recommend free web design apps

NilByMouth

Hi could anyone give some info on web design,what apps i could use(free of course!!)and what language would be used.Just interested in messing about with some coding while im a victim of the recession!Have some experience in programming C++,thanks and please ignore my ignorance:)

Regards

p

NilByMouth wrote: »

Hi could anyone give some info on web design,what apps i could use(free of course!!)and what language would be used.Just interested in messing about with some coding while im a victim of the recession!Have some experience in programming C++,thanks and please ignore my ignorance:)

Probably easy to just get a simple code editor Notepad++ and start coding basic HTML and CSS. Once you've got the basics of those, then you could quite easily and cheaply get into programming PHP or Ruby on Rails for dynamic sites. You cn also easily test that stuff by setting up a server on your own computer.

w3schools.com is a good crash course in these types of technologies. Not best practice by any means but good for dabbling.

paddyp

NilByMouth wrote: »

Hi could anyone give some info on web design,what apps i could use(free of course!!)and what language would be used.Just interested in messing about with some coding while im a victim of the recession!Have some experience in programming C++,thanks and please ignore my ignorance:) Regards

Webdesign usually starts with providing the client with sample designs you could use inkscape and gimp to generate the initial designs.

For inspiration you could have a look at the thousands of free wordpress templates or css zen garden for a start.

Turning the design into webpages will require a knowledge of html and css try http://www.w3schools.com

The hardest part when starting out is achieving cross browser compatibility to that end I'd look at using yahoo grids and css resets there are others but the yahoo documentation is good.

http://developer.yahoo.com/yui/reset/
http://developer.yahoo.com/yui/grids/

When looking for free tools and tutorials google is useless delicious is your friend.
http://delicious.com/search?p=webdesign

A thing to note is that if you intend to make money from this it makes more sense to buy the professional tools, and buy and modify a professional web templates. The professional template willcome with source files in photoshop / illustrator etc. formats.

If I buy a quality template for $50 - $100 dollars I can finish in 1/10th the time allowing me to take on more work.

Smashing magazine is a great resource to save you trawling through the dross on the internet take this as a ransom exampl of css resources (old link)
http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2006/10/25/css-techniques-tutorials-layouts/

Don't try to learn everything at once, master that much first. Then you can worry about php etc.

Most clients these days want to update the site themselves wordpress makes an ok cms with millions of free templates out there to get you started. You can easily run this locally using xampp, wamp, vertrigo etc.

Joomla is a proper cms with many powerful addons. Less free stuff available for this though.

fifth

I'm just starting out with Joomla and Xampp - great for toying around with and good CMS system. I've always done websites in the old way - so moving with the times now.

NilByMouth

Thanks for all the replys.Will look into all of the above.
I was just getting confused what with all the talk of dreamweaver,css,php,joomla and the list goes on..:)

Tbh dont plan on making money from it more just for something to do when I get p'eed of doing C++.

Again thanks

p

NilByMouth wrote: »

Thanks for all the replys.Will look into all of the above.
I was just getting confused what with all the talk of dreamweaver,css,php,joomla and the list goes on..:)

Sounds like you should just learn to hand code HTML & CSS to start with. No point messing with loads of other software just yet IMO.

lucideer

The best way is to learn HTML - there's a really good guide here: http://dev.opera.com/articles/view/1-introduction-to-the-web-standards-cur/#toc


Then the only software you need:
(a) Text editor (like Notepad2/SciTe/Metapad/Notepad++)
(b) Image editor
- You can use just one image editor but I personally think it's best to use two - both a vector editor and a raster editor
- Raster editor: GIMP is free or Photoshop/PaintshopPro if you want to pay
- Vector editor: Inkscape is free or Illustrator if you want to pay

Avoid Dreamweaver/Frontpage/ExpressionWeb/other WYSIWYG apps.