Web Editor Questions

[Sindre]

So, guys, I was planning to start an online business.
I've made one webpage before, using a web editor. However, I found this editor a bit limited and hard to use. If anyone knows the webhost One.com Web hosting**-**Domain • Hosting • E-mail**, it was their web editor I used. But I'm looking for something more like Photoshop. I used Photoshop many times to create images, album-covers etc. Is there any user-friendly, Photoshop-ish web editor out there? It doesn't have to be very similar to Photoshop, as long as it's easy to use.

I also know nothing about codes/programming. I couldn't make a website that way. So the idea is to make it the way you see it, using a web editor. I was long planning to make the site only in html, but I think that will limit the site way too much.

I'm looking for something that I could easily do all this with:

• Add Google-ads
  
• Add all kinds of other ads
  
• Use flash (I'm not going to have a fancy flash-site, but I think some ads would require flash.. But I don't know how it works )
  
• Use java (don't know if/when I'll be needing that either)
  
• Use php (I know that php is a "language" or something you could program, but is there some way to have a php-site using only a web editor? (No programming))
  
• CSS (What is that? I don't know, but it might be handy)
  
• Make these contact/submit forms that people fill in their names and addresses in
  
• Have an automatic e-mail function (so that customers receive automatic e-mail confirming payments etc)
  
• Create a way for customers to pay directly at my site using Visa/Mastercard etc
  
• Basically be able to have all functions that modern webpages today requires
  
• If I change the design, it would be nice if it applied to all the subpages of my website too. Is that possible?

And yet the idea is that this will be a really simple webpage. But it still needs these functions.

Hope to get some answers so I would never have to ask these questions again

[aussieNickuss]

Photoshop is an entirely different concept to web editing. A normal "web editor" (aka WhatYouSeeIsWhatYouGet editor) is very similar to the box you use to type a thread or reply on this forum. In other words, a very chopped back mini version of Microsoft Word for example.

I think the best thing for you to do if you would like to add all the functionality you listed for your site yourself, is to grab a few books a learn web development from scratch. (or hire a web developer)

If you have some time to really sit down and learn some new skills, then it is very rewarding. I'd start off with XHTML & CSS (the basics), then PHP & MySQL (for dynamic content and databases) and then onto Javascript (for some nifty functionality).

Alternatively, you could start of with a CMS package (like Joomla, Drupal or Wordpress) which each have enormous amounts of plugins that you can use to acheive the functionality that your after. Joomla and Drupal have very large communities, so it shouldn't be too hard to learn the basics and find help when you need it.

[Minsc]

Originally Posted by Sindre

I also know nothing about codes/programming. I couldn't make a website that way. So the idea is to make it the way you see it, using a web editor. I was long planning to make the site only in html, but I think that will limit the site way too much.

You should really do it with a code editor but Webdwarf is an alright visual editor, and it's also freeware... I've never actually used it to make a site though.

You could also hire someone to do it for you. (definately something to consider if you run a business since you probably don't want your site to look bad)

[*]Add Google-ads
[*]Add all kinds of other ads
[*]Use flash (I'm not going to have a fancy flash-site, but I think some ads would require flash.. But I don't know how it works )
[*]Use java (don't know if/when I'll be needing that either)
[*]CSS (What is that? I don't know, but it might be handy)

Webdwarf will let you put custom code on your page so you could do all of that. I can't get it to put stuff in the head tag though so no css(I think you need to buy some piece of junk to get it to do that).

[*]Use php (I know that php is a "language" or something you could program, but is there some way to have a php-site using only a web editor? (No programming))

Nope, you need to hand-write your own PHP. HTML doesn't have any logic in it, except for Javascript, so you could use a visual editor for it since it's pretty much just a text representation of a static page. PHP is a real programming language and you could pretty much do anything in it(although it's meant for web development).

PHP generates HTML code. It does logical processing so you can't have a WYSIWYG editor for PHP. For example, you could have user accounts with PHP. PHP would check if the users entered the right password, if they're already logged in, ect, and decide what to do in those cases. If you want the contents of your pages to change in any way without you changing them, you'll need a server-side language like PHP.

