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Web design / html coding
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Sketch
Formerly “iceman009”
 
Join Date: Nov 2005
Location: Some place
 
2012-11-19, 10:52

Hey guys,

So I am trying to learn some web designing mainly for personal use and it is difficult to say if it would be anything else in the future. There are so many options for this now, I am not sure where to begin.

First off, I want to design web sites that are simple and clean without the use of flash. Now there are services such as Wordpress which offer everything for you, so you can actually stop worrying about the coding part (at least partially) and put more effort on the content. But, if I want to customize the website (so it doesn't look like every other site), then I don't know how much flexibility they offer and naturally I need to pay, but that's I guess fine.

I am by no means a coding guru. I have done some basic programming in C++, but nothing extravagant. I don't know s*** about html, need to learn from scratch. I am willing to learn html, CSS but I am not sure about JS, JQuery or other more complicated coding stuff. So don't know how much I can do with just html+CSS.

If I want to use html editors, then Coda 2 and Dreamweaver seem to be the best options, especially for a noob like me. But I don't know which one is more noob friendly. Or I get Wordpress premium.

So which one would you support more:

a.) Learn CSS and html, it can do miracles and totally worth it

b.) Erm , just sign up for a service such as Wordpress premium and put more effort on the content. This is the future mate!

I like sites such as this, or this, yet another, well you get the idea, simple and clean.

Thanks for any input on the matter, I appreciate it.

Cheers
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Brad
Selfish Heathen
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Zone of Pain
 
2012-11-19, 21:48

Tossing into Programmer's Nook!
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Brad
Selfish Heathen
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Zone of Pain
 
2012-11-19, 22:12

That said, here are the barebones basics!

The ML in HTML stands for "markup language". Writing HTML isn't really programming in the functional sense. It's just styling text and images.

CSS stands for Cascading Style Sheets. They define inherited styles (colors, fonts, positioning, etc.) that apply to your markup. Again, no real programming here, but coming up with just the right look can eat up plenty of your time.

JavaScript. Now, this is where it blurs into programming. JS is what you use to manipulate the contents of the page dynamically. Little swooshy animations and slidey things and fadey things: those are all driven by pieces of JavaScript that typically just reposition elements on the page and activate different CSS classes.

All of that stuff is just client-side, though. That's all about displaying and manipulating elements on a page once the server has sent it to the browser. None of that is actually server-side. For that, people use software written in PHP, Python, Ruby, Java, Perl, or heck even C++ to parse the browser's request, build the page to serve to the browser, record any data the user sends back, etc.

Generally speaking, open source blogging/CMS frameworks are mature enough these days that you shouldn't have to do any coding yourself unless you want custom functionality on your site that most people don't have or you just want to get your hands dirty. If you're just getting started, unless you want to learn to program for the web, you'd probably do well to chuck a few dollars a month at a hosted solution somewhere and, yes, spend your time on making quality content.

That said, you could just write a bunch of static HTML pages and throw them up on a web server, no blog or CMS software required. You can use apps like Coda and Dreamweaver (or even TextEdit) to do that. This solution requires no programming at all. The gotcha here is that you have to write and maintain every page yourself. This can get tedious as your site grows. Imagine, for example, that you put some standard footer at the bottom of your pages with your contact info. What do you do if your contact info changes? You'd have to find and fix every page yourself. Blogs and CMSs help out greatly for things like this because they're template-driven, and they generally do well to separate the content from the templates. With software like WordPress, you'd just update the footer template, click some "republish" button, and it would take care of updating all of the pages for you.

The quality of this board depends on the quality of the posts. The only way to guarantee thoughtful, informative discussion is to write thoughtful, informative posts. AppleNova is not a real-time chat forum. You have time to compose messages and edit them before and after posting.
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Sketch
Formerly “iceman009”
 
Join Date: Nov 2005
Location: Some place
 
2012-11-20, 03:16

Quote:
Originally Posted by Brad View Post
Tossing into Programmer's Nook!
Oops, sorry about that, thanks

Quote:
Originally Posted by Brad View Post
That said, here are the barebones basics!

The ML in HTML stands for "markup language". Writing HTML isn't really programming in the functional sense. It's just styling text and images...[...]

[...]...With software like WordPress, you'd just update the footer template, click some "republish" button, and it would take care of updating all of the pages for you.
Very nice explanation, thanks for that. Basically, reading between the lines, you are telling me to use something like Wordpress, which would be better for me in the long run.

Anyone using Wordpress here? What are your thoughts? better, worse?

Also, are there any good alternatives to Wordpress?

Of course, while I can find the information related to those questions online, I tend to believe Novaites comments. So please do let me know.

