Hotglue

System design is based on several fundamental rules primarily aimed at preserving visual homogeneity between editing and viewing modes. This structural transparency of HOTGLUE UI permits its users to disregard any separation of Content and Design and /ultimately/ to remove Design as such from their creative practice.

We believe that modern web-users shall be given an easy yet powerful, online (in-browser) authoring tool for making exciting, personally distinct and otherwise odd web-pages. Page contents suddenly become something more then only text blocks and images; user begins to construct web-pages as multi-layered collages where textual is visual and vice versa. Web-pages made with HOTGLUE never look the same - each page is a new creation of its author.

HOTGLUE is written in PHP and Javascript (jQuery),
it uses flat-files for storage and
is compatible with Apache2 HTTP server.

Before I've started creating my web page with Hotglue, I've made sure I'm familiar with all the controls. To be honest I hated the idea of creating website without using Dreamweaver. But soon after I've realized that Hotglue might be better (and faster for sure!) because it's much easier to fix things if something goes wrong.
After sketching few ideas out I had a rough idea on how I want my webpage to look.
Usually I don't put all of my ideas on paper, I tend to design as I go along. But it proven to me, now many times that planning ahead saves time and perfects the final outcome!
Here's a great website that I'll be sure to use in the future:
► http://www.webdesignerdepot.com/2009/07/using-wireframes-to-streamline-your-development-process/

Before starting with the design of my webpage, I want it to have some sort of personal feel. So I've decided to create a personal, Anastasia Babicheva's logo. I must say it was quite tricky because I wanted it to be with the twist.
I always knew that letters in my name create some kind of a 'person' if right type of font used and proper angle.
So I went looking for the most suitable font on ►http://www.dafont.com/
And after finding it and spending some time in Photoshop - Voilà! Job done.

I had in idea of creating a template which would be in a .jpeg format and then just upload it on Hotglue. But I felt that by doing that it would make it to simple. So I've just created few images with particular patterns on them which just take up a small place on the page, and also that gave me freedom to move things around.

Next step was creating the colour 'decoration' for the home page. I did that using Photoshop. Each page has it's own colour, so each colour bubble is a button that links to that page. For example of the colour scheme of the page is pink then colour bubble/button would be pink as well.
To make life easier, I decided to make those bubbles/buttons have transparent background so I wouldn't have problems trying to fit them in. I did that by using Fireworks - convert them in .gif with alpha transparency option selected.

After having all the imagery ready, it was just dropping in, adjusting to the grid and writing to do. Over all I found it quite fun to use Hotglue but in the future I'd rather use Dreamweaver, because at least there is always room for improvement and ability to learn new skills.