18 replies to this topic

[wonder371]

Hello Everyone,
My name is Brendan and I am new to the whole web design world. However, I currently manage two websites. One is all html and was made with Namo Webeditor (looks horrible in my opinion). The other is a blog style website that has wordpress installed onto it. I currently use a free theme but just hired out to have a customized theme built. Both websites are real estate industry related.

After making these two websites, I have decided that I had a fun time trying to make the best page possible. I want to learn more so I can make both websites better. So I have some questions:

1. What software should I buy to properly design and manage websites? (What I currently use: Namo Webeditor, Adobe Illustrator, Microsoft Paint [i know, its ridiculous], Audacity, and Adobe Premiere elements 4.0)

2. I have a pretty good grasp on HTML and very very basic CSS knowledge. I want to better my knowledge for HTML, CSS, PHP, etc.? What languages to do you recommend? Can you recommend books? Both educational and reference style books.

3. Any other advice you can give me for webdesign would be greatly appreciated


Thank You,

Brendan

[don h]

You don't need books to learn PHP, MySQL, HTML, or CSS. You can learn it all by looking at manuals, free online tutorials, sample code, looking at others' code. PHP has a reference manual for all its functions, etc with example usage for atleast most of them. Another language you might try is perl. The best way to learn is to code. Write HTML & CSS in wordpad until you know it like the back of your hand.

I can't recommend you any decent books for learning languages because the internet and man pages are my book. I've purchased books for some things, but they're usually more advanced things that I can't easily find information on the internet.

[Jarret]

Designing a website and maintaining it are 2 very different things.

As far as software for designing a website, I highly recommend a text editor.......yeah thats right! You don't need pricey software like DreamWeaver to create a website. You can find a lot of FREE text editors such as Notepad++ which is what I use or even just use Notepad that comes with Windows.

I would stick with Illustrator and focus on using that as your main image editing/creation software. Illustrator has a lot of great features and it's ability to create vector graphics makes it one of the best.

As far as learning HTML/CSS, like Don said just study other's code. That is how I did it, you don't need a book to learn HTML or CSS. You can get a good reference for both HTML and CSS over at http://reference.sitepoint.com/

If you are going to be working with WordPress as a blogging platform or a content management system I would HIGHLY recommend you purchase Build Your Own Database Driven Website Using PHP & MySQL over at sitepoint.com as well. This is what I used to learn how to mess around with WordPress and to manipulate it the way that I want. I also purchased their PHP Anthology book as well, but that is for intermediate users then beginners.

You can also check out alistapart.com, they have some very well written articles about web design and usability.

[Randy]

I concur on all of the above, and I have to say it does my heart good to see someone who wants to learn html, css, etc instead of relying on the crutch most of the more visual WYSIWYG editors end up being. Good for you Brenden !

A couple of personal recommendations.

I've been using an editor called HTML Kit for ages. Probably over a decade now. Yes it's a text editor and yes you write your own code, but it also color codes html tags, php functions and so on. That's helpful. As opposed to using something like notepad. HTML Kit of course isn't the only text editor that does this. Most of them made for html will do the same kind of thing. HTML Kit also lets you quickly Preview your code in a more visual way if you're working in good old html.

I would also agree that you don't really need to purchase a book to learn any of these things, though judging by my bookshelf this stance would make people wonder. HTML and CSS are the easiest of the two since you can see the code people use to make their site look the way it does from simply viewing the source code. Beyond that I'm a big fan of PHP. Partly because it's to ubiquitous out there today, partly because there are a ton of free tutorials and code snippets out there to be had and partly because if you learn php you'll end up knowing 90% of Javascript as well. The two are that similar, even though one is server side and the other is client side.

If you want a boatload of tutorials and reference materials shoot by w3schools.com. They've got sections dedicated to HTML, CSS, PHP and lots of other subjects. All free. There are also reference materials available at WDG's htmlhelp.com. Notably, I downloaded their CSS Properties guide from here ages ago, and still use it as a quick reference from time to time to this day.

Save your book money for things that can't be easily found online. Not only are the online versions usually free, but they're often also more up to date than you could get from a book.

[rolf]

I also concur with all of the above, although I found 'php& mysql for dummies' great for quickly getting a handle on the primnciples of dynamic and database coding.

I use dreamweaver a lot, but it's really something for making the process quicker. I can make sites in notepad (and have done), but the DW site manager is great for managing lots of sites and the wysiwyg part is great for quickly generating large amounts of generic code (such as tables, form elements, links).

One thing about any wysiwyg editor is that they will often write horrible code so it's well worth learning how to make/manage sites entirely in a text editor so if/when you use an editor you can easily read the code and clean it as you go.

