[Wolf]

This is a question which I've always wondered for those of you who make sexy templates and skins.

Who taught you how to code? Or was it all self taught? w3schools ftw Did you take any graphics/web/computer design classes (or whatever they're called)?

For me, it was all based on trial and error and a lot of online tutorials. Never formally learnt how to code. You could probably tell from the shit I create hahaha. I actually entered the world of HTML coding via neopets.

[katya]

I started when I was 13, because I wanted a nice blogspot blog. I used Lissa Explains, which I still think does a damn fine job teaching basic html. I started using photoshop at around the same time because I got a drawing tablet from my parents for bday, so I needed a program for that. Back then, there weren't good free alternatives like SAI. I had one of my friends do most banners and graphics (she ended up going to art school), so I never really developed any graphics skillz. For my high school summers, I had a graphic design job, but I mostly made posters and pamphlets--that's probably why I'm really keen on text readability. I've done a couple magazine covers, but that's the artsiest I've ever gotten. I've always liked to offload site banners onto someone else.

I started really small. Forum skins can be complex, but a blog (especially back then) just needed a banner of some sort, and then you coded a sidebar and main text area. I made simple sites for rp stuff. It was mostly AIM/pbem back then, so I needed a place to hold my character profiles and archive my threads.

Basically, I didn't learn coding overnight lol. It's really easy to pick up when you're super young, and I probably have the sort of mind that's naturally good at coding (I'm very rational). Fast forward five years, and writing code is basically the same as writing what I want down in English. Making a skin is more akin to writing an essay--not fun or painless, but not that hard.

Learning design's a lot harder than learning to code imo.

[Antiviral]

No one specifically taught me how to code, but I did get a lot of help from other coders in the form of me totally ripping apart their code to figure things out.

I will freely admit that in my early days most of my codes were frankenstein'd from other codes. I'm very much a visual learner, and it's one thing to tell me that if you do x and y with this div, in this sterile environment (ala w3schrools) it's one thing, but it doesn't really show me how it might interact with other codes.

Even still, if there's something I want to do, I'll look at codes where other people have done similar in order to see how it works in practice. Though, I've become much more savvy to how rude it is to just copy paste other people's codes, and try to make mine from scratch using theirs just as a reference.

[SIFR]

Honestly? Truth be told? I took a lot of premade skins and studied them. I altered numbers to see how it would affect the board. I even studied the default skin: it actually has a lot of information such as their stuff like $user. I read the code and placed where it was in the design.

As for design, I know what I DON'T like in designs. I know what's an immediate turn-off, and I do the opposite.

[trash witch]

I'm extremely awful at coding but have the basics down due to studying other people's templates. Mainly beekeeper tbh, plus she'd answer any questions I had about specific codes ect ect.

Design is the easy part tbh.

[Egao, Egao Everywhere]

I did some dohtml back when I was 14. Templates wasn't a thing then. I just made tables for Pokemon-related stuff. I was familiar but I couldn't have whipped up a template back then.

Then I got into proboards and started making templates. katya was my Q&A along with nachtmare. I peeked at other templates too.

I've always known how to code - like, C++ and stuff because of school. CSS though, yeah, I got into it because of PB RP.

Generally, it's self-taught. Coding - as in, working with the computer language - is trial and error AND research. Someone can teach you but like any language, you have to constantly practice it. The method of trial and error is effective because you get to learn the hard way.

[GARDEN]

i taught myself. i started off with PB coding and then transitioned into skins after a while. i didn't really look at people's codes, unless it was something i didn't understand and i wanted to know how they got a certain affect. but i never like... looked at the whole code.

design tho is something entirely different like yo fuck design ok. i look at the stuff of people i like for ideas, but also various other design sources like... business cards, resumes, ect. ect. design is the hardest part of coding, especially if you wanna get elaborate but you're like "i have no idea how to do this"

[Egao, Egao Everywhere]

Dec 17, 2014 2:50:16 GMT -8 GARDEN said:

design tho is something entirely different like yo fuck design ok. i look at the stuff of people i like for ideas, but also various other design sources like... business cards, resumes, ect. ect. design is the hardest part of coding, especially if you wanna get elaborate but you're like "i have no idea how to do this"

yeah design is the hardest. while coding is the language, design is like writing. I always google image up some designs for ideas. Of course, I never actually copy. Just absorbing what I can learn.

