It started with one business owner, who did not know how to build a website. In just one hour the client had a brand new website – all done and live!
Thus LiveBuild™ was born and is becoming a big hit with business owners of all sizes. We build the website for them while they watch from their own place. They can make suggestions so we tweak the content and design as needed, and at the same time they learn how to update and maintain the website on their own.
Feedback is incredibly positive. Clients are enjoying the experience tremendously, and several new websites have already gone live this way. Watch the video bellow, it'll give you an idea of what happens during an actual LiveBuild session.
Don't have a Your Web Department website?
Get started and don't pay until you go live! www.yourwebdepartment.com
Gustavo Jabbaz started his digital career as a designer and then became a developer and these days spends most of his time as a digital marketer. A founding partner of Your Web Department, he's responsible for day-to-day operations, marketing and development strategy. He is who you talk to when you need support with SEO and/or Social Media. Gustavo Jabbaz on Google+ | Twitter
You should attend this FREE webinar if any of the following statements are true:
I can't control my own website. I have to request changes, wait and pay for them.
I got one of those free websites but they are too simple, not enough features, no technical support and I really want something that matches my brand.
I have an old website. It doesn't work any more. In fact, it's probably hurting my business. I need to change it asap.
I want someone to take care of the entire website design and transfer, but I want to manage it myself. I want a one-stop-shop.
What you’ll learn:
How easy it is to manage content using Your Web Department.
How we approach building a fool-proof website.
The secret of making a great website.
How to treat your website like an employee so it actually gets results.
How to measure the performance of your website.
How to set up the mobile version of your website.
Yes, we'll take questions!
Flavio Mester is a graphic designer as well as a systems analyst (in a distant life he was an architect). A founding partner of Your Web Department, he's responsible for the design and development of all the YWD website management platform interfaces. Flavio Mester on Google+ | Twitter | LinkedIn
Whenever someone ‘likes’ one of your blog posts, Facebook will by default pick any image from the page and place it on the person’s wall. It can be an advertiser’s logo or some undesired interface element with no relation to your post. So we wanted to give our clients more control.
You can now select exactly which image you’d like Facebook to use when you create or edit a blog post for your YWD website. It can be any image stored in your Assets Manager. This way when people ‘like’ your stuff on Facebook, the image you chose is the one that will appear on their walls. Neat, huh?
What about Pinterest?
The same feature works for Pinterest, but currently people need to rollover the “More” button in order to select Pinterest and pin a blog image. However, very soon we’ll be adding a separate Pinterest button. We'll keep you posted – as long as you keep checking this blog, of course ;^)
Can this feature be used on regular pages?
Within a few days you'll be able to choose the preferred image for the page as a whole (any page).
Hey, would you like to 'like' this post to check out this new feature? Then please go ahead!
Flavio Mester is a graphic designer as well as a systems analyst (in a distant life he was an architect). A founding partner of Your Web Department, he's responsible for the design and development of all the YWD website management platform interfaces. Flavio Mester on Google+ | Twitter | LinkedIn
You don't need to know anything about CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) in order to design a great website using the YWD platform. All the formatting is generated for you from your choices in YWD Designer. But there may be instances where you may want to extend or even override YWD's settings, and if you know your CSS that could be handy...
YWD Designer does CSS too!
A new pane in YWD Designer called Custom CSS under Tools / Advanced settings lets you write or paste CSS definitions directly into a field. You can add your own classes and even override our own if you want; your code will be inserted globally into all pages, after the CSS that's automatically generated by YWD Designer.
An example
This client wanted a “Horizontal Thin Share combo” widget to appear at the bottom of all pages. Simple: you just select that in YWD Designer / Social media & widgets / Social bookmarking. However, this added extra space at the bottom, which they didn't want:
So we added some CSS to make it "float" in the page footer, outside of the content area where it would normally appear:
Our CSS is then added to pages, after all the "regular" CSS generated by YWD Designer.
