Where to start ?

Hi,

After spending some time on developing desktop applications now I wanna turn into web designing. I know some very basics (e.g. html, xml, database etc.) so don't need to start from scratch like a complete newbie. To learn and do something practical & meaningful, I've decided to create a website for a school/college/uni. Although, I'll will start it as a static one (displaying different information, images about the school) eventually I'll try to add more complicated stuffs to it like loggin in (where students can access/download learning materials), displaying dynamic contents etc.

The problem is, I'm not exactly sure how or where to start. For example,

1. Which tools do I need? (e.g. frontpage, dreamweaver etc. etc.)

2. Cannot decide which one I need (php or javascript) for these kinda website

3. Any other issues I need to know...

Also, I'm pretty much lost in ASP, JSP, Serverts, Applets etc. etc....(do I need to learn those stuffs to achieve what I'm trying to do? )

As I said before, at the end I would like to make this website having everything a real school/college/uni website may/should have. Therefore, I would like to start on the right direction from the very beginning and don't want to move to something completely new in the middle of the project.

Hope someone here will be able to give me some guidance.

Thank you

Dreamweaver is a very nice tool to use but STICK TO CODE VIEW. Save yourself some trouble and hand-code your page. Don't left WYSIWYG (in DW's case - Design View) do it for you. I mean ... you wouldn't want a machine kissing your girlfriend for you would you? So ... don't let the machine code the page for you ... do it yourself.

As for coding, the site will most like have the same menu on every page, the same footer on every page right? So start right off the bat and use php include() function. It's the easiest thing in the world and it saves you soooo much time

Now... for designing the whole, again, start the right way and design your site using CSS and divs. Don't use tables for that layout, that's not what they're for. See Resources for learning how to use CSS for layout

When you decide to do login stuff, I suggest PHP but you could also do this in .NET (ASP). It's your choice but if you're going to use PHP include, use PHP

There ... that's a good start.

I guess your starting point would be css and html. There are plenty of good resources on the net and a ton of good books around. There is a sticky somewhere on the forums with some css resources, if you're new to css that is. I would probably also use some java script and php for the more complex stuff (well I'd actually get someone else to do it for me, the php that is).

You should be fine with those. It's quite a big job but if you've experience with server side coding then you'll just need to take time and care over the design and implementation if not then you will have to learn a decent amount of php and MySQL or modify an existing content management system. Information Architecture will be quite important here too, especially if there is going to be a lot of info on there in the end. And a nice simple method of updating and adding new content for the teachers or administrators. This project's success is down to the quality of it's cms. A custom cms would be nice for this, but it isn't really a small job.

Pete.

Thank you very much karinne for your quick reply

I guess you pretty much understood exactly what I want to do.

So, what I understand so far is that as a minimum to create a website for a school with the functionalities I stated earlier, I need good knowledge on -

1. HTML/CSS
2. Dreamweaver
3. and PHP.... right ?

Thanks Pa007 for your reply (although you sounded a lil scary

Just HTML and CSS.

The PHP you'll be using at first (for the include) is VERY minimal and so easy to implement that my dad could do it.

Dreamweaver ... well ... it's just an editor so ... you don't need to understand a whole lot You can always just use something like Notepad++ which is strictly an HTML editor but with DW you can modify your pages directly off the server which I find very convenient.

You don't need dreamweaver there are tons of great text editors out there specifically designed for coding websites. And if you're considering paying for a product then you can do much better than dreamweaver as a text editor for a lower price. I would personally not pay the price for dreamweaver. The only thing it has going for it is the fact that you can view the design of your site in an instant (using the split view), but most text editors have a 'preview in browser' button anyway.

My opinion anyway, some people swear by it.

Pete.

Please DW is much more than that. Don't ditch a product you know nothing about.

Ok...I am going to start by digging into HTML and CSS. However, I'm bit scared in thinking of creating a whole website using just text editors. Isn't it going to make my life much difficult?

I've used dreamweaver a lot previously and I would never recommend it to someone starting out. The design mode is too tempting for a beginner and the price is far too high for you to validate using it just as a text editor. The high price is due to it's wysiwyg capabilities and I don't think it is the best text editor on the market so why should it command the high price.

I feel there are better editors out there (which are cheaper) and their use should be advocated over an overpriced product like dreamweaver. Though I was a little harsh in my earlier post but I stand by what I said, it is a well considered opinion based on my experience of the product and my use of a whole host of other text editors that are readily available, many of them for free. Though dreamweavers site management tools are very good, I will give it that.

Pete.

Not at all, that's all you would be using with dreamweaver anyway. The design view produces poor, inaccessible code. Better to do it by hand, luckily html and css is very logical so you shouldn't struggle too much.

Pete.

No ... Like pa007 said, WYSIWYG editors create very sloppy code.

Since you said DW from the start I assumed you already have it or have used it a bit in the past. But I agree with pa007, if you're totally new to it, then it might be best if you used a simple editor. The one I told you about earlier is very simple and quick to use and free (Notepad++). There are tons out there and members here have expressed their views on the best editor out there many times

Ok...thanks karinne and Pa007.

I'll return after I get some understanding on HTML and CSS. (Specially I don't have any idea about CSS.)

Bye for now

Oh wait...Learn XHTML and CSS. For the login it would be easiest to implement a PHP and MySQL login system. I agree with Karinne the PHP include is so easy to use, and saves you a lot of time in the future!

Thanks JacobHaug for your valuable advice.

I've been looking into html and css so far. I understand the basic tags/ syntaxes (though the whole thing seems a lil boring!). However, just going through the syntaxes and knowing about those is not very useful. I was wondering if there are any websites which shows the step by step instructions to build a website from scratch and then proceeds to creating complex websites. In that way, I can actually start working on the project I intend to do.

Not really... http://css.maxdesign.com.au/ has a few nice tutorials, though. CSS? Boring? No way! I <3 CSS.

start with html on dreamweaver,and collect about CSS

You really don't say enough about what you want. If you want to build a couple of websites for yourself and friends or clubs, get Dreamweaver or another WYSIWYG system.

If you want to be a real web designer, do not even look at those. You need to learn html, css, and some sort of graphics program. The standard is Photoshop, but Paintshop Pro is way cheaper and quite good. If you're really broke, there is a decent opensource one called GIMP.

A good text editor is very helpful, and there are a lot of free ones.

It will probably help to see some templates when you first start. Google something like "css two-column fixed" and you should find something.

Don't worry about them. Learning html, css, and some graphics is hard enough. There are dozens of primary and hundreds of secondary programs/languages/techniques for interactivity.

If you want to get serious after learning the basics, you'll want to learn a server-side language, a browser side language, and a database. PHP is the most popular server-side scripting language for independents, I think. It is open source and works well with the biggest open source database language, MySQL. The only real choice for browser-side scripting is javascript. (Java is a totally different animal from javascript -- the only thing they really have in common is "j", "a", "v", and a second "a".) A possible program to learn is Flash, which provides interactivity AND the ability to make real animations.

I always thought that java and javascript do have something in common. Don't they share the same (or similar) syntax.

Not that it matters.

Pete.

JavaScript, Java and PHP are all fairly close in syntax. I've never really used Java before, but JavaScript is my hero.