[*]Make these contact/submit forms that people fill in their names and addresses in
[*]Have an automatic e-mail function (so that customers receive automatic e-mail confirming payments etc)
[*]Create a way for customers to pay directly at my site using Visa/Mastercard etc
[*]Basically be able to have all functions that modern webpages today requires
[*]If I change the design, it would be nice if it applied to all the subpages of my website too. Is that possible?

You need PHP for all of those. I've never seen an editor that could do the last one. You can make an actual form in HTML but you'll need something like PHP for it to do anything. Processing your own credit cards is very complicated, you'll need a dedicated phone line amoung other things and you'll have to deal with fake information and people paying in foreign currencies, which is why you'd normally have some other site do your payment processing. The other site should take care of confirmation emails, ect, but I'm not too sure how it would work since I've never done it.

You could just use a pre-written PHP script like osCommerce to do it, but if you want to change the layout you'll need to hire someone or change the code by hand.

[tobyhede]

You've basically described what I do for a living

A good content management system will handle most of these functions.

A CMS will be built with a language like Java or PHP, but to use one you will need a server with PHP (or Java or Rails) and a database like MySQL. Lots of hosts have automated deployment scripts for a variety of CMS packages.

However, even with the best and easiest CMS, for most of these advanced functions you will need some HTML and CSS* knowledge.

* CSS controls your site design - the look and feel. A little bit of CSS knowledge can go a long way.

[Sindre]

Minsc: Thank you for your detailed answer. So, Webdwarf, is that an editor? Hmm, and I absolutely need to have php if I would like a simple contact/submit form? ...So... *cough* what is the best way to learn php? Is it absolutely necessary to know html before learning php? Where should I start?

I'm willing to learn, but I can imagine it will take some time, and I would really like to start my business as soon as possible

Toby: So you're making a "living" out of that? *I can smell high prices* But feel free to PM me about prices... It's possible I will need some help along the way. So I might contact if interested.

[andrew]

Myself as well do this for a living, HTML/CSS, Flash, Ruby on Rails, PHP etc.

It all depends what you want to do. I've spent about 7 years learning all of this, and I'm still learning. Sure you can get an idea and learn how to do things, but to do it the right way will take a huge amount of your time and may not be fun if you're not passionate about it. I started out as a hobby, then I got good enough to charge for it.

If you want to setup a few pages to sell something or give information, then you can easily do that without coding. But from the sounds of it, you want much more. So unless you enjoy learning for fun and have a lot of free time, you may just want to hire somebody that will do it the right way. Even if you do learn enough in a few months to get it working, there are so many things like design theory, colors, layout, security, etc that will prevent it from being optimal. I'm not trying to discourage you, but if you plan and having a business online, I highly advise paying a professional. It's not as easy as it's made out to be.

You can use premade templates, layouts, and CMS sure, but you'll still need a great deal of knowledge to succeed with them. I'm a professional, so my standards are much higher than most people's (even designers), so something I may not be happy with, could be totally acceptable and perfect for you.

I just want to give you fair warning that I've learned from clients who just want something "simple and easy" and don't understand that the easier it looks to use, the harder it is to make. So something like using PHP without coding, is like telling an architect you want to design a skyscraper using finger paints. I know you don't know, I'm not being harsh, just trying to give you some perspective.

Let us know how it goes!

[kthdsn]

I also do this for a living, I started learning 5 years ago and I'm only recently starting to make money from it as there has been so much to learn (and there is so much still to learn).

If you want a professional, unique website, you either need to put in the months and years to learn what you need to know, or hire somebody who knows what they're doing.

If you want a website that you can build yourself without learning the hows and whys, get a content management system and build your site with that. There are plenty available, each with different functionality, different levels of skill required and different restrictions and structures. Depending on the type of site you want to build, a CMS may or may not be suitable for you.

[Minsc]

Originally Posted by Sindre

Minsc: Thank you for your detailed answer. So, Webdwarf, is that an editor? Hmm, and I absolutely need to have php if I would like a simple contact/submit form? ...So... *cough* what is the best way to learn php? Is it absolutely necessary to know html before learning php? Where should I start?

Webdwarf will let you drag and drop stuff onto a page to get a website but I wouldn't recommend using it. You could also use Word to export HTML.

