Looking to make a custom template

Hey!  So I'm interested in designing my own template with Blogger and I am not too sure how to go about making it.

I want to kind of do something that looks more like a web site instead of a blog and was wondering if anyone can help me talk this out.

hellocookie

[not]

He hellocookie,

(Me again ... but I am not stalking you ...  )

To begin with: designing and building are of course 2 different entities.

Skipping the designing process for a moment: when you want to build a 'web-site-like' site I think a CMS like Wordpress (self hosted) is a much more obvious choice, as opposed to Blogspot.

A 'web-site-like' site will plausibly contain an index page and a few more static pages/parts, where maybe one part contains a blog. Pretty common, but not an easy job with Blogspot. That CMS doesn't work with static pages, only with post pages.

Both systems do have a learning curve, of course: (X)HTML and CSS knowledge is essential for both ... for Blogspot you have to know some XML ... for Wordpress a bit PHP.

There are many many many tutorials for both systems: some (very) good, many more mediocre or even completely useless.

Err ... not meant to discourage you. Building your own templates is, or can be, very very satisfactory!!!

You could start with an idea, some sketches and/or drawn structures. And show them here.

Maybe (I hope) members here can tell you if building your ideas in Blogspot is possible ... and assist you in that building process.

Just a suggestion, of course.

Regards.

Thur

Hahaha stalk away, whenever you "stalk" me, you're always uber helpful, so ya!   

I'm thinking of purchasing the domain name for my site, would that help things a bit more (like if I needed to transfer to a different host)?  The graphic aspect of it is easier for me, since I only know basic HTML and CSS is completely lost on me, but ya.  Hmmmm...  Ahh.  Maybe I'll try and come up with some graphics and go from there.

With blogger, is it possible to over the boundaries of the page, like for my Art Libs blog, tons of space on the left hand side is used up for nothingness.  And also, is it possible to make a banner that's bigger than 660x150??  Or whatever the dimensions are?

hellocookie

[width:960px;]

would that help things a bit more

Absolutely, if you want to try for instance a self-hosted Wordpress site!

With blogger, is it possible to over the boundaries of the page, like for my Art Libs blog, tons of space on the left hand side is used up for nothingness.

Yes, you are using the standard (beautiful) MINIMA template. It is easy to change the width of header, post section and sidebar.

And also, is it possible to make a banner that's bigger than 660x150??

So, yes. (Click the image for the testpage.)



The altered values are:

---------------------------------------------------------------

#header-wrapper {
width:960px;
margin:0 auto 10px;
border:1px solid #cccccc;
}

#header {
margin: 5px;
border: 0px solid #cccccc;
text-align: center;
color:#002E3F;
}

#outer-wrapper {
width: 960px;
margin:0 auto;
padding:10px;
text-align:left;
font: normal normal 100% Georgia, Serif;
}

#main-wrapper {
width: 710px;
float: left;
word-wrap: break-word;
overflow: hidden;
}

<img alt='Art Libs' height='150' id='Header1_headerimg' src='http://.../hellocookie.jpg' style='display: block' width='950'/>

---------------------------------------------------------------

Or you can add another sidebar on the left. There are thousands out there offering a 3-column Minima!

Hmmm ... I pottered some thingies myself  :



Is this anything near your questions?

Thur

Ahh thank you!  That's amazing!  Also, as a random note, on Freshly Scented, you got 2 out of 3 right!!   

hellocookie