Newbie Questions

[bluelm]

Hey all -

I've been in print design for 10 years and just decided to get into web design. While I am comfortable with the creation of artwork - I have zero experience with building a functioning site.

Anyone have some recommendations on how to go about learning some of this stuff?

Thanks a ton!

PS - I don't know if it affects anything - but I work on Mac. (and I say that with NO intention of starting an OS debate)

[JoeP]

Hey all -

I've been in print design for 10 years and just decided to get into web design. While I am comfortable with the creation of artwork - I have zero experience with building a functioning site.

Anyone have some recommendations on how to go about learning some of this stuff?

Thanks a ton!

PS - I don't know if it affects anything - but I work on Mac. (and I say that with NO intention of starting an OS debate)

I'm no expert, but I do believe that the right answer for you will depend a lot on what you are trying to do and how much you are willing to spend. Here are a few questions that may be relevant:
Do you want to become a web design professional or is this for personal use?
Do you want to spend $ for serious design tools or work with cheap/free tools?
Do you want to get down into the guts of web programming or stay at a higher design level? (BTW web programing can mean learning several languages)
What kind of websites do you want to develop?

Good luck!
joe

[bluelm]

Thanks Joe!

In response to your questions-
I want to add website construction to my list of professional services.
I have nothing against purchasing the right stuff for the right job.
I would like to start by staying at a higher design level and learn the basics of programming - however, in time, I would like to learn as much as possible about the programming languages.
As for the websites I want to develop - I really don't know yet. That will depend on what clients needs are.

Thanks again!

[JoeP]

Thanks Joe!

In response to your questions-
I want to add website construction to my list of professional services.
I have nothing against purchasing the right stuff for the right job.
I would like to start by staying at a higher design level and learn the basics of programming - however, in time, I would like to learn as much as possible about the programming languages.
As for the websites I want to develop - I really don't know yet. That will depend on what clients needs are.

Thanks again!

Check out the products section of http://www.macromedia.com/
I've heard lots of positive comments regarding Dreamweaver, coldfusion, flash, etc. Adobe (who bought Macromedia) also has some great products for graphic design, photo editing, etc. I'm sure they integrate nicely. Too pricey for my hobby/volunteer effort, but probably the direction I'd go professionally.

If you are going to really get into website design, I'd suggest that you also start learning about the guts of the beast including:
HTML/XHTML
CSS
PHP
Database design & SQL
XML
JavaScript


Amazon has lots of books on website design with Dreamweaver, Cold Fusion, Flash and the like.

Sound like fun!
joe

[vegasgwm]

As a teacher of 20 years, i can tell you, start simple if you're a beginner. Trying php, java and other programming langs right from the start may only confuse and discourage you. Besides some people are designers, other programmers, some both. A webpage can be created in many ways, but the simplest by far is plain html. You don't need to know programming such as with java or php.
To understand what you are doing, you should NOT use a wysiwyg program like dreamweaver or netscape to build your site. You Must learn the simple html code. I prefer an html editor that also shows you the output while you work, such as HtmlEdit or HTML-Kit. Typing your own code is also good, but might not be wise as you could make syntax errors.

If you're the 'programming type' , then php is also a simple language to start with, although you would need a server to test your pages. You will eventually have to learn to code (e.g. php and msql), if you want to make dynamic sites, like a dating site. Oh, and I don't know what is out there for mac., so you should find mac equavelent for html-Kit etc.

[Ginger]

I agree completely with vegasgwm. I have personally followed that same learning curve and I find that a previous knowledge of what I call "raw HTML" is a plus in later understanding of VB, Java, php, etc. I even have friends who do wonderful things with html (and yes, even with BASIC!).

Besides, knowledge of html is an advantage in later tweaking of any web apps (done with WYSIWYG, for example).

Regarding some comments made by JoeP, Yes, it really does depend on how far you want to go. Many of the most attractive web sites have been designed with "Content Management Systems" that require just a little editing.

My penny's worth.

[bmac]

Hi,
If you want to start building web sites i deeply recommend you to use Web Standards.
http://www.webstandards.org/.
Also I advise you the itensive use of CSS and XHTML Transactional or Strick, some great sites to begin learning somthing are:
http://www.alistapart.com/
http://www.csszengarden.com/
http://sonspring.com/journal/
http://www.stopdesign.com/articles/

Typo:
http://www.stylegala.com/
http://www.smileycat.com/


And The best one for me:
http://www.alvit.de/blog/article/the-sites-you-shouldnt-have-missed-in-2005
http://www.alvit.de/handbook/

[page1ink.]

There are some GREAT resources at W3 Schools (http://www.w3schools.com) for just about anything you'll need to start. Coming from Print Design you'll probably enjoy CSS, and I would recommend looking at The CSS Zen Garden (http://www.csszengarden.com) to check out how capable a tool CSS really is. They also have a book called 'the zen of css design' that has a lot of great tips and tricks as far as designing layouts.