For a contact form, you could construct a mailto address with javascript from form input and that would fire up the user's mail client when they submit it.
If you want one where your email address is completely hidden/not used and you recieve any input they enter into the form, you'll need a PHP script and an STMP server or a database depending on how you want to do it.

If you want to learn PHP, you'll have to learn how to code, since most programming languages are similar. (ex. it'd take an experienced programmer about a week at most to learn a new language with a bit of proficiency) To learn to code, you start with easy languages first and work your way up. You could learn HTML/CSS first, then Javascript, and then PHP. Or you could try Basic, then PHP. The more complex languages take what you learned in the easy languages and add more to it to make the code easier to manage and work with. It's easier to actually write a program in the easier languages for an inexperienced programmer though. And you learn by doing in programming; you have to actually write code to learn how to do it.

You don't have to know HTML to learn PHP, although you will need to work with HTML if you want a working website. PHP and HTML are completely different though. A good understanding of the HTTP protocol, how the web works, and your server of choice(Apache or IIS usually) will help with PHP.

I guess if you're quick you could write PHP scripts of moderate complexity in 6 months(this would require you to probably start with Basic and then learn PHP alongside it after you get the hang of it)... To write code you'll need something to compile or interpret your code(a PHP-enabled server or a Basic compiler). To actually start coding you could take a premade script(not over 100 lines though) and try changing it around to get it to do something. You'd also want some web-based help to help you use the commands. A good language would have examples along with the commands(pre-made programs that focus on it). Don't expect to write anything complicated for a while.

Although it'll be easier to just pay someone to do it or use a premade system. If you don't intend to be a programmer then there's not much of a point in learning to do it well enough to make a professional-looking site with back-end scripts. Although if you do hire someone it'll help a lot to have some knowledge of programming so that you can understand what they're doing and check if they're doing a good job.

[kthdsn]

Originally Posted by Minsc

You could also use Word to export HTML.

Please don't do that! Word spits out the most awful code I have ever come across. Your site will almost certainly look terrible in any browser that isn't Internet Explorer. Search engines will hate it, people who use assistive technologies will hate it, and anybody who knows anything about websites will NOT take your site seriously. Using Word would be the biggest mistake you could make in my opinion.

[andrew]

Using anything HTML generated by Microsoft products is a bad idea, since they mostly just care about IE.

Once you learn to code for real, it ends up being a lot easier to just write the code and you have so much more control. But that's usually only the case after a few years.

So again, if you don't plan on making a career out of programming, hiring somebody is your best bet. We're not just saying it either to get your business, I have more work than I know what do with. But with our experience, we know what it takes to make a quality professional site, and you won't have that on your own for a long time. Neither are we trying to discourage you, but there's a difference between learning as a hobby and learning for the purpose of making a company website.

[Sindre]

Okey.. thanks guys, even though this wasn't the answers I was hoping for

It's amazing how fast new ideas arises. When I wrote this post my plans for a web-business was slightly different than it is now.

I'm actually concidering a blog instead. No products, nothing to be paid for. Except hopefully some ads in the long run.

Unfortunately I want to begin right away. The content is the most important here, so why not just begin? I can have a crappy site with good content, and slowly but surely improve the site as I'm going? Right?

Maybe minsc or andrew will volunteer to be my Mentor?

I'm planning to use wordpress. I read that some hosts offers built-in wordpress in their websites.

Being in my situation, would you recommend that, or should I mess with codes instead? (Might be risky, but with a little help of a kind Mentor... )

So, to get it straight: With the Web Editor from One.com Web hosting**-**Domain • Hosting • E-mail** I will start working on the site. I will make the basic design here, and I will somehow get wordpress on it, and start blogging.

If I later would like to add some php or "fancy up" the site, that won't be impossible as long as I already have something to work with (the blog)..??

Does this at all sounds like it can be done, or is it a bad idea? I would like to know why it's a bad idea if you think so

[Minsc]

Originally Posted by Sindre

I'm actually concidering a blog instead. No products, nothing to be paid for. Except hopefully some ads in the long run.

Blogs are easier to do.. You could do one in plain HTML with no server-side scripting if you wanted to, although there would be no comments and it'd limit your ad options.

Unfortunately I want to begin right away. The content is the most important here, so why not just begin? I can have a crappy site with good content, and slowly but surely improve the site as I'm going? Right?

