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Creating a website - detailed example with template

In this tutorial we describe in detail how to create a website. We give an example of a fictitious website that is created from an included template.

Although CollectAny can generate 'ASPX' files, which are more for experienced wed developers, it can also create a website from pure 'HTML' files, which makes it very easy, even for a beginner.

HTML files represent the simplest type of web pages. They are what are called 'static' meaning the user doesn't interact with them and the content is just displayed and nothing else. However they can still give visually rich content.

The template has been created to give beginners a head-start when creating a website and it could actually be all that's needed if you just want something relatively simple.

The example we've given (created using the template) is of a fictitious model plane club. It's purely to demonstrate how the website has been created. The example is here :

The South Mobold RC Biplane Club Website

To create your own CollectionSet from the template, simple download the template then in the app select 'File>New CollectionSet from Template' and follow the simple guidance.

Here are some points to note :

• Styles have been set per page. You can modify the styles as you wish once you've created your own CollectionSet from this template.

• This is just a guide template and you can obviously create a new CollectionSet modified to your liking and needs.

• The website settings demonstrate how you can link to sub-collections in two different ways: 'Link to sub-things' (the name of each sub-collection is given as a hyperlink on the parent page and the child page contains the 'sub-things') and 'Link to Thing Details' (the 'thing' identity is shown as a hyperlink on the parent page and the child page is dedicated to that Thing and it's details) . See the photo above. It makes more sense when you see it in action.

• The website settings also demonstrate what is called a 'nesting limit'. When 'things' are displayed for a collection, any 'sub-things' are also displayed. This is called 'nesting' and you can have many layers and levels of nesting. The 'nesting limit' tells CollectAny that you only want to display Things up to a certain limit of nesting. You want whatever is beyond that limit to be displayed as separate, hyperlinked webpages. This is very useful for breaking the data up into manageable webpages, putting lower level detail on separate pages so the reader isn't swamped with information.

Although the concepts here might feel alien at first they are very powerful and perhaps the easiest way to see the differences is to just experiment. CollectAny generates webpages very quickly so it takes no time at all to play around with different settings. It's handy to generate the webpages then just refresh your browser to see the results.

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