Introduction to creating a website

terencemc

Hey guys,
Does anyone know a good site along the lines above?
I'm a complete beginner so I'd like to know the basics and then a bit about different applications/coding that is used to create sites.

Cheers

Pablod

Hi,

I don't think there are many sites that will show every aspect/step to starting up a website

You really have to follow the below steps:

1 - Get a Domain Name (.net/.com/.ie/ etc...)
2 - Get a host (Web host Server to store and host your website)
3 - Design the Website

Step 1 & 2 are straight forward enough

Once you have both of those up and running the next main stage is designing your site

But, the question is:

Do you want to design with a software ‘WYSIWYG package’ (WhatYouSeeIsWhatYouGet)
Like Dreamweaver/Expression Web??
These are really handy and probably the easiest option to designing. As you can view in design mode and view your code being generated in the background.

Or
Are you looking to learn in raw code, (design in Notepad etc...)
This option is a lot tougher and has a steeper learning curve as it means you need to learn all the code!!!

Just my opinion… I know other more experienced web developers will come along and possibly offer better advice.
Once you decide what route to take on teh design side, I can point you in the direction of a few helpful sites,
Hope this helps somewhat.

Liam Byrne

First step is to learn HTML & CSS, and about creating and optimising graphics for the web.

A lot of web sites are just that combination.

Then, look at learning JavaScript (jQuery is a great option in this regard).

Finally, you could learn about the back-end (i.e. instead of simply creating the HTML for "pages", you can get the page to be "generated" by code like PHP (possibly by retrieving data from a MySQL database).

clive_odonohoe

Their is a designer who's website is called tutvid.com which is not bad for getting started in building your own website. Its not just dreamweaver tutorials. He does tutorials and a lot of the other adobe programs too....

Pablod

Forgot to mention - I use a website called - expression-web-tutorial.com

Based purely on Microsoft's Expression Web (as it is the software I am using)
(Expresion Web is a fraction of the Price of Dreamweaver and does near enough the same job)

The website has great tutorials, easy to follow
I ordered the tutorials on DVD (4 DVD's),
Cost only $35 dollars including shipping and there is also a lot of free content on the site too.

aidan_walsh

Reminder - No provider specific discussion on the forum please.

terencemc

Cheers guys, that's exactly the info I was looking for. Somewhere to make a start instead of spacing out in work.

Pablod

aidan_walsh wrote: »

Reminder - No provider specific discussion on the forum please.

Apologies Aidan

p

terencemc wrote: »

Hey guys,
Does anyone know a good site along the lines above?
I'm a complete beginner so I'd like to know the basics and then a bit about different applications/coding that is used to create sites.

I'd highly recommend the book "Heads First XHTML & CSS" It's a really good book that teaches you the basics of coding & layout as well as giving you more rounded information about servers/FTP etc.. too, all teaching you best practices as used by professionals.

If you're not interested in the code side of things then I'd suggest trying to start a blog on Wordpress.com, or download and editor like NVU and play around with it to get you a taster.

Kila

I like www.webdesignfromscratch.com as it covers lots of topics, from design principles to actual coding (and plenty in between). It will get you up to speed on design conventions, on "modern" web design, and will give you a good starting point for whatever kind of web design you want to get in to. I really think it's a great site.