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[SD-Ness]

Now I want to get into making real webpages. I'm kind of sick of using geocities and the like all the time. I have several questions for you to answer if you're experienced in the area.

General
This is a very general question, but: what should I do to get started?

Specifics:
What is the best language to use?
Does good old HTML get the job done?
My friend uses PHP for his site and it loooks quite nice. Is PHP better?
What are good books to use for tutorials/research guides?

Where do I actually purchase the domain from?
How do I put the webpage up?

What programs are good for coding/creating the webpage?

I'm willing to spend a lot of money. What price range am I looking at? What if I went a little lower in terms of money?

And any other insightful or crucial facts I need to know.

 

[xsarien]

Now I want to get into making real webpages. I'm kind of sick of using geocities and the like all the time. I have several questions for you to answer if you're experienced in the area.

General
This is a very general question, but: what should I do to get started?

Specifics:
What is the best language to use?
Does good old HTML get the job done?
My friend uses PHP for his site and it loooks quite nice. Is PHP better?
What are good books to use for tutorials/research guides?

Where do I actually purchase the domain from?
How do I put the webpage up?

What programs are good for coding/creating the webpage?

I'm willing to spend a lot of money. What price range am I looking at? What if I went a little lower in terms of money?

And any other insightful or crucial facts I need to know.

HTML is the core of any webpage, you can't get around it. If you're just getting into it, don't worry about PHP (yet.) Buy a book, or get one from a local library on HTML. It's terribly easy to pick up. Once you have the basics down, you should be able to make a basic web page. There are editors out there that are generally very good and very bad. Dreamweaver gets the job done, I've been biased against Frontpage since my initial experience with it back in '96 was very, very sour. I'll be honest, and not to sound snobbish: I use NoteTab Light, which is just a text editor. Once you get HTML down backwards and forewards, that's really all you need.

More advanced stuff, like, say, making an elaborate table, or making tweaks to stylesheets requires more drastic measures. But let's not go there right now.

It's cliche, but, you know, baby steps.

And Photoshop, get a copy of Photoshop or Paint Shop Pro.

 

[Dagless M.D.]

You would do well to pick up a copy of Flash aswell. It caters to the more advanced side of websites, but is rather accessible right from the get go

 

[Kiriku]

I always use HTML when making my sites, and it works fine (but it has limits, of course).
My advice is: use notepad and practice, to really learn the basics of HTML. As for myself, I pretty much looked up all the different tags, and just played around, trial and error-style. I also check the sources for different sites, in order to understand how they're made.
Starting with something like Dreamweaver right away will only get you into trouble later on. When you really know HTML, move on to Dreamweaver or similar.
PHP isn't exactly related to the actual looks of the site, but it's useful for the technical part (I've yet to learn ASP/PHP myself though). It's easier to update and manage a data-heavy site when using PHP/ASP.

Think about what kind of site you're going to make. What will be the focus - substance, or surface? Will it contain lots of information, or will it be more like a cool-looking site for marketing purposes? It's a delicate balance.

 

[impirius]

If you're familiar with coding anything (markup, programming, etc), you may want to try just writing the HTML in a text editor first. You'll save money on a HTML Editor and get a more 'hands-on' experience. There are plenty of tutorials on the net. If you have a question, Googling it will most likely return several good answers. If coding the HTML is too tedious, you may be able to pick up Frontpage 2000 on the cheap from someone who has moved on to a more recent version. It's a competent HTML editor that puts out clean code for the most part.

PHP is used when you want to do dynamic content. If you're making a static website, don't worry about PHP. For a dynamic website, you may want to look into using a PHP content management system such as WordPress. It's easy to set up and doesn't require much PHP/MySQL knowledge at all.

I suggest you go with godaddy.com for the domains; they're cheap and reliable. As far as hosting goes, I use dathorn.com, but that's probably too much for your needs. Webhostingtalk.com has plenty of deals and user feedback, so you should be able to find something good there.

