[Shenlug] A proposal re website design (Long)

[Harvey Ussery]

I have concluded I need some professional help doing the update of my 
website.

List members, espec Ricky and David, have generously made helpful 
suggestions (and I have checked out symfony and django), but I am way 
past my target date for the update and still slipping and sliding trying 
to climb too many new learning curves. I would like to find someone 
willing to work with me on a professional basis. ("Professional" meaning 
guaranteeing results for an agreed fee.)

My current website is

www.themodernhomestead.us

The update involves:

1) Addition of a great deal of new content, with lots more to be added 
in the future.

2) A tripling or quadrupling of the number of major topic areas, 
sections, subsections.

3) An intuitive, redundant nav system along the lines of what you see at

http://themodernhomestead.us/testx/testpage.html

including the addition of the breadcrumb trail under the main nav bar up 
top. (The version of the left navbar you see there is only what you'd 
see on the home page. On all other pages, the left navbar will be about 
nav'ng within the current section/subsection only.)

Note that I experimented with a drop-down menu

http://themodernhomestead.us/testx/test-float.html

but it was based on some javascript I ripped off somewhere. I don't 
understand the java, so wasn't able to resolve some prob's the script 
seemed to be creating elsewhere, so I abandoned it. But drop-downs like 
that would certainly be useful in generating a better nav system.

4) Addition of lots of images including clickable thumbnails on all 
pages. Reducing load time will be a particular concern wi the added 
images. Working w images in a web context is totally new to me.

I have mastered the html and css coding to make compliant pages and 
stylesheets that validate as strict xhtml--that's not the problem. The 
problem is that building new pages w/out some sort of templating engine 
in place is taking *forever*--I'm re-coding the internal links on each 
new page by hand. But everywhere I turn for templating tools, entry 
level seems to require working knowledge of apache, php, python, Mysql, 
the list goes on. I'm going to have to defer some of those learning 
curves in favor of pushing to get the new site up *now*.

If you would be interested in working with me--or know someone who might 
be--please be in touch privately using contact info below so I can tell 
you more about what I need and we can discuss a budget for the project 
and a projected schedule. I'm interested in using open source tools, 
styling using css. (I talked w a friend who designs websites but she 
uses Frontpage and designs based on tables, and I'm not sure how her 
solutions would marry with my use of open source tools and css.) I want 
help getting a framework in place to automate much of the grunt work of 
creating new pages (as opposed to designing the look and feel per 
se)--after that, I can handle content creation.

Hope someone can help with this project. Thanks.

~Harvey
huboxwood at earthlink.net
540-364-1877