Recommendation Needed

[Victor]

As a total newbie to web design and space could someone please recommend site or reading with an idiots guide, in plain english, to help me understand how to utilise my f2s webspace.
I am running win98, I do not have Frontpage or any other web page utility, as far as I know, I have the 512k adsl package.
Do I have to use Frontpage to design and upload my web page on f2s or is there another way (preferably free or cheaper than front page)?

All sensible suggestions will be appreciated

Thanks

Victor

[PaulBM]

You certainly don't need Frontpage to create and upload web pages to F2S.

http://www.w3schools.com/html/default.asp

is a great starting point to learn the basics of HTML. It will also help you as your knowledge grows with the more advanced areas, like Cascading Style Sheets etc.

There are lots of FTP programs out there, Google will list them for you. With the net2ftp web site you can even upload and download web pages using your web browser.

[Peteff]

I have seen pages written in windows own text editor Wordpad which looked quite professional. You could use something like that or Word if you have it to create a presence on the web till you find your feet and then update to something more ambitious and delete your early efforts.

[Karl Prince]

Originally Posted by Peteff

I have seen pages written in windows own text editor Wordpad which looked quite professional. You could use something like that or Word if you have it to create a presence on the web till you find your feet and then update to something more ambitious and delete your early efforts.

If you do use M$ notepad to create your pages, it's good form to credit it with a nice animated and hyperlinked gif like:

[Victor]

Thanks guys. Looks like I've got some serious reading to do but I do feel happier now after checking out the links.

[John R]

Originally Posted by Peteff

I have seen pages written in windows own text editor Wordpad which looked quite professional.

Many a pro uses notepad or wordpad to create web pages... Wont use anything else myself. I would avoid word though....Once you have the hang of HTML its by far the easiest way of doing it...
Credit microsoft....U jest right Karl...

[Naveen]

Well, notepad works, but there are infinitely better text editors out there if you find yourself using a text editor a lot. Now I'm not talking Vim or whatever on Linux, i mean GUIs are better elsewhere, and some context based highlighting of source (a la Dreamweaver) is nice too.

Max's HTML beauty 2004, for instance, is everything notepad is, and more, and free.

Having said all that, I just use OpenOffice myself, it can do so much more too and the code is pretty good (if not perfect). It's a good program set to have installed, and it's generously free. The HTML code it makes is easy to edit too.

[Karl Prince]

Originally Posted by John R

Credit microsoft....U jest right Karl...

Well notepad probably the least buggy thing that they have written for some time (and it has a few bugs I know of).

But seriously, credit where credits due, particularly if it get's a The main reason for the credit is to yourself for not using Frontpage

I could use vi or emacs, but life's too short

[Justin]

FrontPage 2003 isn't bad though, I do most coding by hand, but FrontPage for the rest as it's quicker and HTML isn't bloated at all anymore.

[kmount]

Topstyle is a good freebie trial program that allows you to code in various languages with visual effects being shown immediately ... Or Dreamweaver (bit pricey unless you finish your project in 30 days) which is a GUI similar but imo much better than Frontpage.

I use notepad myself.

[Justin]

Dreamweaver GUI is horrible, nice program, shame they destroyed it with an un-user friendly GUI, drives me mad, hence why I don't use it.

[TBL]

Think that's cos it's aimed at pros. Well at that price it must be!

I've never really been too fussed about learning coding, but I did have a play with Dreamweaver and found it pretty good to have the split methods of coding.

[Ralph Bacon]

Victor, listen to me. I work partly as an Intranet web designer and I can tell you there are no easy shortcuts.

Sure, as a web hobbyist you won't want to spend the silly money Macromedia ask for Dreamweaver - but then again you don't need the power of Dreamweaver for what you are doing.

But using Notepad as a design tool, p-l-e-a-s-e ! For a beginner? Get serious, folks.

You can read my very brief summary of how I got to write a web site by going to my f2s website and then downloading AceHTML (the FREE version).

I have absolutely no connection with this product but I cut my HTML teeth with it and it rocks. It sort of hand holds you whilst you experiment and gives you readable error messages when you get it wrong. Which will be often.

The free version is only good for HTML (it won't help you with CSS, JavaScript, PHP) but you probably don't even (need to) know what these are - yet.

If you look at my web site home page you can see how I've progressed over the years. The home page itself was cobbled together when I had no idea what I was doing. My first real HTML-only web site was the Costa Rica section. OK, there's a couple of pop-up windows in there but that's as far as it goes, sophistication-wise. You could easily do something like this just to get the experience of solid HTML. To see how you can use HTML, CSS, Javascript, PHP and MySQL see my latest web site. It took me about 18 months to get this far.

You will need a good HTML book to help you along the way; have a look at "HTML for Dummies" to see if that sort of style encourages you to write HTML. There are many others all in different styles, but don't try and run before you can walk! HTML first, then CSS, then JavaScript then PHP or ASP!

Having said all that, if are not interested in writing code (HTML, whatever) then choose a web design product, which you'll probably find on the 'free' CD stuck to any number of computer magazines at WH Smith! These programs let you design your website without knowing any code at all. They are often full products (a couple of releases behind what they are producing now, but hey! like that should worry you!).

Just DON'T use Notepad as your web design tool! (At least not until you can create web sites as good as this one here, right Justin? )

[Victor]

Thanks Ralph (and all the others too) much food for thought, I knew it would'nt be easy for someone without any knowledge of html etc. Have quickly browsed your sites Ralph and thought they were very good and will be back for a closer look soon.

[Peteff]

I only mentioned the Notepad thing to show that you don't need a complicated or expensive program to design a page. You can get alternative stuff from people like Serif at lower prices than Dreamweaver If you just want to establish a presence on the web.

yours, Pete.

[Ralph Bacon]

Truly. I wasn't having a dig at you personally. I just don't think a text editor is the way to start experimenting with HTML!

I can remember starting out (it wasn't that long ago) and one wrong ">" could ruin my efforts. That's why I think beginners should at least try and get off on the right foot: a good beginners' book on HTML and a decent HTML editor that color-codes your code (and mistakes!) so that at least they have a fighting chance of finding out what has gone wrong.

These days, for instance, I find it very frustrating getting Javascript wrong; even though I have the MSoft JS debugger installed it doesn't always highlight the offending line and I can spend many a happy hour finding out what is wrong. That can be real off-putting to beginners!

So, please don't think I was having a go at your suggestion at a personal level. And I take your point that at the end of the day you don't need expensive/pro-level tools just to create a hobbyist web site. I just want others to discover the fantastic world of creating your own website, and starting off on the right foot (with the right tools) must be the way to go.

[Justin]

Originally Posted by Ralph Bacon

Just DON'T use Notepad as your web design tool! (At least not until you can create web sites as good as this one here, right Justin? )

I didn't use Notepad for much of this to be honest, most of it was done with FrontPage 2003 (Warning, if you use FrontPage, don't use the templates or extesitions, or anything before 2002, or you'll find it's tacky, unreliable and bloated code).

The code for this site is not a streamlined as it should be, but thats down to my lazyness more than FrontPage being ****.