With Wordpress or something like that, you'd have a generic-looking site at first and could eventually make your own layout(or have someone else do it).

I'm planning to use wordpress. I read that some hosts offers built-in wordpress in their websites.

It doesn't really have to be built in; PHP scripts are easy to install anyway. For Wordpress(and most scripts), you'll need a MySQL database and PHP support(the version matters, make sure your host's PHP version is compatible with the script you're going to use, it probably will be though). You'll usually download the script from somewhere and extract and upload it to your site. After that, you'd set up a MySQL database, load the install page on your site in your browser(like install.php or something), and follow its instructions to install the script. Then, you'd usually be required to delete the install script for security reasons.

Being in my situation, would you recommend that, or should I mess with codes instead? (Might be risky, but with a little help of a kind Mentor... )

You'd be better off using Wordpress or something similar than writing it from scratch... Especially if you want to get started right away.

So, to get it straight: With the Web Editor from One.com Web hosting - Domain • Hosting • E-mail I will start working on the site. I will make the basic design here, and I will somehow get wordpress on it, and start blogging.

Make sure to read reviews about any hosting company before you use them.
Like: http://www.webhostingstuff.com/review/Onecom.html
That's about all I found for one.com though.
I use http://www.nearlyfreespeech.net/ but most people here would recommend something like Dreamhost(?). You could also use Nearlyfreespeech along with Amazon's S3 to save some money but that's pretty complicated to set up. NFS also requires a bit of technical knowledge; they don't have any preinstalled scripts for example.

Anyway, you can't make a design and then put Wordpress on it(not without HTML/PHP knowledge anyway). You have to know how to write HTML/CSS code with some basic knowledge of PHP to make a Wordpress design. Wordpress does come with its own designs though and you can download more. So you'd install Wordpress somehow(normally or pre-install), then maybe download any templates or plugins that you like, then start blogging using Wordpress's admin interface.

If I later would like to add some php or "fancy up" the site, that won't be impossible as long as I already have something to work with (the blog)..??

Wordpress is a PHP script.. You could have it do whatever you want but you'd need a lot of PHP scripting knowledge to actually be able to navigate its source code well and to understand it. You could write a template or a plugin which would be more simple, but would still require PHP and HTML/CSS knowledge(or maybe HTML/CSS/Javascript with not much PHP depending on the nature of the plugin).

Does this at all sounds like it can be done, or is it a bad idea? I would like to know why it's a bad idea if you think so

You should be able to install Wordpress on a hosted site and start blogging.. That's a common way to do it. Installing Wordpress on a paid site would look a lot better than a blogger account anyway; you'd probably get more interest in it.

[aussieNickuss]

I'm planning to use wordpress. I read that some hosts offers built-in wordpress in their websites.

GOOD hosts offer a feature in their server control panel that allows you to install free software packages, that they have made available to their customers.

If your host uses CPanel for example, there is usually a section called Fantastico which has a whole bunch of open source packages, such as Wordpress, Joomla, Drupal etc that you can install with the click of a button......you don't have to worry about the complex database settings etc., it does all that for you automatically.

[Sindre]

Minsc: Thanks again for an incredible detailed answer.

So, I understand it as it will not be a good idea to make the design in a web editor first, and then add wordpress? Rather start blank with wordpress, and add more design at a later point?

This sounds like I need to know codes/programming again. It would be so great to make design in a web editor. But I cannot do that using a php-script like wordpress?

The most important functions I need (that I can think of) will be:
Comments (and being able to choose enable/disable comments)
Archives (is this something you have to do manually with every new post?)
List of related posts
Add Google-ads (at the same place on every new post)
And other ads (it would be nice if this isnt a nightmare for a non-programmer to do. Can I do it through the admin panel in wordpress or something?)
How do I make sure that categories/best of's etc. are displayed to the right/left side on ANY of the posts I make? Is this a tricky or easy thing to do?

[Minsc]

Originally Posted by Sindre

So, I understand it as it will not be a good idea to make the design in a web editor first, and then add wordpress? Rather start blank with wordpress, and add more design at a later point?

You'll need to install Wordpress first.. After it's installed, you can alter certain files or add new ones to make design changes.