 

[SD-Ness]

HTML is the core of any webpage, you can't get around it. If you're just getting into it, don't worry about PHP (yet.) Buy a book, or get one from a local library on HTML. It's terribly easy to pick up. Once you have the basics down, you should be able to make a basic web page. There are editors out there that are generally very good and very bad. Dreamweaver gets the job done, I've been biased against Frontpage since my initial experience with it back in '96 was very, very sour. I'll be honest, and not to sound snobbish: I use NoteTab Light, which is just a text editor. Once you get HTML down backwards and forewards, that's really all you need.[/quote]

I always use HTML when making my sites, and it works fine (but it has limits, of course).
My advice is: use notepad and practice, to really learn the basics of HTML. As for myself, I pretty much looked up all the different tags, and just played around, trial and error-style. I also check the sources for different sites, in order to understand how they're made.
Starting with something like Dreamweaver right away will only get you into trouble later on. When you really know HTML, move on to Dreamweaver or similar.

I'll do that then. I know a little bit of HTML right now. Any specific books on HTML that you know are worthwhile?

And Photoshop, get a copy of Photoshop or Paint Shop Pro.

Heh, thanks bit torrent.

Think about what kind of site you're going to make. What will be the focus - substance, or surface? Will it contain lots of information, or will it be more like a cool-looking site for marketing purposes? It's a delicate balance.

Well I'm making [want to make] a site for my town's lacrosse organization. I'm modeling it after this. The page there contains mostly text and hyperlinks. I find that to be a pretty simple webpage, as a novice. It is, right?

Thanks.

 

[SD-Ness]

If coding the HTML is too tedious, you may be able to pick up Frontpage 2000 on the cheap from someone who has moved on to a more recent version. It's a competent HTML editor that puts out clean code for the most part.

Good to know. What about MS Publisher? Same deal?

I suggest you go with godaddy.com for the domains; they're cheap and reliable. As far as hosting goes, I use dathorn.com, but that's probably too much for your needs. Webhostingtalk.com has plenty of deals and user feedback, so you should be able to find something good there.

Awesome.

PHP is used when you want to do dynamic content. If you're making a static website, don't worry about PHP. For a dynamic website, you may want to look into using a PHP content management system such as WordPress. It's easy to set up and doesn't require much PHP/MySQL knowledge at all.

Static vs. Dynamic...what's the difference? Is static more of a information/text based, while dynamic is much more interactive?

 

[xsarien]

Good to know. What about MS Publisher? Same deal?


Awesome.

Learn to swim first. Hand-coding even a basic "hello, world" page will give you a much better feel for how HTML behaves. What he means by "Dynamic" content is stuff that can change on the page with no actual code changes. In its most basic form, take a simple PHP include. You can "include" a standard navigation bar for a large site. If you want to change it, you just need to alter the one navigation file, and that will filter down to any file that's running that one line of PHP.

But I'm oversimplifying.

A "static" page is usually straight HTML that doesn't make any requests to the server except for "Hey, give me that image, I need to load it;" There's nothing on the web server "generating" the page.

Every blog you see is dynamic, every Geocities page you see is static. The difference is largely technical, not how much interactivity is available.

 

[Orion]

Here's a good site for learning about web design.

http://www.w3schools.com/

Hope it helps.

 

[SD-Ness]

Thanks. You've all been a lot of help.

 

[impirius]

Yeah, xsarien's gotcha covered.

Good luck!

 

[SD-Ness]

Sorry about resurrecting an old topic, but I put this project on the back burner for most of the summer and am ready to start while I have a couple more weeks of summer left.

How long do you think it will take me to 1) Purchase a domain, 2) Get a host, 3) Put up a temporary page? A few hours?

 

[sefskillz]

you can purchase a domain and get a host in the time it takes you to fill out the forms. it takes about 24-36 hours for the dns to update and your site to actually come up (whatever.com)

 

[pnjtony]

I use Dreamweaver MX for an html editor and I registered my domain on godaddy.com. I currently use sunwave.com for webserver.

Have you thought of possibly using a web template? Maybe phpnuke?

 

[Semjaza Azazel]

Just do yourself a favor and teach yourself CSS before you get into the habit of using font tags and tables to organize websites. You'll save yourself a lot of grief.