Learning Basic Web Design Newbie Questions

[Kiwib]

Hi Everyone,

I would like to set up a couple of blogs myself i.e. with my own url, not a blogger.com type site. However I have limited knowledge of HTML / Web Design. As part of my university degree I learnt some basic web authoring using Dreamweaver, however this was a couple of years ago and my memory isn't serving me well I have a couple of questions:

1. Would you recommend I use Dreamweaver, or is there a simpler program I could use. I don't want a mega high resolution website (i.e. flashing lights / games etc), but I want it to look professional, and I want to have a lot of freedom in the design of the site - I don't want to use an existing fixed website template..

2. I would like to attend college classes in web design, however i will have to wait a while to do so (september). Can anyone recommend a good online course i could follow which is relatively inexpensive in the meantime. An introduction to web design type course that i can do in my own time over the net?

Thanks in advance,
Dan

[JamesT]

Hey Dan,

As for an online course for learning the basics, the W3C offers a series of tutorials that cover all the basics for a variety of languages. You can visit their site here W3Schools Online Web Tutorials

In the meantime, the other option I would suggest is to use Wordpress for your blog. It's a great program and will cut down on the number of headaches you experience trying to get a new blog running. There's still some customization you can do, but you can focus the majority of your efforts on what readers will really come to your site for...CONTENT!

Hope this helps,
JamesT

[Kiwib]

I think i will use Wordpress, however i want to create a webpage around the blog too - so not just a simple blog.

Thanks though I will check out those courses Edit: Whooooa, i don't even know where to start with this site... guess i don't have a clue where to start, i will read over some of the html stuff and see if thats what i want, but i would like someone to recommend a quality/simple program - all i know is dreamweaver

[Caveman Joe]

Heyla. I'd recommend using GeekLog instead of WordPress - the Static Pages function (and their flexibility) allow you to make a whole website around the central blog component. OpenID support should be in the next release, too.
As for HTML editors, I use FireFox with the FireBug extension. It downloads a cached copy of any website's CSS and HTML to your local machine, and lets you edit it on the fly. Thus, you can change the appearance of any website, not just your own. Very, very nice for testing and learning.

[Chet]

Best html css tool = notepad

[Iksander]

I used to use notepad exclusively - but I recently started using the eclipse PHP IDE (which handles HTML/CSS/etc...) and really liked it alot - mostly for the syntax highlighting!

[Scin]

I vouch for HTMLKit as a web editor. It's free and very powerful.

As far as learning web design, there is one site that I can't stress enough as a learning tool:

Web Design from Scratch - Free web design course - basics, layout, free tutorials, case studies, how to guides and examples

This site has articles on everything. Not just code or art, but also layout, marketing, everything. GO THERE.

[Kiwib]

Thanks for the help guys!

I don't have clue what i'm doing html wise, so I will need an editor, i have managed to get a copy of dreamweaver, so im doing a tutoiral i found on that and then i will read some html stuff and try and build something and see where i get

Scin - that site looks great, it will definitely be of help! And thanks James, those w3 articles look very good too!

I was going to use wordpress, but i will look into geek log as i think with word press they aharge you extra to have it as a seperate url as part of your own site...

THANKS!
Dan

[tobyhede]

I would recommend wordpress because it does allow static pages, has a host of plugins and templates, and a great user community.

You can host WordPress on your own site, many hosting providers offer WordPress installation as a service (I use both Hostgator and Dreamhost, and Wordpress is built in to both).

If you host your blog through WordPress.com, you will pay about $10-15 a year for your own domain, which is quite reasonable - it is hard to find hosting for that price and WP defintely scales ... some of their bigger sites get a ~lot~ of traffic (ICanHasCheezburger for example). Plus, hosting with WP automatically places you in their network ... you should get extra traffic just from the wp.com community.

For editing I use Eclipse with the Aptana plugin (at work) and TextMate (for my own stuff - on the Mac). Dreamweaver is awesome if you can afford it.

[Kiwib]

Thanks toby, hosting with wordpress seems like a good option, however im concerned that if i do so i have to put the blog on my homepage - i.e.
HomePages - Welcome to the Neighborhood

whereas i want it on www.homepage.com/blog

and to build an actual site around the blog... i dont know if this is possible with wordpress? in their mapping faw it seems like this might not be...?

[Caveman Joe]

The question of whether to use GeekLog or WordPress depends entirely on what you need, and what you're comfortable with.
WordPress is more polished, but GeekLog is more cutting-edge.
WordPress is easier to use, but GeekLog is more open.
WordPress is more commonly used and has good community support (FAR better than GeekLog in fact), but GeekLog is way ahead of WordPress in development.

