You start with a blank page and by adding your own stuff create an unique website – you are free to do whatever you can think of...
This freedom however, requires some imagination and creativity (you surely got some!), just try thinking outside the box of your web browser.
HOTGLUE features several basic tools, just enough to empower you and not overwhelm with complicated interfaces and long user-manuals – do more with less!
Here are a few tips and ideas on how to make your HOTGLUE page to stand-out:
HOTGLUE workflow (aka glueflow):
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Working with text in HOTGLUE is big fun!
Besides standard browser fonts you can install custom 'web-fonts' and use all the weird characters they have to offer.
A few advices:
Use transparent background of a text-block when you what to have free-floating text. Change font-size and play with letter-spacing – few simple changes can make your stuff look much nicer!
Use text-block with colored background as a backdrop or matte. If you want to have semitransparent backdrop for a text but the text itself should be solid, make it in two parts – first take colored block without any text, size it and apply background color and transparency and then superimpose it with a text-block with no background.
To make a nice looking title text you can underlay it with its own clone but in different typeface! Also change clone's size, weight and color – every book designer will be jealous! The same way you can make a contour or a shadow.
Jam letters together using letter-spacing tool – you can get really strange looking shapes! Flipping letters around also makes them appear unusual.
Use collage techniques – paste objects on top of each other, try different colors and transparency. If you are missing some design-specific functions familiar to you from image editing or desktop publishing "suits" try to imagine how else could you archive the desired effect with the tools that HOTGLUE has to offer. For example: you can make a shadow under a colored block by using a semitransparent block of the same size (and possibly darker color) on a layer below; same goes for text.
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HOTGLUE is all about images!
Automatic resizing of uploaded images always preserves the original, so whenever you decide to re-size an uploaded image or make a clone of it, the original will be used – the quality will always be the best with minimal download size!
Transparency in PNG format can really do wonders! Just fire-up any graphic editing software and 'cut-out' some object. Save the result as PNG 24-bit with transparency and upload it to HOTGLUE. Looks good, doesn't it? Add more of those and stitch 'em together – that is a real collage in the browsed window!
Animated GIF are the new cool! You can find plenty of those online and making your own is not difficult either. Bring back some of those nostalgic blinking star-dust backgrounds and animated teddy-bears ;)
Use tiling and selection tool to fill in whole areas with images and animations. You can combine it with transparency and other objects such as text or video. For example, you can make a custom frame for a video object by simply superimposing it with tiled image with transparency.
Flipping an image can work well for making a shadow or reflection.
HOTGLUE is different from most website making tools, there are no templates, pre-designed layouts or default actions. Therefore HOTGLUE workflow might be something new for you.
Think bigger! There is no need to be limited by the size of your screen. With HOTGLUE you can make web-pages of any size, just drag one element to the right and/or bottom to define a custom size. By using anchors you can make interesting connections between different parts of one large page, once loaded it would instantly take your visitor to different parts of the website. Who said that horizontal scroll is a "no"?!