Making Website's

[Pace|Work]

3dfx: What can you do? Then we can possibly suggest what your next steps should be.

Can you code up basic designs in notepad? Frontpage Express? Frontpage? Dreamweaver?

Remember, a website should never rely on Flash - you must make a general page for everyone to access, unless you're making a Flash portfolio for that Web Design job you're applying for

[SitFlyer]

Here is a good informational site for you

http://www.imswebtips.com/index.htm

[Fat Tone]

The hand-tool / power-tool thing is a bad analogy. There isn't necessarily a natural progression between the two. The skills required to operate e.g. a router are not an extension of those required to operate a rebate plane and chisel.

There are some parallels of course...


T.

[GNEP]

Sorry Tone - just tried to think of an analogy in 2 seconds and the only one that came out of this thick skull was a rubbish one...

I'll let someone else provide a better one...

Perhaps it's like learning to drive a proper car with a gear stick even if you are only ever going to (or so you think...) drive automatics.

[3dfx]

Thanks for the reply guys, I will be honest with you my knowledge of website building at this time is rather limited but when I say basic I could get a basic layout to a site etc. Oh thanks for the links guys as these have helped, I'am trying to get into Dreamweaver. Would you say Dreamweaver is a good route to take ?

thx
Andy

[Fat Tone]

@GNEP - LOL. You are forgiven

T.

[GNEP]

Thanks

[Sasq]

Dreamweaver is good, but it still leaves a lot of excess junk in the file - and doesn't always do things the way you want them.

I use it for checking certain things here, but you do really need to know how to 'fix' the html files in a text editor.

Dan

[Pace]

Originally posted by Sasq
Dreamweaver is good, but it still leaves a lot of excess junk in the file - and doesn't always do things the way you want them.

I use it for checking certain things here, but you do really need to know how to 'fix' the html files in a text editor.

Very true - note how everyone has said you should hand code stuff at some point

HTML isn't a drawing tool - it's a language. A lot of the markup can be automated, but at some point you'll need to do it by hand. Dreamweaver has yet to create HTML that I couldn't create by hand.
Nor has it managed to create HTML that I didn't have to 'fix'

[Fat Tone]

Lets not forget that oh-so-wonderful Dreamweaver tool for removing Word-HTML. A god-send for those of us who regularly get sent material created in Word.

Dreamweaver, however, is a complete dog of a system-hog. It completely blows my profile allocation (fortunately I've now got a bigger one as part of a test), and is rather slow to load. FP on the other hand is ok for a lot of simple stuff and is lightweight. DW 6.1 improves on 6.0, but still has quite a few bugs in it.

T.

[Sethos]

This may be a bit of a long shot, but if you look up web logs, several of the people will post a tutorial section with links to sites or home made tutorials of how they created their own site. Though done by amatures, they are usually pretty good and even advanced depending on the person. This is where I found out a lot of info on how to do things for my site...

~Sethos

[Gurm]

I have both DW and Frontpage installed.

I haven't had time to test FP2003 extensively, but it seems better than XP was.

DW is... huge. Bulky. Ugly. I don't know if Macromedia knows how to make lightweight code. Honestly.

But DW does get the job done. Frontpage understands more CSS but makes it harder to work with. DW lets you work with CSS, but doesn't display it correctly.

If you know how to exploit DW's flaws, you can get the job done with it.

- Gurm

[Pace]

Originally posted by Liquid_Memory
There are many alternatives, ActiveX, Java, CGI, Perl, ASP, ASPX, Visual Interdev, and many more. It depends on what you want to accomplish.

ActiveX is nice, but people have to agree to download the module in order for them to see it.

http://www.microsoft.com/com/tech/activex.asp

Java is also nice, but if you have done any programming in the past, you are gonna have a real tough road ahead.

http://java.sun.com

CGI is mostly used for scripting and the like and really can't build a good website, but its nice to know if you want to send mail or an online order through a form.
There is no real link for CGI, you have to search the internet in order to find anything on CGI.

