasta sten i glashus? Jag?

[This message has been edited by Kartis Shone (edited 06-25-2002).]

[This message has been edited by Kartis Shone (edited 06-25-2002).]

Moved from the HTML forum to here...


[This message has been edited by WebShaman (edited 06-25-2002).]

well you could make the "update form" with a basic grasp of perl so you wouldnt need to learn the in's and out's of the proggraming language

just how to open a file
load the contents of that file into a variable and how to print out that variable


and secondly how to
Read a file
Load the contents in a variable and then
print that variable where you want the content to come out

if you want i can show you a simple code of how to do this and explain a bit more about it

Sorry to move this thread once again, but I think this is more of a DHTML/JavaScript issue.

Please direct all replies to that thread.

-Jestah
Cell 277

You can also use 3rd Party software that can handle that for you.
check that out here

Later,
C:\


~Binary is best~

A hundred documents? Isn't that a bit much?

Sounds to me as though he's getting a bit more then what he's paying for. If your going to be designing a site with a 100+ documents with some back end coding, you might want to see about upping your price a bit.

-Jestah
Cell 277

Kartis Shone: Jestah is right about the amount of work although I'm not sure what "1500 dollars (in Swedish money)" means (do you mean it is the equivalent of USD1,500?). Also its not actually 100 pages as he wants English versions of his pages then double that.

There are things that you can do to make your life easier. CPrompt's link is a good one and with a bit of simple PHP (following WarMage's PHP tutorials) you should be able to cut development time. It depends on the hosting, of course, but have a look at DmS' tutorial in the GN as this will supply you with a very easy solution to the problem of allowing him to provide news/blog. The real advantage is that DmS is around to help if need be (as are plenty of others).

Also don't put yourself down - there is no hard and fast definition of a professional web designer. If someone is prepared to offer you money to do a site then you are a pro

I suspect this thread also actually belongs in the server-side scripting forum

___________________
Emps

FAQs: Emperor

ROTFLMAO!!!!

Yeah, I got pretty confused as to where this post actually belonged...hehe...poor guy will probably never find it...hehhee...'Hey, where's my post? Oh, in the site reviews...dammit! Someone moved it to...where? DHTML? *sigh* Ok...Wha?...this just can't be happening! Where is it now?...'

Ring-around-the-rosy....

Hehe...

Sorry, got carried away there...just slap me for my ignorance...

*slaps WebShaman*
well I cant speak for the content as I don't speak swedish but the links around the violin seem a little buggy


~We're not here for long, we're here for fun~

Hi there fellow Swede
$1500 for this site... Took a look under "Kompositioner" and if the other links will resemble that one when it comes to content, you are selling yourself cheap.

With him wanting a backend where he can update stuff, this is a prime candidate for a MySQL database and some PHP... (or similar).

You said you've put 100 hours into it so far, my guess is that you probably have at least that much left is he's so picky. Then you need to add the admin backend to that.

That will end up to 1500/200= $7,5/hour (appr 75 kr/tim).

I really hope that you don't need to pay 47% in business-taxes and then an additional 30% in income-tax on those $7,5...
(yup, that's how it is in Sweden...)

I don't think I'd do this under $15-$20/hour if it's pocket-cash on the side, if it's a real contract on a company, probably around $60/h to cover all taxes 'n stuff.

On the back-end:

quote:

---

Next question:
I suck when it comes to javascripts and forms, but I have an idea about making the updating for him with a form page. You know, like when you fill in a guestbook.
* Maybe a pulldown menu to choose which page he wants to add text to.
* One field for Title that will come out as bold text
* another field for the text.
* A submit button that loads the text directly to the right page online.
Would this work? And what if he wants to remove text from a page? Is there a better or easier way of doing this, without me having to learn ALL about programming C++, javascripts, DHTML, and so on? I still have to read up alot about the scripts and forms I am currently working with...

---

Will this work?
Well, sort of. You can't do this with javascript & forms directly, that way the content would only live on the page while you are viewing it. The way you do it is to have the form-setup, on submit you sent the data from the froms to the server that stores the data either in a file, or in a database. The page that will show the content grabs it from the file/database on the server, then pass the HTML on to the browser.

Do a post in the server-side forum on the back-end and we'll help you out there, use this for the client-side stuff. Every thing in it's proper place
/Dan

{cell 260}
-{ a vibration is a movement that doesn't know which way to go }-

Thanks all for all good help!
WebShaman: heheh It was actually almost like you described. "My post is closed? What did I do wrong now? Did I write something offensive??? Oh, wrong place, just moved my site... Oh, not here either? Changed again? Gosh!" Actually very amusing. Was happy to see that y'all answered. Thanks again.

Morph: Nah, you visited the original, "bad" site. I didn't make that one. I hope you understood that from reading my first post. Yes, it is goofy and messy. Personally I hate it. The one I started working with is the second link in my message: this one.

Trigger, CPrompt, DmS: Thanks for the advice. I already looked into the PHP-scripting, since I checked with the webhost what they offered. They offer a bunch of services as free guestbook and stuff. Me and my more-into-programming-boyfriend checked the PHPs they have, and figured we can use one of their scripts and transform it into a well functioning update site for Rolf's website. I make the layout and my boyfriend makes the programming in PHP. heh
Thanks for the Gurus Network link. That will be a great help!

And also, DmS: Hej! Great to see there are more Swedes here. Yes, I realize the payment Rolf has suggested is maybe a little too low, even if it will be "pocket payment". If he can't pay me more I will have to ask him for a few composing lessons. I did some composing before. Haven't had much time for that lately...
To clarify for you none-Swedes: 1500 dollars is about the same as 15000 Swedish kronor, and that is the suggested payment.

The huge amount of documents is because of music comments, lyrics, ordering addresses and so on, on many pop-up windows that are planned to be in the site. It is an approximate number. Haven't counted how many windows there will be.

I will come back and tell you how the work progresses. Thanks!

Kasta sten i glashus? Jag?

[This message has been edited by Kartis Shone (edited 06-27-2002).]

By the way, since my original post has different subjects, and the answers to my questions may be of other arts than DHTML/Javascript topic, I guess this post may be moved again.
I will be better at selecting the right topic, and also tighten my questions in the future.

Kasta sten i glashus? Jag?