Learning the system – tricks of the trade

Posted: 5 January 2009

Getting to know any system, even one as easy as neatComponents, has its tricks, and whilst you'll find them documented in the 'official' places, I'll try to draw some to your attention here.

Many of these are obscure settings, or way you use them together in combination you might not have thought of, but today I'm looking at the bigger picture. If you're trying to create your first site in neatComponents it can be a bit of a learning curve. So, concentrate on the learning for a bit. Leave working on your site for a bit, and find someone else's site out on the Internet, and try to replicate it as closely as possible using neatComponents.

This exercise is really useful, because it forces you to find out exactly how to do something, rather than working around your initial lack of knowledge of the system. As you create your copy, you don't need to worry about trying to visualise how the site should turn out, as you have a working original in front of you. Any time you wonder how something should look, or behave, simply turn to the existing site. Like that. And whilst you doing this you don't have to worry about creating graphics for the site, as you can copy them from the site you are working from.

When you're done with the site copying exercise, return to your own site. You'll find it much easier, as you can apply all the techniques you've just learnt.