Jenn the Recruit has 87 comments 
Christina the Novice has 28 comments A Little Help For An Old School HTML Based Web Designer
Feb 26, 2010
This is just a very brief post to satisfy my curiosity and determine how those who code their website freehand begin. So when you’re coding a new theme for your website (assuming you use WordPress of course), what method do you utilize to sort things out in CSS and establish a base to progress from?
The reason I ask is because, while I am starting to get the gists of CSS, once I start to code freehand, I get a bit overwhelmed so I’m trying to look for suggestions or tips as to how to go about constructing a theme without having a nervous breakdown because I’ve lost the direction I was attempting to head in. Ideas, suggestions, comments? Highly appreciated and needed. Thanks!
Also on a very brief note, my next blog will be a review on my new phone, the MyTouch.
Feb 27, 2010
I guess part of my problem is if I can’t see what the code is actually doing, then I start to lose my direction as to how I want the theme to turn out. Though I like your suggestion about using two files to code. Originally, I had attempted to code the CSS first and that didn’t go well. Now if I can only find a way to view how my theme is being effected without constantly having to upload and refresh…
Feb 27, 2010
Thats why I always use just a .html file when I’m building the theme. Since relatively all my pages look the same, I build it in one .html file so I don’t have to upload to look at it. Then once I’ve got it looking how I want, I break it down into the WP theme files (comments.php, header.php, etc) and upload. Then if I have any tweaking to do I just do it through WordPress. For things like plugins, I just copy the html they generate from my current site’s source and use those since the plugins won’t randomly start generating a new code with the new theme.
Also, if you wanted to work with .php extensions, you could think about installing a PHP environment on your computer. Then you wouldn’t have to upload. Theoretically you could install WordPress as a local copy. I know a program that works REALLY well for that and includes MySQL support. Basically it turns a www folder on your computer into a virtual server that you can test things on.