As far as editors go, I personally use Frontpage 2000 and Notepad. I like Frontpage because it's a fairly simple editor (although it doesn't like PHP very much..) and it has easy access to a preview pane. Still working on finding a nice text editor with HTML context coloring..

You'll need to download a couple of web browsers (mainly IE, Firefox, Netscape, and Opera) so you can test your pages (each one renders a page a bit differently) as well as an FTP program (FileZilla (http://filezilla.sourceforge.net) works well and it's free).

Hope that helps you out a bit!

[bluelm]

WOW - you guys rock!

I totally expected to get blasted for not knowing this stuff already! Thanks for being so encouraging.

As much as I would prefer to just jump in and have this stuff working in a week or so - it looks like I will have a TON of reading ahead of me.

For the record - I was leaning toward the use of GoLive because of it's CSS layout grids. Those things think like I do...not in tables! I will consider myself warned, however, to avoid the WYSIWYGs for now (but please!! they're seem so much easier!!)

Thanks for all the links, please keep them coming. You all are great tomes of knowledge for this little fledgling!

[mattznyc]

My $.02

1. It will be frustrating at first, but just realize you won't have the same control over layout and design that you do in print. If you can live with that you'll be fine. If not, it will drive you mad!

2. Test on different browsers. This is related to #1. Things will look different depending on the browswer and platform (mac, win, *nix).

3. Use CSS. Since you are starting out fresh you won't learn any of the bad pre-CSS habits that a lot of us have and using CSS will 90% of the time take care of problem #2

4. Don't use WYSIWIG, learn the html, and of course use other people's HTML liberally!!!!!

5. Jump in and have fun!!

Matt

[jayman228]

I have to say I aggree 100% to learn pure HTML. I created my website in pure HTML and only code i have on my page that isn't mine is the forum and guestbook. Other then that, every page I have, is me in notepad doing pure HTML.

I use tables but thats just me...I have yet to do CSS but with CSS the page still looks good! Although, there is always room for improvements :-)

My advise, Start learning pure HTML first THEN go for the others (such as PHP, java, etc) Me personally, I'm in the process of learning PHP.....it takes time but worth it totally :-)

[wooffi]

I must admire all you folks building pure web site with just html. I am also a printer with knowledge of all the printing softwares, Quark and the Adobe group. I than did sneak into the back door of web publishing with GoLive. But it is only for my own little web site. I did put myself through some trial and tribulations with the php format on the oscommerce shopping cart.

Great information from all of you, thanks.

Wolfgang

[ranchnachos]

I would recommend looking at The CSS Zen Garden (http://www.csszengarden.com) to check out how capable a tool CSS really is. They also have a book called 'the zen of css design' that has a lot of great tips and tricks as far as designing layouts.


I would like second this notion. There's nothing like sitting down with a good book in front of your computer and trying the code out for yourself.

Also while I'm on the note of good books. I recommend anything by O'Reilly (http://www.oreilly.com/store/). They have tons of great books any computer related subject imaginable. From Databases(MySQL, Oracle, Access), to Programming (PHP, Perl, C#, Java, etc..) to Networking, Security, Web Design, Graphic Design, even Digital Audio/Video.

Well worth a look :)

[bluelm]

This is great stuff! I checked out w3schools and WOW - what an incredible site. I've been cramming this stuff into my head for a week now - pretty soon, I'm sure I'll have more questions about all of it - but right now I'm having a blast learning something new. I've even convinced some friends of mine to join my on the quest - all starting with HTML and XHTML - then we'll tackle CSS or PHP so we can help one another out later!

Thanks again for all your help - you are all my heros at this moment. I am sad to admit that my personal site is not hosted with bluehost - but rest assured, when my contract is up in a few months, I'll be bringing all my stuff here!

Keep the comments coming - my friends and I are soon sure to need all the help we can get!

[dalmatiandigital]

Learn the raw HTML, and build a basic site by hand coding. That is what I did, but I then started using Dreamweave for all my sites. It can save TONS of time, once you have an idea of what is going on behind the interface. http://www.lynda.com has some great video tutorials available as well. She publishes a superb classroom-in-a-book series that really helps too.

[redsox9]

Hi, bluelm:

All of what you've seen is great but I might also suggest learning the differences between print media and web media. I wrote a little tutorial about eight or so years ago and I believe that most of it still rings true today:

http://www.harbormoon.com/guide/index.html

This guide is meant to brief the reader on creating clean, creative, and quality web sites that grab your attention and make an impression. It is NOT an HTML tutorial and there already several suggestions posted that make excellent resources. I would also suggest starting with HTML as it is by far the easiest language to understand.

I would also add that I use a text editor to create my web sites rather than "canned" software. As others have stated, the benefit is that you can get practiced on understanding pure HTML. I cannot stress the importance, as I explain in the tutorial, of minimizing incompatibility issues between different browsers. FrontPage, for example, looks nice in IE but can look like garbage in FireFox or Opera (or, at least that use to be the case - it may have improved since I last checked).

Best of luck to you! :D