Swings and roundabouts, really. I use GeekLog because it's very secure even out of the box, the templating engine is very good, features such as Remote Authentication (and the upcoming OpenID support) give me GeekGasms, it's very extensible and if I want to I can screw around with the code and make it do just what I want it to do.
I suspect that I also use it because I'm so used to it, so perhaps I'm unfairly biased. But you've gotta admit - letting people leave comments by using their LiveJournal accounts is pretty special.

Try 'em both, and good luck!

[Kiwib]

i dont know much (read anything ) about coding, i want something that is free, simple to manage, and just plugs in and goes, i also want something that will run under a 'subdomain' (?) i.e. www.website/blog url, and at the minute im not sure if i can do this with the hosted version of wordpress, which would be a shame as i like the idea of also having my blogs in their network for a starter

[Caveman Joe]

Aha. Well, to run most securely, GeekLog will want some of its directories to be outside of public_html so they cannot be accessed by Joe Public. However, GeekLog's index.php and your website's index.html can co-exist in the root directory without any problems. You can have GeekLog's public_html replaced by a subdirectory in your site - you'll just have to replace a couple of values in config.php.
I wouldn't worry too much about being in any networks - all the GeekLog sites I've made have gotten into search engine results within a couple of days thanks to their url rewriting feature (makes pages and URL more crawler-friendly), ping functions and various other little twists.
(PS - have a look at Cavemanjoe.co.uk, twistedlibrarian.com and cultureshock.net if you'd like to see what I've done with GeekLog. Projectwonderfultalk.com is basically just a barebones installation with only a couple of very minor theme changes, plus a wiki and forum installed.)

[munish]

It is here you can request that a WordPress expert install WordPress at your domain.

Installing WordPress for Free » Introduction

Originally Posted by Kiwib

Thanks for the help guys!

I don't have clue what i'm doing html wise, so I will need an editor, i have managed to get a copy of dreamweaver, so im doing a tutoiral i found on that and then i will read some html stuff and try and build something and see where i get

Scin - that site looks great, it will definitely be of help! And thanks James, those w3 articles look very good too!

I was going to use wordpress, but i will look into geek log as i think with word press they aharge you extra to have it as a seperate url as part of your own site...

THANKS!
Dan

[Nicholls]

Originally Posted by Kiwib

1. Would you recommend I use Dreamweaver, or is there a simpler program I could use. I don't want a mega high resolution website (i.e. flashing lights / games etc), but I want it to look professional, and I want to have a lot of freedom in the design of the site - I don't want to use an existing fixed website template..

If you are planning for this to be the only website you ever make then I suggest dreamweaver is a good option for you. It will allow you to bypass all the coding, on the other hand if you are going to go into web design as a career I recommend you work with a syntax editor such as Programmer's Notepad which will allow you to type in the code and because it highlights certain types of HTML will make your workflow easier. The second option means you will learn the code quicker and will not be so dependant on Dreamweaver and can code with just the normal notepad if you have to. Using dreamweaver has the same effect on your coding skills as having an address book on your phone does to your ability to remember numbers, you can still ring people if you have your phone but away from it you cannot remember most of the numbers.

Originally Posted by Kiwib

2. I would like to attend college classes in web design, however i will have to wait a while to do so (september). Can anyone recommend a good online course i could follow which is relatively inexpensive in the meantime. An introduction to web design type course that i can do in my own time over the net.

W3 Schools is a good guide if you want to find something fast; but if you really want to learn how to code websites from scratch then just go out and make a basic website design. Start with a few simple designs and work your way up. I also recommend you buy a book on the topic, I personally find the Bible series of books on programmes and other stuff quite helpful. Here is a link to a good one.

Alternatively just learn how to use one of the programmes recommended by other people. Wordpress is good to use but if you are thinking of something with more functionality try Drupal. The documentation online is fantastic for the latter.

[tobyhede]

You can definitely host Wordpress or Geeklog in a subdirectory on your domain (website.com.blog), but you'll need a hosting provider to do it. Still will be pretty easy with most hosts.

You can however host on WP.com and host on a subdomain (blog.website.com).

[Kiwib]

Thanks for all the replies everyone, i'm really grateful, these are probably really basic questions, but to me its all foreign.
I will probably use wordpress, and host it myself, and thanks for the link to the experts who will install it for you, i will probably use them.

Point taken about dreamweaver etc being like a mobile phone, i am currently going through a dreamweaver tutorial, but i will start learning some html as i plan to eventually run my blog as i travel so ill probably need it

Thanks!
Dan