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You’ve probably seen some amazing sites on the Internet and wondered how the web developer created a particular element of the site. This article covers what to do when you find something that is very cool on another person’s website and want to use it. This article is not a guide to stealing other people’s work. People work very hard on building amazing Internet sites, and it would be unethical for you to steal their work and claim it as your own. But there are ways to learn how the web developer created the content, and by learning their methods you can create your own spectacular content.
Viewing Code from Other Websites
If you find a website that has something on it that you like, you can always look at that website’s code. There’s nothing illegal or unethical about this. In fact, it’s like opening up the hood of a car and looking at how the engine works. Any site on the Internet allows you to see the source code. To view a page’s source, follow these steps:
1. Open a page in a browser.
2. From the View Menu, choose Page Source.
This displays the whole page’s text and is useful if you want to see how the whole page is constructed. If you are interested in only a portion of the page, there are tools, which are described later in this article, to help with this.
One of the great advantages of the Firefox browser is the opportunity to use add-ons. Several Firefox add-ons are available for web development. The Firefox browser has been embraced by the web development community, and that community has created, and will keep creating, interesting add-ons for Firefox. These add-ons help you figure how other people’s websites work.
Badges
When I hear the word badges I immediately think about Boy Scouts. As a Boy Scout, I tried to get as many badges as I could with an almost fanatical devotion. Websites can have badges too. A website badge is simply a small piece of code and graphic you put on your website to show affiliation with another website. It is like a small, graphical hyperlink. The reason you add a badge to your website is to show affiliation. So if you have a WordPress site or use MySQL, it is a nice thing for you to add a badge for those things. There are two things to keep in mind with badges. First, don’t overwhelm your site with gaudy or large badges. This is the equivalent of wearing ostentatious jewelry. Second, don’t overwhelm your visitors with a huge number of badges. Having too many badges on your website is like having too many Christmas lights on your house. Don’t be that house and don’t be that website. With Web 2.0 websites, there are new kinds of badges that actually contain content. For example, if you have a Twitter account, you might want to add the Twitter badge on your site. Twitter is a microblogging website that lets you blog 140 characters at a time. If you have the Twitter badge, when you post to Twitter it automatically shows up on your Twitter badge. Most of the Web 2.0 websites will tell you how to add one of these more complicated badges.
Templates
You can also find website and web page templates on the Internet. These are pre-designed web pages that you customize with your content. Again, there are literally millions of these on the Internet, covering a wide range of color schemes and content types. There are generally two categories of free web templates: generic templates and application-specific templates. Generic templates are website or web page templates that can be used with any website creation tool. They usually just contain the basic HTML file and some basic graphics. The easiest way to find these templates is to Google free web page template or free website template. If you are using a specific program to create a web page, you might want to search on the Internet for templates specific for your application. Just add the name of your application to the search terms mentioned in the preceding paragraph to find application-specific templates.
If there are millions of websites on the Internet, there must be a lot of people developing those websites. These people like to talk to each other. This socializing is good for more than just finding friends. It can be excellent for networking ideas and information about website developments. Developer network sites are websites where you can find a solution to a problem or question you might have regarding web development. You can be assured that you will find someone willing to share their solution or ideas with you. Connecting to other web developers in these communities enables you to share your experiences. These folks obviously have something in common with you (they are also developing websites), so do your part and share your knowledge as well.