Making website, Help needed

unwashed potato! · 21 Mar 2006 at 23:14

hey chaps,

Bascially i am thinking of making a website but have no idea how to and have heard you can get software which helps you do this, can you and if so what would you advise is best for me? helps if its free but dont mind if not.

I aim to maybe make a website with the free webspace i get with my interent provider, but i mihgt not depeneds how good the webspace is. I might put money making things oin it but its not really what i am making this website for, if money making ads etc were on they'd only be to make like the odd £5 per month.

the main aim is to just learn how to build websites for the future, as im only 17 years of age and would like to have this as a profession possibly. Im not quiet sure what the website will contain, just links to other websites, a few ads but not that many that people begin to just ignore them all completely.

Any ideas of what i could include on my website, e.g. good things that will teach me a lot and be not too hard to do, also ideas of good website building software?

thankyou very much in advance

Chaos · 21 Mar 2006 at 23:15

Start here some good tutorials -

http://www.tizag.com/

daveyj27 · 21 Mar 2006 at 23:16

Have you got Frontpage, or even Netscape Composer installed? They are easy enough to use to get you started with the basics.

Trigger · 21 Mar 2006 at 23:21

If you're just starting out mate then the best way to learn is by using notepad (Or some other text editor, I personally like notepad2 because it changes the text colours depending on what language you are typing) and w3schools. There's no point getting into bad practise using frontpage and the like because it will be hard to get out of.

If you do code manually as I suggested above, I would suggest using XHTML compliant code which is much nicer to read the markup and it feels good when it validates. Once you have picked up HTML/XHTML, other languages such as CSS (Great with HTML) and PHP become easier to understand as I found

If you get stuck, there are loads of people on here who will help you with your coding :cool:

Good Luck

Trigger · 21 Mar 2006 at 23:21

daveyj27 said:
Have you got Frontpage, or even Netscape Composer installed? They are easy enough to use to get you started with the basics.

daveyj27 · 21 Mar 2006 at 23:24

Trigger said:

What?

It's not like he's asking for something powerful and complicated, is it?

Trigger · 21 Mar 2006 at 23:28

daveyj27 said:
What?

It's not like he's asking for something powerful and complicated, is it?

Nah mate, it's just that I'd try and stay away from Frontpage or any other design package for that matter. I started out in Frontpage and it gives you a very bad overview of designing websites so I just thought it would be better to start from a firm base

Al Vallario · 21 Mar 2006 at 23:42

daveyj27 said:
What?

It's not like he's asking for something powerful and complicated, is it?

He's not, but don't get him into bad habits like that! Going down the Frontpage/Composer route is possibly the worst decision you could make if you wanted to become a web designer!

Trigger's hit the nail on the head. Pick up notepad2 (Doesn't even need installing, just runs straight away) and read through the w3schools resources. Have a look at sites featured on such CSS gallery sites as Stylegala and CSS Import for inspiration and have a look at A List Apart for some thought-provoking articles regarding standards, usability, semantics etc.

It's really easy to make a beautiful website with XHTML/CSS once you know the right way to do it (ie. not drowning in misused table tags). Don't get sucked into the perception that the chap with the best software makes the best websites; I could whip together an XHTML/CSS site in notepad2 quicker than someone could slap the same (atleast visually) site together using semantically incorrect methods in Macromedia Dreamweaver, for example.

Inquisitor · 21 Mar 2006 at 23:56

Trigger said:
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Al Vallario said:
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Seconded.

It's a far better idea to start off web design by hand-coding the markup in a decent text editor (I use Notepad++ myself). This will teach you the how the site is actually rendered, rather than just slapping it all together in some designer.

I'd also recommend that you start off writing XHTML compliant web pages, and making use of CSS. This will pay off in the long run, as it's much better to learn to do it this way from the beginning

unwashed potato! · 22 Mar 2006 at 00:13

ok thanks for the quick relpies. i think i have been convinced to look into this notepad2 business. How long does this sort of thing take, i know this is going to sound silly but oblivion is coming out on friday ish so i will be using any free time away from gf to play this game for the next month. but obviously once the hype of playing the game has dyed down i will settle back into reality and start trying to learn new skills and make a webpage. thanks for the useful links everyone and help so far

DJMK4 · 22 Mar 2006 at 00:13

Thirded, if your gonna make a website for anything, do it the real way.

punky_munky · 22 Mar 2006 at 00:24

When you get round to learning the markup, don't learn HTML + tables layout because you'll only have to go and unlearn it when you get to CSS.

My friend who's started from no knowledge at all about 6 months ago is now very profficient at web site deisgn because she's learnt it properly.

Having a real person to show you the basics is a massive help too.