This sounds like I need to know codes/programming again. It would be so great to make design in a web editor. But I cannot do that using a php-script like wordpress?

You can't have a web editor write a PHP script for you so you would need to do some coding.
You could use a web editor as a starting point but you would still need to write code after that, and it would be hard since web editors produce pretty bad HTML.

You could also change the css around, which would be easier and would change the color scheme and font sizes, ect, but not much more than that. You'll have a base to work with although you'll still need to write code.

The most important functions I need (that I can think of) will be:
Comments (and being able to choose enable/disable comments)
Archives (is this something you have to do manually with every new post?)
List of related posts
Add Google-ads (at the same place on every new post)
And other ads (it would be nice if this isnt a nightmare for a non-programmer to do. Can I do it through the admin panel in wordpress or something?)
How do I make sure that categories/best of's etc. are displayed to the right/left side on ANY of the posts I make? Is this a tricky or easy thing to do?

I've never used Wordpress so I'm not exactly sure how its admin interface is, but:
Comments - Wordpress supports comments and it will let you disable them if you want...
Archives - You mean those listings of posts by month? I'm pretty sure Wordpress does that automatically but you might need to do some manual work to get it to be the way you want.
Related posts - Pretty sure Wordpress can do it on its own.
Google ads - I'm guessing you should be able to insert arbitrary HTML into your blog, which is what you would need to do to add Google ads. There should also be some themes for it.
Other ads - If they're HTML ads, it should be about as easy as with Google ads to get them in. Something like Textlinkads would require you to do some PHP scripting, although Textlinkads will provide the scripts for the actual ads.

There's plenty of stuff on Google about adding Adsense to Wordpress:
WordPress - add Adsense to your blog
AdSense-Deluxe WordPress Plugin » Acme Technologies Zeitgeist
10 Best Wordpress Plugins for Google Adsense

You could go to WordPress.com » Get a Free Blog Here and sign up for a blog there just to test out the admin interface.
You could also look at Wordpress-powered blogs. You should be able to do most of the things they're doing with Wordpress or skins/plugins since most people don't write their own code. Look at the copyright on the bottom and you might find a theme name or something.

[Sindre]

Thanks again for great answer and the links. A few new questions: What exactly is search engine optimalization? Is it something you can do to get better results on search engines? How is it done? I'm not expecting a detailed explenation of every step, but just basically.

Also, what about RSS-feed in wordpress? Is this working automatically?

And one last thing: I was thinking about perhaps making the index-page in a regular web editor. This isn't the blog itself anyway, just the home of the website. In a web editor you can easily make design (WYSIWYG) and add images... Can't I just insert ads this way (like adding images), and include hyperlinks to the sites I'm adding for? Or is it another universal law that doesn't allow me to this for some reason?

But what I can do, is have a frontpage made in a web editor, with lot's of links to the blogposts? But (as I understand it) then the design won't be the same in the blogposts?

By the way, if I sign up for a free blog at wordpress, just to try, I'll get the same wordpress "panel" to work from as if I downloaded it manually to my own site?

[andrew]

Starting with a blog would be perfect. I use Wordpress and it's really nice. It'll get your feet wet with basic things like learning FTP, administrating blogs and a website, and then getting into HTML/CSS.

SEO (search engine optimization) is pretty much a way over hyped web 2.0 buzz word. You're right on what it means, and it is very important. But it's not as important as having a quality site with quality content. There are entire companies that just do SEO, and a lot of them are little more than common sense (for a web developer), but I digress.

Yes. RSS feeds in Wordpress are automatic.

Sure, you COULD do that, but it would be pointless if all it does is go to your blog with some things here and there. Go straight to the good stuff.

I don't know if the admin panel would be the same, I would think so. But you'd benefit more installing it yourself on your own host and domain for various reasons.

[Sindre]

Thanks for all the answers guys, you've been great.
The questions never seem to have an end though
What about a search-function? Andrew, I visited your site and noticed you had one. Steve Pavlina also does. Many others too. Does it "come with" wordpress, or must I create one myself?

True or false: Can I use wordpress as a way to... ehm... create my entire website? What about the frontpage of Steve's site... is it made with wordpress or is it made "outside" of wordpress, using coding and stuff?