Perl is a language that was developed to totally confuse the online programming community, its like starting to write you programs in binary, you have to declare everything and by the time you have done that, you have a 10,000 page program that does nothing.

http://www.perl.com

ASP and ASPX are 2 of the new programming languages for internet out there. They are getting good revues, but its too early to decide whether they are going to take off full bore.

http://www.asp.net

Flash I won't even talk about, it is the worst programming language out there.

All in all if you are going to create web pages with a little more pizzazz than the average table and frame subset, you have to pick one and stay with it. I program in all the above mentioned, but my favorite is ActiveX, although people have to download the control in order for it to work right, it is the most flexible, and if you have programmed in Visual Basic, its the easiest.

Hope the links help ya 3Dfx.

Some notes on the above:

PHP was notably missed out.

ASP has already 'taken off full bore' - basically all dynamic webpages run off Microsoft servers use ASP, which is based on server-side VisualBasic scripting.

Java is not used extensively on the server side (i.e. servlets, Java Server Pages), but could be an easy server side option if you have done regular Java programming.

Flash is not a programming language, although you can use ActionScript to make it more dynamic. Flash should be a last resort, when you've realised that HTML really can't do what you're asking.

Also, try creating page layouts without tables and frames as noted above - using CSS is the way forward for layout. With a well structured HTML page it will be accessible to blind users and Netscape 2.0 users, whilst also looking very swish on IE6.

Just post if you want any information on the above - I've not went too indepth into server-side programming, as you did specifically state you were wanting to create layouts, not dynamic database-driven sites

P.

Edit: Forgot about client-side JavaScript...this is used for image rollovers, some popup menus and of course many annoyances - window popups, right click "disabling" and removing scrollbars/toolbars from launched windows. Get some more advanced layouts created first, and use Dreamweaver's built-in JavaScripts to create effects possibly. As we already know, you'll constantly be in there editing it by hand anyway, so you'll get used to JS syntax A JS reference would be useful though, if you plan on taking it seriously.

What is client-side/server-side? Thought I would point out the applications for both: Server-side stuff (CGI, Perl, JSP, ASL, PHP, JavaServlets) are specially coded and only send you the stuff you requested - when you view it you'll see a standard page made in HTML without much knowledge of how it was generated. Server-side stuff therefore needs special webservers - most free providers will not allow you to use server-side stuff.

Client-side: JS is sent to the end-user, and his browser will try and deal with it (or ignore it in the case of older browsers). This puts some processing load on their end, but also negates the need for any special requirements from your webhost. Flash is also rendered client-side (duh), so slow computers will struggle with complex flash.

For real dynamic content there must be stuff done at the server, but some neat touches can only be done by JS. Note: A JS filled site does not a good site make - Pace invites Guru to post his TeamDGC site for an example

P.

[az]

If you only knew german, I'd say live, eat, breathe SelfHTML. Get to know the basics (like was said before), and know that you can rely on it whenever you're stuck.

Older versions are available in french, spanish, and japanese. I don't think there's anything like it in english.

AZ

[Jessterw]

If you truly want to get into good web design, may I recommend the following links...

A List Apart
The Daily Report
Web Standards Project
Netscape DevEdge
The Noodle Incident
W3C
Notestips.com - Web Colours By Hue and Name
Accessify.com
Tantek.com
Boxes and Arrows
Creative Commons
css-discuss.org
iStockPhoto.com
BlueRobot: The Layout Reservoir
css/edge

There are a vast number of links on these pages that will direct you to other resources. Edit: I should mention that you might want to get the basics down before venturing unto some of these sites as they deal with things even seasoned web designers can't seem to understand (why is beyond me). Most are dealing with XHTML and CSS, and A List Apart is probably a good starting point as they offer some really good articles on web design in general.

As far as a good tool to get started with, I would have to reoommend a text editor of one sort or another. Most think this is only for advanced designers/developers, yet I've found that if you learn this way that you will have a far better understanding of what you are doing. Indeed it often comes in handy to be able to get down to the "nitty gritty" when the big boys' toys fail to live up to expectations.