Want to make a website? Read this.

Young Spartan · 05-07-2004

Okay, so you want to make a website, right?

Well, all of us (even the expert web designers) have at one point wanted to make a website but just didn't know how. Well, this will boost you far past where most "noobies" end up (geocities).

Instead of running around asking professionals "What is a good site to make a site?" (we've all said it), just read along.

Okay, so you want to know what site to make good websites, right? Wrong. What you want to know, is how to make websites, to be generalized. Web design is not done from www.geocities.com, www.freewebs.com or www.angelfire.com! You may not believe me now, but I assure you. These websites give you small, uncooperative amounts of web hosting space, and a little program that builds pages for you, kind of like a front end to HTML. May look neat now, but starting there is digging a hole for yourself, most of us did, but I'm trying to save you from it.

So, what do you do? First of all, I will explain the options and which is best.

1. Free website creator, websites.
2. WYSIWYG Editors
3. Manual coding/programming

#1 - As discussed above, this is the least expensive, least satisfying solution. Highly not recommended.
#2 - WYSIWYG Editors, they are great if you know nothing of coding and have a due date... but if you don't, it is much more beneficial to you to not run this course. I know you may feel like you have a due date in anticipation to get a site up, but don't fall for it.
#3 - Programming. Learning the languages on your own instead of using graphical front ends to HTML is so much better! But, you don't think you can do it? Well, if you know how to type, surf the internet and read - you should be able to get this if you have an open mind and a bit of patience, it is actually rather simple.

So, what does it take? Many people prefer learning HTML through viewing sources, some like tutorials and some like books. I'm a book guy, but that doesn't mean you are or have to be. None of these are right or wrong. Personally, I used all three a lot, but I prefered to start by reading a book.

All you really need to do is find a good book, read it, then go from there. This is a guaranteed working solution, you can use others but being this is targeted for the newer programmers, I think it would be best to follow through completely.

So, what book? Where? To find a book you have of course, programming books (Programming Books) thread thanks to S2F, or you could take my recommendation:

Sams Teach Yourself HTML & XHTML in 24 Hours

Not only does this book give you a quick start in web design, it covers the grounds of the up and coming web standard compliant XHTML which will likely be essential to web designers in the near future. I program all of my web structural coding in XHTML, personally.

So, after this book, I do what? www.Google.com remains to be the best place on the internet. Search for HTML Tutorials and when you see something neat on a site, view the source to see if you can figure it out.

Let me mention that this is not all you need to know to do web design, it can very well do web design all by itself, but there are never ending possibilities when it comes to web design and no one person can or ever will know all of it.

I hope this is useful to you,
Yuneek

MarysMac · 05-08-2004

In the beginning....there was NO web authoring tool. No WYSIWYG editors. Nothing but code and a person had no choice but to learn code first. Then along came editors of one type or another. Finally, I got hoodwinked into using Dreamweaver as a result of a project I was working on with a very large team. We all had to use the same tool and the tool was Dreamweaver and it was good.

At that point, I realized that DW was great to get things done fast if you're working on your own especially but there are times when nothing but a text editor will do. There is definitely room for both and DW seems to recognize that need by offering "code view" as one of the choices.

Anyone just starting out needs to know something about what makes an HTML document tick. What IS HTML after all. How does it work? Every designer or coder needs to know these things. At least a bit of them to get going. Then do the WYSIWYG thing. But just because you do that does not give you absolution or the ability to abstain from knowing what is going on behind the scenes. Every good designer needs to know the nuts and bolts of HTML. Can't get away without it and survive.