Other ways to insert CSS
If your website includes the Embed Code tool you can also add CSS to any specific page. And you can use the Source mode of the Word Processor to insert CSS into an individual content block. Check out this page on the YWD Help for details.
Flavio Mester is a graphic designer as well as a systems analyst (in a distant life he was an architect). A founding partner of Your Web Department, he's responsible for the design and development of all the YWD website management platform interfaces. Flavio Mester on Google+ | Twitter | LinkedIn
In Your Web Department clients upload and insert images on their own, and sometimes they may not fit within the page layout. Also as more people are creating a mobile-optimized version of their website we wanted to make their lives easier by taking care of any sizing issues for them.
Limiting the size of images while uploading
People often don’t realize their photos can be too big for their website. Even if they manually resize them in our Word Processor, they cause the page to be slow. Also, Windows browsers do a bad job of resizing images on the fly.
So when images are being uploaded to YWD's Assets Manager they're automatically resized to a maximum of 1200 pixels (either width or height) while keeping the same proportions, and only then added.
However, sometimes you may need to upload a larger image – e.g. a big textured background. You can change the 1200px default in YWD Designer / Layout / Page / Images, special – Auto-resize images when uploading.
Shrinking content images so they fit
Limiting the size will still let people insert an image that’s kosher to upload, yet too wide to fit within the page layout. For instance, you could upload a 900px wide photo and then insert it on a page whose main column is just 700 pixels wide. Or it may fit on computers, but not on mobile, with its 320px viewport.
So YWD provides an additional setting in YWD Designer / Page / Images, special -Shrink content images so they fit?:
Mobile devices only
The default and adequate in most cases. If an image is too wide for the mobile's viewport it shrinks to fit, while keeping the aspect ratio.
Yes for all devices
Same as above but it'll shrink on computers and tablets as well.
No shrinking on computers; limit the width on mobile devices
Computers and tablets are not affected; on mobile the width shrinks but the height remains the same (may cause distortions).
Keep in mind that if you choose either one of the first two options, manually resizing an image in the Word Processor will have no effect.
That's because YWD uses CSS (if you're familiar with it we're setting both the width and height to 100% of the image's container) which will override any manual resizing done in the Word Processor.
A mobile example
Check out this blog post on both your computer and mobile and you’ll see the latter images on the fly so they fit the viewport. We use responsive design techniques to apply the “shrinking approach” only to the specified device.
In addition, YWD makes avatar pictures smaller on mobile. You can choose to display avatar images or not (YWD uses Gravatar, the most popular and free avatar service) in blog post headers in YWD Designer / Tools / Blog Headers.
Flavio Mester is a graphic designer as well as a systems analyst (in a distant life he was an architect). A founding partner of Your Web Department, he's responsible for the design and development of all the YWD website management platform interfaces. Flavio Mester on Google+ | Twitter | LinkedIn
Govan Brown is an established leader in the construction management industry in Canada, where they're recognized for its efficiency in the management of complex construction projects. With headquarters in Toronto and offices in Calgary, Vancouver, Victoria and Ottawa, the company has approximately 131 field and office staff and completes about $150 - $190 million a year of corporate office interiors and base building projects.
Govan's website is entirely built and maintained using the Your Web Department platform and contains hundreds of pages. Photography plays an important role in keeping the website fresh and engaging, and they make abundant use of it. Here are a few examples taken from www.govanbrown.com:
Flavio Mester is a graphic designer as well as a systems analyst (in a distant life he was an architect). A founding partner of Your Web Department, he's responsible for the design and development of all the YWD website management platform interfaces. Flavio Mester on Google+ | Twitter | LinkedIn
You can now select exactly which image you’d like Facebook to use when you create or edit a blog post for your YWD website. It can be any image stored in your Assets Manager. This way when people ‘like’ your stuff on Facebook, the image you chose is the one that will appear on their walls. Neat, huh?
