Be prepared for a long learning curve! Worth it in the end though.
Plusnet webspace (no longer available to new customers, though you can get it through their
Pay As You Host service) comes in two parts - the basic webspace can only host HTML pages with CSS styling, images, and client-side code like some Javascript. The CGI webspace does all this AND it allows you to do more interactive sites, and have features like the menu you describe. You will need to activate this from the
Website Settings page of the portal. You will probably also need to activate the MySQL database feature from the same page in the portal - this gives you access to a MySQL database which is often used by software running in CGI webspace to hold, sort, and access its data.
I recommend you read and fully understand the Plusnet help pages about their webspace features at
https://portal.plus.net/support/hosting/webspace/index.shtmlas Plusnet's arrangements are not totally normal for other web hosts - so any code you write or download that you want to install in to your Plusnet CGI webspace will need certain settings changing slightly to work.
For reference information on HTML, CSS, and Javascript (which are the three main web technologies that actually run "client-side" i.e. in your browser, and don't need to be run from CGI webspace) I recommend
w3schools.com that you read the reply below. You do really need to understand at least the principles behind these three technologies to be able to write your own website.
(You can of course avoid all this by using free templated & hosted services like
Wordpress.com, Google's
Blogger,
Windows Live Writer... but this wouldn't be on your Plusnet webspace or CGI webspace and wouldn't easily use your Plusnet-hosted domain name.)
Then there are different options for server-side code (which needs to be in the CGI webspace). PHP is open-source and one of the main standards. PHP is the closest thing to a programming language that you will need, but you don't need to understand the whole language to be able to use programs and code that is written in it.
Plusnet's CGI webspace comes with PHP running (though the version of this, and the version of MySQL that Plusnet runs is a bit old which can cause problems - see other threads in this forum for more). You can upload your own (or someone else's) .php files to this space, visit them in your browser, and they will execute. The idea with PHP is that it is code that generates different HTML (and CSS) depending on the results of the code and the user interactions. This HTML (and CSS) is what the browser then sees and interprets to make a viewable webpage.
You may want to consider uploading a Content Management System (CMS) - a type of program that will run in your CGI webspace and give you an interface in your browser that you login to - to control it and set it up as you want, and then add content to your site quickly and easily while maintaining a structure automatically (including things like a dynamic menu, categories of "pages", the ability to change the look and feel of it quickly and easily, a way for people to comment on your site etc.).
Wordpress.org and
Drupal.org are two examples I would recommend that run using PHP and MySQL which should work in Plusnet CGI webspace. There are some good instructions for
how to install Wordpress.org in to Plusnet CGI webspace on this forum.
You will need to
raise a ticket to Plusnet (aka ask a question) to ask them to point your domain name to your CGI webspace - normally it is pointed at the normal webspace.
I hope this helps. I realise it is not as simple as you might have hoped
🙂
