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crimsonflame
Joined: Feb 25, 2005
# Posts: 6
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Posted: 2005-Feb-25 22:16
Hey everyone
Four years ago (at age 12) I was introduced to web building and design using an online builder (through a business my father had gotten into). Soon after I (while being very new to computers at age 13) found an online html tutorial and was on my way to learning html. I have since designed, built, redesigned and updated a site for my mother (put website in profile, please). I am now 16 and would like to create a small web design business for my community however I have become unfirmilliar with new terms (such as CSS Flash and other things needed to make professional looking websites quickly). What should i focus on learning besides html to make my sites up to date?
Thx for your help
Brett
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lizardz
Joined: Nov 12, 2004
# Posts: 1394
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Posted: 2005-Feb-26 22:28
Work on learning how to do all coding by hand, using real text editors, like crimson editor. Whether or not you choose to keep doing handcoding, there is no substitute for learning this stuff in depth.
Learn CSS, which is much harder than HTML. Download many different browsers, Opera, Firefox, along with IE. Learn how different browsers handle your code. If you are motivated, get a linux install with KDE going, that will give you konqueror browser, which is what Mac Safari browser is based on.
Start playing with javascript a little, ideally take a programming class.
Making a professional looking website involves a few areas:
real design training
information architecture
error free cross browser and os performance
content
Avoid tools that create automated sliced HTML and graphics, those can lead you to some very bad habits, and very poorly performing websites
If you don't have a dialup modem connection, set one up, test many websites and watch how they perform. The more bloated the page is in terms of code and images, the worse it performs.
Basic rule of thumb is you want your page to load in 5-8 seconds over dialup, with images filling in after the main page has loaded.
Don't use flash intro splash screens, people hate them, only designers think they are cool.
Learn web standards, HTML 4, XHTML 1, learn what validating code means and how to do it. Get familiar with w3.org, the website of the w3c webstandards body.
Get some good books, O'Reilly publications tends to make the best ones, buy them used and you'll save a decent amount of money. Good reference books by them: HTML, CSS, Javascript, PHP.
Become familiar with servers and how to run them. I only use Apache with PHP, others like IIS with ASP, but it's easier finding a quality hoster that runs apache/php than it is to find a quality hoster running iis/asp. And cheaper.
There's a lot of components to become a working web developer designer. Some people are better designers than developers, see which area you are strongest in, it's unlikely you will be good at both, so see which you like more, creating the look and feel, or doing the underlying programming and coding.
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crimsonflame
Joined: Feb 25, 2005
# Posts: 6
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Posted: 2005-Feb-27 19:44
Hey thx lizardz. I already do all my coding by hand and have been using html-kit as an editor. CSS doesn't seem that hard (maybe i just havn't gotten in deep enough yet) as i pick up the coding side of things quite quickly. As for linux, I had always planed on putting it on this computer as soon as i was able to buy a new one as this one is P3 600mhz 
By automated sliced html did you mean programs like photoshop?
As for which area i'm strongest in that would have to be the development aspect but that works well with my mother being an artist, She is good at thinking of good working designs.
I will try to pick up a couple of those books I already have a couple good linux and learn C books.
Thx again for the info
Brett
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lizardz
Joined: Nov 12, 2004
# Posts: 1394
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Posted: 2005-Feb-28 04:08
You can run linux fine on 600 mghz machine, as long as it has a decent amount of ram, 256mB at a minimum is good, 512 is better.
Try downloading the Kanotix distribution, it has a live cd so you can see how it would work without having to install it. As long as you have broadband and aren't using an ati radeon graphics card there should be no significant hardware issues. Download iso, burn to cd, stick in cd rom, reboot, will boot off cd instead of hard drive, that's it, no risk.
A distribution like that needs about 4-5 gigabytes of hard disk space, plus the swap partition, which means either install it on a second hard drive, or repartition the hard drive, or wait to get another machine. But the live cd will let you run linux without having to install anything or change the computer at all.
Sliced html/graphics, yes, photoshop, imageready, fireworks etc, they all put out that stuff. Nasty code as a rule, not something you'd want to work with.
Sounds like you're on the right track though, html-kit works ok for sure, that's a good tool to start with.
CSS wouldn't be hard if all the browsers supported it the same, but they don't. Positioned CSS is especially problematic, but it's cool, and well worth learning, it's the way sites are being built more and more.
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crimsonflame
Joined: Feb 25, 2005
# Posts: 6
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Posted: 2005-Mar-01 03:47
Ummm about photoshop what if i was to edit/redo the html then the code wouldn't be too messy would it? Does that work or is that just a waste of time b/c i kinda made/edited a template i really like for my website (not too much work into it yet just the logo at the top and a background.
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lizardz
Joined: Nov 12, 2004
# Posts: 1394
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Posted: 2005-Mar-01 20:59
Problem with auto generated code is that it's a nightmare to work on, especially with more complex slices, which tend to get put into massive nested table structures that are almost impossible to ever modify.
If the html looks fairly clean, it can be ok. But I've never seen that, unless the stuff was generated professionally. There are ways to make the software act better.
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crimsonflame
Joined: Feb 25, 2005
# Posts: 6
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Posted: 2005-Mar-02 21:18
What type of o'reilly book should i get, is CSS the difinitive guide a good place to start or would you recomend another book.
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lizardz
Joined: Nov 12, 2004
# Posts: 1394
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Posted: 2005-Mar-02 22:24
Cascading style sheets: the definitive guide is a great book, get the second edition if you can find it. That's the only CSS book I've ever used, the rest of the stuff you can find online. You can probably find it used online, at amazon or whatever.
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