Has anyone used pre-designed web templates?

[aj1974]

I'm thinking of purchasing a template from template monster.com?

Anything I should look out for or be aware of?

[Sam]

perhaps i'm missing something, but I'm failing to see anywhere on that site that sells web templates...

[aj1974]

It's www.templatemonster.com

[Sam]

Its hard to tell if they're any good or not, since they (understandably) won't let you see the source with out handing over some $. Do you happen to know of a site that actually uses one of these templates?

[aj1974]

You can click on the template of your choice and it gives you a bigger picture.

I'm thinking that they will work out good. I think a regular person with no webdesigning experience would have problems using templates. I have been messing around with websites since 2000, so I think it might work out for me since I know a descent amount of photoshop?

[Sam]

Based on the templatemoster site itself, (and assuming that the same people made that site that made the templates), I would be willing to go out on a limb and say the templates also suck.

[sharkey]

I have heard from people that they are inaccessible, use tables and have non semantic code but users will get blinded as some of the templates are veyr nice graphically.

Hope this helps

[aj1974]

It just seems like the background is a photoshop image and you would be able to use layout cells to insert text?

Another question; are layout cells just as bad as layout tables? Should I stay away from them as well.

I use Dreamweaver to design my sites.

[jeff_archer7]

not valid html (http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.templatemonster.com%2F) Ummm why would you buy from a company that can't even do its homepage right
sus css (http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/validator?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.templatemonster.com%2F&usermedium=all) They suck at CSS too....

keep away is my advice.....

the error list is huge click on the links above for w3C's opinion of their site

can only assume their templates are equaly as bad

[aj1974]

I checked out my websites with the validator, and they are not so good. I use "library" items in Dreamweaver for my navigation; so I can change the library item and it will update the whole site. It seems to mess up my html though?

I also still use Layout Tables instead of CSS.

Any suggestions?

It seems like I'm going to have to start over?

[PeOfEo]

Originally posted by aj1974
I checked out the websites with the validator, and they are not so good. I use "library" items in Dreamweaver for my navigation; so I can just change the library item and it will update the whole site. It seems to mess up my html?

I also still use Layout Tables instead of CSS.

Any suggestions?

It seems like I'm going to have to start over? My suggestion would be to stop using tables and start using css.... To keep some content the same on all pages, such as navigation, your best bet is a server side include if you have access to them.

[sharkey]

Also learn how to write semantic(meaningful)mark-up for example if you have paragraph of text mark it up as a paragraph.

[sharkey]

I was browsing the template monster site today that they have a small selection of css templates that may be of some use to you mate they should be cross browser and accessible but only one way to find out email them.