[Starry Neko]

I started a very long time ago. It was actually for PB forums because most friends knew I was somewhat of a quick learner, so they decided to 'take me under their wing'. Once I outgrew their knowledge in a matter of a month or two (As they were new as well) I took it upon myself to learn newer and better things. I do everything I can to learn something new- and eventually take knowledge to something I loathe more than not.

I finished my web design classes years later, ahead of schedule and with completely handwritten code. It wasn't good- but it wasn't bad, and I didn't have a reliance on dreamweaver which all my other classmates seemed to be stuck on. Only one other student that I knew of wrote the CSS by hand instead of letting Dreamweaver code it. Because of this- I have a reliance on what I know and what I love. I personally want to grow in the art for years to come because obviously I'm nowhere near 'good'.

Dec 17, 2014 2:50:16 GMT -8 GARDEN said:

design tho is something entirely different like yo fuck design ok. i look at the stuff of people i like for ideas, but also various other design sources like... business cards, resumes, ect. ect. design is the hardest part of coding, especially if you wanna get elaborate but you're like "i have no idea how to do this"

Design, is my bane. A lot of more modern designs bother the living crap out of me. I don't like modern houses, I don't care for a lot of modern art, and I'm much more cynical. I'm the person who goes to antique stores and would rather build their house out of clashing knicknacks- so obviously my style is non-existent. I would love to find more 'examples' of what's more common out there web-site design wise because I was never exposed to it. Even if I dislike it, it's good to find new styles to expose yourself to so you can learn from it and take what you do like from it and put it forward. In other words, someone tell me how to google find these pretty things to look at.

[NEVER]

invictus. beekeeper (indirectly, i would basically just rip open her codes and look at them), and then redox-kun to an extent, lmao.

i find that i learn better from doing, as opposed to a tutorial, so honestly i remember having a thread on test forum where i just would mess around with every tag and figure out what they all did. i remember i was so frustrated with [tr] tags and still am because i don't see their purpose grrr. you can't make more than one row :(

i used to code those post templates only for myself, the ones with the rounded edges and 5px borders...standard 3 icon, with two text boxes, one for notes and the other for the post. back when those things were popular, lol...

hovers came from beekeeper as well, she'd answer the occasional question i had, and had a tutorial i looked at.

also, my biggest problem is colors. i feel like i'm in an endless cycle of a greyscale scheme with one accent...that's p frustrating. working on it tho.

[Kuroya]

Welp. This is a bit of a loaded question for me. Um. I first learned coding by ripping up templates that were made by someone I'm really not gonna talk about because if she is on GS, I don't want to know after what happened between us, but I'll leave it at that.

Either way, I had her templates, and I learned how to code first by manipulating them and then by ripping them up. It didn't really click though until I started looking at Hiro's coding on the site we were both on. But that was when it really did. I started breaking away from tables and doing everything with divs. They were, and still are, my baby.

I first learned hovers in much the same way. We had the really old v4 classy styles and it took me three tries to realize what it was, and I don't think it was really until I learned what css was that it clicked that classes were basically individual css. Once I did though, which was done by looking at one person's templates in particular whose name I'm not going to mention, this time because I just don't know if they're in the RP world or GS in particular... I was unstoppable.

Then I sort of really hit my high last year when I opted for a web design class instead of AP Psych. Granted, my design is shifty at best since, like I always say, I can't design a whole page well. I can give you a good navigation, I can give you a nice banner area, but I choke somewhere. Even in that class I did. But that was where I relearned how to do tables and abuse the properties of them rather than flat out use divs and possibly mess yourself up. I still use divs a lot, but I put my styles where they need to go to work. Which usually means as few newclasses as possible since I hate when the code doesn't work right on mobile. Newclass really should be the bare minimum for what you need for the template to do what you need (text and background colors if the class is actually on the site css for skin color purposes and any hover effects) and nothing else, though that is a personal styling choice few coders seem to agree with.

