hmm i think you should start off at http://www.codecademy.com/ it will teach you some HTML and CSS which youll need if using Notepad++ but you could use Wordpress or something unless your determined to learn HTML and CSS
Tips for building a website
- Thread starter flibbage0
- Start date
...A Website is a website. However you created it, however you got there, whether it was notepad or a wysiwyg prog you haven't 'cheated'. Don't start spreading that rubbish.
Soldato
- Joined
- 2 Jun 2004
- Posts
- 18,423
I'd say the first thing he should be looking at is getting a hosting account and playing with CPx, including some of the one-click install stuff.
No need to jump in at the deep end.
(Also I concur that Dreamweaver is garbage).
No need to jump in at the deep end.
(Also I concur that Dreamweaver is garbage).
My first question would be why do you want to build a website?
Next get all of your content together and plan out your pages. A blog using blogger or Tumblr is a quick way to get content online then try building in Dreamweaver even if you want to hand code later as it is quick way to prototype. It also let's you see the code and check what it does. I teach software and getting something made quickly then improving on it with revisions seems to work best....
Next get all of your content together and plan out your pages. A blog using blogger or Tumblr is a quick way to get content online then try building in Dreamweaver even if you want to hand code later as it is quick way to prototype. It also let's you see the code and check what it does. I teach software and getting something made quickly then improving on it with revisions seems to work best....
Indeed.
I remember starting out with Microsoft Frontpage before progressing onto Macromedia Dreamweaver MX, those were the days
You can make a website in Dreamweaver or Notepad++ if you want it to look like a fairly static, typical 90's website or you can get into the real deal and create a proper unique website using the likes of PHP, MySQL, JavaScript etc... Ofcourse HTML and CSS is included in that.
To be perfectly honest, designing and writing the code for a website is no easy feat and thus platforms already exist - Joomla, WordPress etc.
If you really want to see a very powerful multi-purpose web platform in use then download Microsoft WebMatrix and install WordPress with that - Then you've got a fully functioning website on your home PC.
To be perfectly honest, designing and writing the code for a website is no easy feat and thus platforms already exist - Joomla, WordPress etc.
If you really want to see a very powerful multi-purpose web platform in use then download Microsoft WebMatrix and install WordPress with that - Then you've got a fully functioning website on your home PC.
Soldato
There's no reason you can't have a perfectly good modern website using just HTML and CSS...
I know some of you are trying to help the OP but it does seem you inferred too much assumed knowledge on his behalf (not trying to be condescending) when you talk about web technologies and the like. Might be easier for him to understand if you give examples what you can do as opposed to just sticking with plain HTML/CSS. No doubt from there theyll know exactly what they need to learn and what tools to use...
ps3ud0
ps3ud0
Web development seems to be a subject people get quite defensive about when a newbie appears wanting to learn. No idea why.
Comments like ''dreamweaver sux'' never gets anyone anywhere.
Hence why I said he should try and learn what a website actually is and how it's put together before diving any deeper.
Oh the comment wasnt for you, I thought exactly the same thing as you first put, just seems to be a discussion that isnt that geared to helping the OP out...Hence why I said he should try and learn what a website actually is and how it's put together before diving any deeper.
ps3ud0
Associate
OK,
I have to admit I seldom reply on here to anything anymore.
My friend, I am speaking to you as a web designer /developer with an established business for over 25 years.
I can remember when "Compuserve" launched (and before)and as part of the pack was a free umbrella and a booklet consisting of prices to get access to info by an acoustic coupler on rotary dial telephone.
Ok, enough.
One thing that really gets up my nose is the people recommend "notepad", notepad++" and the many other editors to produce a website.
Firstly they are useful to "the experienced developer" who understands html. If you have no idea than forget it for starters.
You will want to see results at first in my opinion, dreamweaver is a superb development package to get you started. The code it produces can be a little long winded (sometimes)but it works.
In the distant past I have used notepad etc to find errors in tables etc that DW produced
This is no longer the case as Divs can do the same thing 99% of the time.
We use the whole adobe suite for web development, it works end of.
I will be honest and say that I do use a basic framework and go from there bringing in any other elements java etc as we go along, it works for us.
Learn what DIvs are my friend and how to place them and their attributes into a page.
Once you grasp that it is easy.
Our biggest problem is getting "content" i.e. type and images that we can place into the site. Think of it like a series of boxes that images and text can be placed, each box has a set of functions that you can choose to activate or not (CSS).
My opinion get DW and follow a basic tutorial on youtube about using Divs.
It really isnt rocket science.
I just want to add that I personally will produce a framework in an editor and the move it into dreamweaver for development.
All these people who say they use just notepad to develop/design a website are very special or they don't grasp the idea that an IDE can speed things up 90% or more.
Forget all the I do it notepad rubbish and use an IDE.
I am not going to get into any arguments etc, this is the way we work.
I have to admit I seldom reply on here to anything anymore.
My friend, I am speaking to you as a web designer /developer with an established business for over 25 years.
I can remember when "Compuserve" launched (and before)and as part of the pack was a free umbrella and a booklet consisting of prices to get access to info by an acoustic coupler on rotary dial telephone.
Ok, enough.
One thing that really gets up my nose is the people recommend "notepad", notepad++" and the many other editors to produce a website.
Firstly they are useful to "the experienced developer" who understands html. If you have no idea than forget it for starters.
You will want to see results at first in my opinion, dreamweaver is a superb development package to get you started. The code it produces can be a little long winded (sometimes)but it works.
In the distant past I have used notepad etc to find errors in tables etc that DW produced
This is no longer the case as Divs can do the same thing 99% of the time.
We use the whole adobe suite for web development, it works end of.