There's tons of useful languages you can learn, but the two main schools for dynamic sites seem to be open source (Apache/PHP/MySQL) or Mircorsoft (IIS/ASP/MSSQL). I've gone the open source route but I'm not sure that one is really much better than the other, just a personal choice. CSS and Javascript are pretty handy (essential?) whicher route you go.

Best of luck with it.

[nethy]

I'm the wrong person to give advice here but...

1.Download Firebug (ff extension). It's like view-source+. I find it extremely useful for tweaking & understanding css. Having it installed & using it here & there has helped me a good few times but it also taught me quite a bit. I understand that it's more important job is debugging javascript

2. PHP/ASP/Javascript/dozens of other languages you could learn are a different animal to html/css. They're more about what stuff does then how it looks. There's a lot of meta theory. If you've never done any programming, you might want to start with an introduction to programming before you jump in to help you decide how to approach the learning process.
This tutorial series can be completed in about 5-15 hrs & is geared towards absolute beginners. It lets you build 'web apps' in server side javascript, with the basice elements (input, html, dtabase storage etc,) without having to set anything up (servers, databases & such).

[wonder371]

wow thank you for all your great information.

I have used the "crutch" programs like frontpage, dreamweaver, and the namo one I currently use. I usually use them as FTP clients and text editors. I mainly dont use the short cut design because of the "bad" code they generate.

The websites and editors given appear great but I need more time to tinker with them to see how they work with my style of learning.

Its interesting to see that someone mentioned the "___ for dummies" series books because while browseing the tech section of the book store I saw those books and thats what triggered my original post. The reason I wanted books is because it takes the reader though a tutiorial process starting with one lesson leading to another. It appears that w3schools.com does the same thing. I also wanted them as a reference as mentioned. I was using htmlgoodies.com as a reference but it has been getting more and more out dated. I am going to give w3schools.com a try and start taking my own notes... printing them out and putting them in a 3-ring binder to make my own refference. As mentioned, since there is so much free information... its better to spend my money elsewhere.

Once again thanks for all the info... I am also still following the post so feel free to keep the advice coming. Thanks!

-Brendan

[nethy]

Once again thanks for all the info... I am also still following the post so feel free to keep the advice coming. Thanks!

Is it really about money? If you plan to take on javascript, CSS & PHP, you're going to be putting in a lot of time. Probably 100s of hours. If a $50 book saves you 5% or even makes it a bit more fun, isn't it worth it?

[Eschtruth Harrison]

Dreamweaver CS3 is a great tool. It is not a "crutch" unless you let it be one by working only in WYSIWYG mode without understanding the code. My practice is to use the WYSIWYG mode to easily get to the section of the page I want to work on, then switch to code view for actual editing. IMHO DW is an invaluable tool. DW also has makes it easy to insert complex CSS and JS (called Sprys) that would be difficult to create from scratch, but are relatively easy to tweak once you have them as a starting point. It's also helpful to understand some javascript basics so you're better able to adjust any free js code you happen to like.

[Lightshow]

Personally I would recommend Adobe's Dreamweaver and Photoshop (instead of Paint – although I use this sometimes as well!). I have Web Premium CS3 which includes both of these. A good alternative to Dreamweaver is Microsoft's Expression.

I agree with the posts above however. You don't need Dreamweaver or expensive books to get started. You can use Notepad (or any simple text editor) and some of the best online sites for learning code have already been mentioned. Using Notepad to write your code is possibly one of the best ways to learn and understand what you are doing because you have to do all your coding by hand.

This is how I started out. My first websites were created completely in Notepad. However, early on another web developer recommended I get a programme like Dreamweaver and after I got more than a couple of clients I started to understand why. For my first few projects I created all my html and css files in Notepad by hand and also made template pages this way too. This was fine when the websites were small and I only had a couple of projects to manage. But as soon as I got more clients and the websites got bigger I noticed a couple of downsides to doing things this way. Firstly it gets pretty tedious having to manually reread your css file every time you switch from client to client so you can type in the correct class and ID names you created into your html pages by hand. Secondly if you want to make changes to the template (and the whole website) that can't be done in the css file you are going to have to manually go through every page on the site to make changes.

This is where Dreamweaver makes things a lot easier to manage. Firstly you can set up each website as a project and this means you can always see everything that relates to it all the time (css files, server set ups etc...) If you add a class to a line of code it will drop down a menu of the available classes you created earlier so you can remember them easily. Also if you created a template for the site using the template feature you can get the programme to update the entire site for you with the things that you add that aren't css. Another great thing is that you can speed up the coding process enormously by getting Dreamweaver to dump in blocks of code you then simply tidy up to suit yourself. This is a big time saver since you don't have to spend your time typing absolutely everything. Once you've learned your code the long hand way you can get through more work in one day by using Dreamweaver's short cuts to write this stuff for you.