Funnily enough though, we learned jQuery in that class, which is actually what a lot of v5 skinning uses. So I actually learned something worthwhile for my RP/coding life in my high school education. So between that and looking at some coding every now and again from Dorothia to get an idea for how things convert from pure html to board values (ie, placeholder text to the actual board description value, how to duplicate the board, side by side board coding, etc) and I think one or two questions asked here on GS and Support that were answered by @trinity, I'm a Melon, and Starry Neko... I learned how to code templates. I say templates because of the skins I coded myself, one of them I never finished technically because I ragequit, one beekeeper ended up finishing for me, and one was so badly messed up from an attempt at colors that I scrapped it before I released it.

So yeah there you go. That's how I learned how to code. Whether or not it's good is up for debate - I took a year of Literary Magazine and what I learned gives me a bit of help, but I really don't think I have an eye for colors or design. Hence why I'll likely never be a skinner, just someone who makes bits and pieces like mini-profiles and board mods and info centers. Which then annoys the original coder for "warping the design" (which is why I usually pick the skins I do, the coder I usually use had told me she doesn't mind me ripping out large parts and replacing them as I need to or want to).

But yeah. That's how I learned to code, still learning how to design beyond just adding and changing skins to fit a site's needs.

[I'm a Melon]

Alright, I know that like I'm not the best out there or anything but I felt like answering this! Okay, so like when v5 came out there was like NOTHING out for it and I got super pissed about it, and I used to mess with those like premade pet paged layouts on neopets so I had a little bit of knowledge from it, and at this point there were a lot of plugins and I started by just using those and messing with the wrapper a bit.

Then as skins started coming out I started to see the potential that v5 actually could do and started playing with those, and then eventually just started messing with stuff. Google is like my best friend that and leap. I guess I was self-taught in the end, but like most people I went and played around with skins until I could make my own.

[redox-kun]

everything i know about coding i basically know from tearing apart beekeeper codes and studying her designs

most of my designs are my own brainchildren tho. sometimes i'll go through the templates board to make sure the idea hasn't been used before

i'm trying to learn skinning once i suck up enough to my dad

[minnie]

self taught, basically. to be quite honest, once you struggle through the first 10% of learning to code, the other 90% is pretty self-explanatory - that is, unless you want to go in and tinker with jquery, etcetera. i learned all the basics through being self taught, and then for a few little tricks like 'oh how do i make this stay here but this one fluid,' etc, i used to pester my friends like jawn and rimy and GARDEN (love you bb).

as far as design goes, i one hundred percent agree with garden. every skinner's design aesthetic is their own, and you can't really 'learn' design from others. i do think in the earlier days my skins were very much rimy-inspired, however, because she was the skinner whose skins i mainly looked at and learned from, so i followed her typical sidebar image skins until i grew out of it and into my own.

i honestly think coding is ridiculously easy for the most part (unless you wanna start doing cooler stuff but i'm always content to just sit with the easy things bc I think they're just as pretty), but it's the design part that's hard and separates skinners apart from what constitutes a 'good' skinner. when people say 'oh so-and-so is a good skinner,' it usually means that person has a good design aesthetic; you can be an exceptional coder and not a very good skinner, if you don't have the design to go with your amazing codes.

Dec 17, 2014 3:11:58 GMT -8 Egao, Egao Everywhere said:

while coding is the language, design is like writing. I always google image up some designs for ideas. Of course, I never actually copy. Just absorbing what I can learn.

SO well said. i can't agree with this enough - yes, yes, yes. just because you have very good grammar and vocabulary does not necessarily make you a lovely writer, yes, yes, this is so on point i adore it.

[beekeeper]

B)