I will be honest and say that I do use a basic framework and go from there bringing in any other elements java etc as we go along, it works for us.
Learn what DIvs are my friend and how to place them and their attributes into a page.
Once you grasp that it is easy.
Our biggest problem is getting "content" i.e. type and images that we can place into the site. Think of it like a series of boxes that images and text can be placed, each box has a set of functions that you can choose to activate or not (CSS).
My opinion get DW and follow a basic tutorial on youtube about using Divs.
It really isnt rocket science.
I just want to add that I personally will produce a framework in an editor and the move it into dreamweaver for development.
All these people who say they use just notepad to develop/design a website are very special or they don't grasp the idea that an IDE can speed things up 90% or more.
Forget all the I do it notepad rubbish and use an IDE.
I am not going to get into any arguments etc, this is the way we work.
It doesn't matter what you use so long as you understand HTML and how CSS works with it to style a basic web page, everything else is secondary.
edit: and HTML is very simple, its not beyond anyone to learn and understand it in a very reasonable amount of time.
edit: and HTML is very simple, its not beyond anyone to learn and understand it in a very reasonable amount of time.
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All this evangelising Notepad over Dreamweaver (and vice versa) is a bit silly without knowing exactly what the OP wants to achieve.
If you want to work directly with code and develop your HTML/CSS/PHP skills to a reasonable level, and have the time and energy to do so, then use Notepad++ to run through some tutorials and make some basic websites.
If all you want to do is create a website as easily as possible, and you don't have the time or desire to learn to code yourself, then use Dreamweaver, or just install Wordpress and find a nice theme.
Horses for courses.
I find some of the stuff on that page pretty pedantic. It seems to miss the point that a site like W3Schools is deliberately oversimplified, because it's intended to be a basic starting point for beginners learning web development, not an authoritative reference on the ins and outs of HTML or JavaScript.
If you want to work directly with code and develop your HTML/CSS/PHP skills to a reasonable level, and have the time and energy to do so, then use Notepad++ to run through some tutorials and make some basic websites.
If all you want to do is create a website as easily as possible, and you don't have the time or desire to learn to code yourself, then use Dreamweaver, or just install Wordpress and find a nice theme.
Horses for courses.
I find some of the stuff on that page pretty pedantic. It seems to miss the point that a site like W3Schools is deliberately oversimplified, because it's intended to be a basic starting point for beginners learning web development, not an authoritative reference on the ins and outs of HTML or JavaScript.
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There's no substitute for coding a website by hand and as long as you don't try to learn too much at once, I'm sure you'll pick it all up fine. There are ways you can take shortcuts to achieve what you want but you are going to need a grounding in the basics at least first to get the most out of them.
It's probably best you just buy a decent beginner web development book which will probably mostly just cover HTML and CSS and just work your way through that for now. I'm not sure what the current recommendation is but a quick search on Google or probably this forum will help you there. That way you can get a grounding in what's involved without getting annoyed following random disconnected tutorials. Having just one book to work though will keep you focused rather than trying to follow lots different online tutorials as there a lot out there. If you need clarification on something then simply Googling is a great way to get that (rather than just your main resource at the beginning). The MDN website (https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/) is considered to be one of the better websites out there as a reference so have a look there if you are not sure of the reputations of the sites found simply by a Google search.
Don't worry about text editors (Notepad, Dreamweaver etc.) for now as it's not something worth fussing over at the very start. Just use whatever you are most comfortable with now or whatever the book you have recommends. I personally use Vim and hate using anything else now but it's defiantly not for the faint hearted and probably not the best thing to use while you are just getting use to web development as it has a large learning curve in itself.
There are ways you can take shortcuts to achieve what you want but you are going to need a grounding in the basics at least first to get the most out of them.It's probably best you just buy a decent beginner web development book which will probably mostly just cover HTML and CSS and just work your way through that for now. I'm not sure what the current recommendation is but a quick search on Google or probably this forum will help you there. That way you can get a grounding in what's involved without getting annoyed following random disconnected tutorials. Having just one book to work though will keep you focused rather than trying to follow lots different online tutorials as there a lot out there. If you need clarification on something then simply Googling is a great way to get that (rather than just your main resource at the beginning). The MDN website (https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/) is considered to be one of the better websites out there as a reference so have a look there if you are not sure of the reputations of the sites found simply by a Google search.
Don't worry about text editors (Notepad, Dreamweaver etc.) for now as it's not something worth fussing over at the very start. Just use whatever you are most comfortable with now or whatever the book you have recommends. I personally use Vim and hate using anything else now but it's defiantly not for the faint hearted and probably not the best thing to use while you are just getting use to web development as it has a large learning curve in itself.
I learned using frontpage and then dreamweaver, there is nothing wrong with using them to get you started.
I do find they add a whole lot of unnecessary code nowadays, but they are a great place to start allowing you to concentrate on the functional code rather than the design code.
These days and i code for a living, i do the majority of my coding in textpad or notepad++ whether its a website, c# app or fortran program but thats cause i know what to write. In the beginning you can't even pretend to do that.
P.s. no need for books, google is your friend, start your page think i want it to do that, google it, there are millions of examples/tutorials and don't just copy, understand how it works.
I do find they add a whole lot of unnecessary code nowadays, but they are a great place to start allowing you to concentrate on the functional code rather than the design code.
These days and i code for a living, i do the majority of my coding in textpad or notepad++ whether its a website, c# app or fortran program but thats cause i know what to write. In the beginning you can't even pretend to do that.
P.s. no need for books, google is your friend, start your page think i want it to do that, google it, there are millions of examples/tutorials and don't just copy, understand how it works.