Maybe I need to write a book. *sigh* I could go on for such a long time but I'll spare you all this time around.

sign me....the old lady, as old as dirt and only two days younger than water

scrowler · 04-10-2005

nice article Yuneek. i'll just point out a few things:

html isn't so much a programming language, html stands for hypertext markup language, it is more a markup language than a programming language, as there is a limit to what you can do with it. strictly speaking with html, you can't make up your own sections, you use predefined tags to create a desired effect, you can't simply create your own tags with html.

php: hypertext preprocessor is a real programming language. many beginners see websites that boast php engines and start looking for php templates and such (this is what i did). php is a language that is entirely processed before any html is sent to the user. for this reason, you cannot view php source code by clicking View Source in your browser, you simply see the processed html code that php will output. you can't simply create a website in php without using html.

Uncle Ghed · 06-24-2005

Let me add...

i type almost all of my html code. i used to use dreamweaver (in pretty similar way as MarysMac's), but then i started not using anymore when working on my own.

i'm totally converted to mozilla firefox right now. all of my personal projects are optimized for moz.
I'mm telling u this, because Firefox has a very nice extension, called "Web Developer". It's reaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaally useful, i recommend each and everyone of you firefox users install it right away!
it gives you the possibility to outline tables, frames and a lot of other elemente of a web page, making them evident even if given a border="0" attribute.
It has a validator (for css, html and more), a tool for forms, a tool for images... nearly anything you need in a WYSISWYG editor. Only difference: its for free. ^_^

ConceptualMind · 06-24-2005

I use Web Developer as well.

Here's the link:
https://addons.mozilla.org/extension...info.php?id=60

Uncle Ghed · 06-25-2005

oops...
forgot about posting the link... :P
thanks to CM for doing it for me!! ^_^

ConceptualMind · 06-25-2005

No problem.

ecntrc · 10-22-2005

Ima code type of chick.. I learned how to read understand and build my own sites just by typing.. no books or resources.. ok i take that back.. i used minimal resources.. Im checking out the programming books thread.. I need to learn PHP

scrowler · 10-28-2005

i might add that the acronym "WYSIWIG" stands for What You See Is What You Get

Paintmonkey · 11-09-2005

Quote:

Originally Posted by ecntrc

Ima code type of chick.. I learned how to read understand and build my own sites just by typing.. no books or resources.. ok i take that back.. i used minimal resources.. Im checking out the programming books thread.. I need to learn PHP

you too... I stressed majorly "how will I ever learn all of this". Once you get started it's not so hard... just keep at it.

root · 01-13-2006

What about maintaining a website with a server langusge.

**Bub** · 01-13-2006

This guide is only for the shear basics of web design. Server maintaince will have to be learned from experience or from another guide.

robin746 · 05-02-2006

So what you are saying, Yuneek, is:
* manually code your markup
* read a book
* use Google

No offence, but I just said in 8 words what it took you 600. What's up with that?

ecntrc · 05-03-2006

Quote:

Originally Posted by robin746

So what you are saying, Yuneek, is:
* manually code your markup
* read a book
* use Google

No offence, but I just said in 8 words what it took you 600. What's up with that?

i dont think that had to be said.. but no offense people who have no idea on how to get started, they way he said it was a good way to get started.. by telling someone what youve said.. it might pose questions that will be asked.. i think that it was real nice of him to post that.. thats in my opinion

Telos · 05-03-2006

I also prefer manual coding. WYSIWYG's are great as an idea but they are not good enough yet for me to be using them. They DO save time which means money in business world so that's one defence for them although for them to save time you need to learn them from top to bottom and so on for me manual coding is actually faster than using WYSIWYG.

For the learning process I suggest studying others code. "View source" is your best friend but be carefull not to study bad sites with bad code. Same goes for PHP, ASP(.NET), JSP etc... by taking a look at others code you learn how they've done certain things and that helps you getting on with the learning process.

Also remember that you don't need any webspace at all to get started. Basic HTML pages can be seen without any extra work on your local computer and even if you use PHP or some other programming language there are good server packages available for local testing. (XAMPP etc...) Also remember that basic hosting packages with domain names are pretty cheap. They usually come with PHP support so that money doesn't go to waiste if you want to publish your site.