Sean's website design and webmaster help pages

Free javascript advent calendar for your website

Help your visitors count down to Christmas with this free and easily customised javascript advent calendar for your website. Each door could hide videos, songs, games, books, or software. There are basic controls to stop people opening doors early.

The script includes instructions so you can customise the image, the layout of the doors and what's behind each one.

Making your website accessible

I've been interested in accessibility since 2000, when I wrote one of the first mainstream articles about it in the UK for Internet Magazine. Here's a selection of my articles on accessibility:

3D Text maker

Here's a free program to make 3D text for your website, including text that looks like the image to the right. It's a cut down demonstration version of the Xara 3D software, which enables you to create headlines and titles for your site with three-dimensional effects and animation.

Designing for Opera Nintendo DS Browser

Opera has released a web browser for Nintendo's DS and DS Lite handheld games units. I've created a site for the browser, including some Javascript games. In this article, I'll share what I've learned about the browser from a webdesign perspective, including tips on making websites that will be easy for NDS surfers to use.

Kickbacks for clickbacks: Boost your sales with affiliate marketing

Affiliate programmes give you access to top-notch promoters at low risk. They're experienced, daring and only paid for successful sales. Isn't it time you tapped in to the web's greatest sales resource? This comprehensive introduction to affiliate marketing is written for website promoters, but also includes handy hints for advertising hosts.

Count on me: an introduction to web analytics

You need to know how your business is doing and need to find someone who will give it to you straight. Who can you count on? There's a growing range of companies and technologies that will help you to quantify your website's performance and - more importantly - help you improve it, as Sean McManus reports in this introduction to web analytics.

If Goya had learned Javascript

It's a little known - and somewhat made-up - fact that the artist Goya was working on a Javascript rollover demonstration. Here, he shows you what he wanted to do with his painting 'La Maja Vestida' and gives you some advice on creating Javascript rollovers for your own site.

Create a favicon.ico for your site

Curious about how to customise the icon shown with your website address or are you here because your server reports that favicon.ico is the most popular missing file on your site? I'll tell you how to make a favourites icon (favicon.ico) that appears with your website address, alongside your title when it's bookmarked and on the desktop when a shortcut to your site is placed there.

Castle Fictoria - website design exercise

Want to learn website design, but struggling to think of what to put in your first website? Here's the solution. I've created a brochure for a fictional hotel called Castle Fictoria. It provides plenty of material (including pictures) for a website of about five pages.

Create a custom 404 error page

What happens if people follow a broken link on your site or arrive at an obsolete page? Unhelpful server errors will prompt them to give up on your site, but you can replace them with pages that will bring them into your site to explore further.

Read my tutorial on creating a custom 404 error page.

3D webdesign

It's no mistake that we store our work in 'folders' and navbars are designed with 'buttons'. Metaphors from the real world make computers easier to use. So when it comes to navigating websites, what could be more intuitive than a 3D environment that you appear to walk through? See my 3D Web design examples covering technologies including VRML, 3DML, Java panoramic photos and 3D photo albums.

Writing for your website

"The words on a website are the most important single element on the site because the content is the reason users are visiting the site in the first place," says usability expert Jakob Nielsen. Read my guide to writing for the web, one of my resources for journalists, for tips on making your words work harder.

Small Business Websites that Work: Get online to grow your company

My book 'Small Business Websites That Work' explains what makes a successful small business website, how your website can increase your profits and the most common mistakes the avoid. It explains what business managers need to know to work effectively with the website design team.

"...many small businesses are still hazy about the web and what makes a good website...this always leads to trouble...Sean McManus' book is a down-to-earth guide to the ins and outs of an effective small business website... If you have a client whose knowledge - or rather, lack of it - is causing problems, then consider buying this for them."
- Cre@te Online Magazine, March 2002

Javascript tutorials and free Javascripts

Download the Javascript Gamelib - this toolkit by Scott Porter makes it easier to write Javascript Games
Javascript Smart Marketing Toolkit - make your site more responsive with these tools for managing cookies, reacting to times and dates and cycling banner adverts
Syndication scripts - promote your website by syndicating its content to other sites. This tutorial shows how.
Javascript include file creator - takes the hard work out of making Javascript syndication files
Free navigation Javascripts - menus, keypress control and more using a dash of Javascript
Daily Background changer (obsolete) - make your website's background change colour each day of the week with this mildly daft script
Javascript delay / wait / pause script - want to set something to happen after a delay or want to pause the program? See this concise guide and naughty script.
Advent calendar script - count down to Christmas with this advent calendar script

Website design tutorials and resources

Website admin and maintenance tutorials and resources

Website promotion tutorials and resources

Windows tip of the day

Software is so sophisticated nowadays that few people know how to use it fully. I'm hosting a software tip of the day courtesy of Nerdy Books which will give you ideas for using Microsoft Windows and applications like Word and Excel more efficiently. Pop in regularly to polish your PC skills.

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