So I would say definitely learn how to code using Notepad. But if you are wanting to be a professional developer then using a tool like Dreamweaver or Expression will really make large amounts of work easier to manage. And if you prefer working in code (like me) you can continue doing that in Dreamweaver in the code view, it's still quicker.

In terms of books I think the Dummy books are probably quite good. I learn as much as I can off the internet and then when I want to know something more advanced I go to my local Technical book store or the library and get a paper book (easier to read!). The best PHP books are the ones that also include some example projects in them like making a forum or shopping cart.

[bobmeetin]

Download the web developer extension for firefox.
Get into the world of open source and download GIMP for image editing and inkscape for graphics.
Get on several designer/developer email lists such as CSS-D or the-list.

No you don't need books but there are times when it just feels good to have some nice books at your fingertips. Check out Eric Meyer on CSS, More Eric Meyer on CSS, the Zen of CSS Design, Bullet Proof Web Design. PHP and MySQL for Dynamic Web Sites (Larry Ullman) is a great place to start learning forms and database. You can always take them along with you to the dentist and zone out.

Learn how to program command-line in a Linux environment. You could reinstall your PC with Ubuntu Linux, then get a tech friend to help you install VMware and thirdly in this environment install a virtual Windows PC. This gives you some flexibility in testing your sites in different browsers. Optionally, there are also some browsercam sites where you can upload a site URL and get a snapshot of what it looks like in a multitude of browsers.

Looking at code on the UNIX/Linux command line gives you additional perspective on what search engines have to meander through. Yes I know this may be a challenge.

[Nueromancer]

You don't need books to learn PHP, MySQL, HTML, or CSS. You can learn it all by looking at manuals, free online tutorials, sample code, looking at others' code. PHP has a reference manual for all its functions, etc with example usage for atleast most of them. Another language you might try is perl. The best way to learn is to code. Write HTML & CSS in wordpad until you know it like the back of your hand.

I can't recommend you any decent books for learning languages because the internet and man pages are my book. I've purchased books for some things, but they're usually more advanced things that I can't easily find information on the internet.

err i beg to differ the O books likr http://oreilly.com/c.../9781565926813/ or teh sql in a nutshell http://oreilly.com/c...8844/index.html are good references teh cook books especialy can be agreat time saver. and teh learning Perl book is good.

[zephyr]

1 more vote for good ol' DW

Books- 1 more OReilly, heard Matt Bailey recommend it, I agree-
fun and info-packed for our newbie friend...
http://oreilly.com/c.../9780596101978/

[Darryl Payne]

I have 10 years of experience as a commercial software developer using C/C++ before starting a web design company. So I know how to write great code. For my business, I use Dreamweaver CS3 and Photoshop CS3. These may not be right for due to cost or complexity, but they work for me. I really disagree with those that say Dreamweaver is a "crutch". I could certainly write html code (which is simple compared to C++) from scratch, but why would I want to? That would be kinda like saying that I am using a "crutch" if I don't write my own C++ compiler and linker instead of using a commercial package. Dreamweaver is a tool that use to get my work done faster to increase profits.

I use the split view which shows me the code and what the page looks like. Works very well for my needs. Some are saying that Dreamweaver writes "bad" code. It does a pretty good job unless you are not using CSS. It will throw in some extra FONT tags and the like if you don't use CSS. But, if you write good CSS code, Dreamweaver will output perfectly good code while still allowing you to design visually.

I am not saying that coding by hand is a bad idea. You should learn how to code before using a product like Dreamweaver. But the templates, file management, link management and other features are huge time savers. Dreamweaver is not perfect, but it is my tool of choice.

As far as dynamic pages go, I use PHP and MYSQL.

[tubadenis]

DW is not a crutch

After reading all of the above replies, I agree with Darryl, DW is definitely not a crutch and is doing a great job at writing a clean code. I've been using it since 2004 with the MX 2004 Studio Suite (with Coldfusion, Flash, Fireworks and Contribute) which I bought as a Web technology student for only 399$ back then. We were taught how to hard code in JavaScript, Perl, PHP, C++, plus PHP/MySQL and CGI before starting to use DW. It made it that much easy to understand how to correct any extra or bad coding.


As for books, I agree that the O,Reilly series are good books that are easy to understand for someone that is not familiar with coding.

Denis Desnoyers