14 replies to this topic

[reddevil]

I kinda like the design of the yahoo homepage, especially the "floating", "expandable" boxes and would like to redesign my site with a standard header & footer plus 3 floating, expandable boxes down the left menu column, and a "floating" expandable column on the right for my main content.

I could probably do it myself but am really pushed for time at the mo (long story of a temporary daddy-hood). I have searched the net for free templates with non-bloated coding, using css styling (with some tables would bo ok too) but cannot find a design similar to the one described above that I could tweak to my own preference.

Would anybody be able to recommend any good ones?

[lyn]

I've checked into this topic a few time wondering if anyone else would be able to point you to a site that actually offers "free templates" for CSS design.

Apparently not, so far.

As next best idea - maybe you could take a peek at some of the CSS tutorial sites for someone deomstrating the kind of layout you want. Then you could delete the content to create a template for yourself with just the div tags and stylesheet. I would expect a tutorial or demo page to be fairly stripped down, providing a fairly simple sample for you to work with.

Good luck. (I'll keep watching for a better idea here!)

L.

[Randy]

Well, I don't know of any free css template sites off the top of my head. Most of those free template sites always seem to offer a lot more table-based designs.

That said, all of Yahoo's CSS is in the source of their page. So one could probably review their code, strip it down a bit and construct something similar.

[meta]

CSS Zen Garden has many excellent CSS examples. You can use the examples as models for your own designs.

[reddevil]

There are many, many sites out there with free templates (and even more where you have to pay). Unfortunately a lot of them seem to be very flashy with lots of graphics and heavy coding which is not what I am looking for.

I checked out CSS Zen Garden and found that to have a reasonable selection of templates although I wish they would have a small screenshots so its not necessary to open each one individually.

The closest I have found to my idea (eg. text in boxes) is a very small site that allows you to copy the code and use on your own site. I am trying to manipulate it and have worked for a few hours to tweak it and still have more work to do yet.

Maybe there is a market for somebody to design a website with free simple templates - a sure money earner!!!!

In the meantime, I am still searching the www in case there is anything else close to what I would like and at the same time trying to use my limited coding skills to adjust the design so it looks like it does on the inside of my head

[Scottie]

Try Open Source Web Design. Quite a few of the templates there are CSS-based.

[maleman]

reddevil,

Can you expand on precisely what you mean by "expandable"?

Do you want the template to be a fixed width or do you want it to cover the entire screen at different resolutions, i.e. 100% width vs. 771px?

[reddevil]

By expandable, I mean the cell will increase in height depending on the amount of text or size of image inside it. I was finding it a problem coz I wanted three of these cells in my left menu but one only of the right menu.

I also prefer a fixed width layout. I know there are different arguments relating to whether fixed width is the best design choice but some of my pages have many one line short sentences and don't look so good in the higher resolutions and don't flow around the graphics.

[maleman]

I don't think you need to find a template for this project. I made a stretch (div widths in percent) template for your page last night after I read your post.

I'll play with it in a fixed width and get back later today, if you still need help.

[reddevil]

maleman,
thanks a lot - i've just pm'd you

[suzstephens]

ProjectSeven offers easily customizable CSS templates at a reasonable cost. They are Dreamweaver extensions and require a fairly recent version of Dreamweaver.

[eragon]

I've recently looked for new template designs. Here are a few of them. Some are generators, other are templates. All are free!

Open Source Web Design <-- Scottie already beat me to this one. But true: there are tons of designs here! This is where I found my latest design.
Web builder's tool kit
Little Boxes
Intensivstation
Rushsarian Layouts
CSS Creator
Glish.com

You're bound to find something you like at one of these.

[ewc21]

Wow, I kinda want to explore more about the link you provided, Meta. Thanks!

[justicewhite]

I also use htmldog.com. There are several guides as well as plenty of reference material.

[Necleto]

Hi,

I would like to add www.templatesbox.com/templates.htm to the list of web sites offering free templates.

They have a set of quite elaborated templates available there.

Necleto