Thanks and cheers

MacBook with Super Glue...seriously though
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dmegatool
Custom User Title
 
Join Date: Jul 2006
Location: At home
 
2012-11-20, 10:45

Alternatives to Wordpress are Drupal, TYPO3, Joomla... and there's probably others that I forget. But that are the big players.

I think Wordpress is more popular because of it's easier learning curve and the number of plugin that comes with it. Personally I've never used it. I started Drupal this year with a HTML/CSS background and I made it. I had some php knowledge but very very limited. With that, I was able to build a site complety like I wanted. No restrictions on zones, region or whatever. Everything I wanted is where and how I want it to be. But I gotta say that it was time consumming to learn all the basics of the CMS. I had to play with templates in php but with some support on IRC and forums, I was able to get around it.

So to start, I think you should definetly learn HTML/CSS. Well there's not much in HTML to learn. It's all divs, classes and ids. You'll quickly see that everything is happening with CSS. Once you get to know how to target things effiencely with it, it's pretty simple. Specially if you don't support IE6 and and to an extend IE7 With that, you'll be able to tweak and make sites like you want them (visually). As for javascript, you can do stuff easily with libraries like Jquery. I don't know shit about JS but if I need a gallery, slideshow, a zoom, scroll, some kind of animations, etc... I can do it.

Dave Mustaine :"God created whammy bars for people who don't know how to solo."
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Sketch
Formerly “iceman009”
 
Join Date: Nov 2005
Location: Some place
 
2012-11-20, 15:28

Thanks for the suggestions, I will try them out and see. Oh boy, this is not gonna be as easy as I thought it would be. Alright, gotta start from somewhere, might as well from scratch

MacBook with Super Glue...seriously though
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Sketch
Formerly “iceman009”
 
Join Date: Nov 2005
Location: Some place
 
2012-11-23, 09:57

Well I think I am beginning to understand why I would may be need JS, because I am already stuck with just html + CSS.

I heard JQuery might be easier than JS, is that true? I want to learn it as fast as I can and the best way might be to dive right into it and pick it up along the way, right? Anyone done this way?

MacBook with Super Glue...seriously though
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drewprops
Space Pirate
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Atlanta
 
2012-11-23, 13:02

Here's the "food pyramid" of web design.

Learn HTML.

Learn CSS.

Learn JQuery.

You can't skip ahead.

There IS no skip ahead.

I've been learning since the mid 90s and am by no means an expert.

Anything that looks easy, isn't.

...

Steve Jobs ate my cat's watermelon.
Captain Drew on Twitter
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Brad
Selfish Heathen
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Zone of Pain
 
2012-11-23, 13:56

Quote:
Originally Posted by Sketch View Post
I heard JQuery might be easier than JS, is that true?
JQuery is JavaScript, though. JQuery is a library of prefab JavaScript functions. You need to understand and write JavaScript to be able to use them, but they save you from having to reinvent the wheel for common things.

The quality of this board depends on the quality of the posts. The only way to guarantee thoughtful, informative discussion is to write thoughtful, informative posts. AppleNova is not a real-time chat forum. You have time to compose messages and edit them before and after posting.
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Brad
Selfish Heathen
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Zone of Pain
 
2012-11-23, 14:03

Quote:
Originally Posted by drewprops View Post
I've been learning since the mid 90s and am by no means an expert.

Anything that looks easy, isn't.

...
Yeah, and there's always cool new stuff coming out, too...



The quality of this board depends on the quality of the posts. The only way to guarantee thoughtful, informative discussion is to write thoughtful, informative posts. AppleNova is not a real-time chat forum. You have time to compose messages and edit them before and after posting.
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Sketch
Formerly “iceman009”
 
Join Date: Nov 2005
Location: Some place
 
2012-11-24, 08:12

Quote:
Originally Posted by drewprops View Post
Here's the "food pyramid" of web design.

Learn HTML.

Learn CSS.

Learn JQuery.

You can't skip ahead.

There IS no skip ahead.

I've been learning since the mid 90s and am by no means an expert.

Anything that looks easy, isn't.

...
Way to get me started but thanks, and I think u meant to say learn JS and then JQuery right? Or at least the basics of JS before JQuery.
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drewprops
Space Pirate
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Atlanta
 
2012-11-24, 10:30

Learn the basics of programming, actually.

2 weeks ago I was hired to make an interactive simulated computer screen in Flash, using ActionScript, a cousin of JavaScript. I don't "know" AS, but I can look at code and figure out what certain parts are doing, then make adjustments until things work.

I call it "whittling".


...

Steve Jobs ate my cat's watermelon.
Captain Drew on Twitter
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