Website Review of Craftsy.com
One of the greatest advantages of being a creative person is that there is no such thing as boredom. There will always be something to beautify, to refresh, to devise, and create. Contrarily, one of the worst drawbacks of being a creative person is that there are only 24 hours in a day. This website, Craftsy.com, reminds me of both the pros and the cons of being artistic in nature. The way this website is structured with search options, filters, easy to use drop-downs, "how-to" video tutorials, downloadable .pdf files, user friendliness of the interface, along with the immense number of projects, makes Craftsy.com a creators goldmine; or bucket list depending on one's schedule.
In years past, before HTML5, I was a member of Craftsy.com. I had pulled up a few tutorials now and then. Though I did like the material on the website, life is busy, so when the website disappeared, frankly, I hadn't noticed. It wasn't until this class that I really understood why it had gone away. About 2 months ago, I received an email alerting me that Craftsy.com was back with a whole new look. I checked it out and really liked what I saw. Now, since starting this class, I recognize that they went through a complete HTML5 overhaul. What they put together is a beauty! Back to the drawbacks of being creative; this website is a swamped, wanna-be artist's snare. Even with over 1,500 tutorial classes, there is nothing cumbersome about this jam packed website. Even better is the way it behaves on a tablet or your phone; saving valuable workspace for important items like, paper, paint, glue, tools, fabrics, wood, etc. In all honesty, when I received that email letting me know that Craftsy.com was back, I ignored it for awhile, but when I finally took the time to look at it, I renewed my account right away. All I need now is just a little more time in the day.
Going into the technical side, now that I know a little bit about source coding, I was able to find fragment identifiers in the FAQs.
The source code revealed tags like this:
How do I reset my password?
Followed later by this:
How do I reset my password?
For those of you in the "know", check out the source code... (wink)
Identifying the formatting from the source code and then matching it to the live page is quite exciting for me. This website didn't, however; contain a "Back to Top" link at the bottom. I also noticed while deciding on my choice for this website review, that there are more and more websites choosing a drop down menu option for their FAQs. That's not to say that Craftsy.com avoided the dropdown option, no, they just saved those for inside each class tutorial; making the whole learning experience easy, uncluttered, and comprehensive. I'm sure that we will be covering dropdown options in weeks to come. As for Craftsy.com, overall, what they've done with this site is notable from inside the source code to live. I definitely recommend taking a good long look at it, but be warned, if you love to create, you just might get lost in there.