So i do a lot of layout making when it comes to myspace and such. However i kinda want to move to "bigger and better things" so to say. Especially since i feel like no one uses myspace anymore and thats made me lose interest in making myspace layouts.

Anyways, i really want to learn how to make a website i guess. Or atleast layouts for people to use for their website. I just dont know the best way.

I actually don't use any programs, other than to design the graphics in CS4. It's best to learn about HTML and CSS and all of that by hand before trying a program (; That way you know what you're doing. I Googled a lot of tutorials and other stuff when I was first learning. Try W3 Schools (:

Dream weaver

I mean, i do know most of the basic stuff. But i guess like, being able to see what everything looks like when i put it together and such.

Do you mean, testing out things? I usually make a mockup in Photoshop and then code on a tester page on my site. Dreamweaver's good, I just can't afford it/don't wanna hack it, lol.

how much is dreamweaver...

On the Adobe website, it's about $400. You can get a free trial though. And I think there's student discounts somewhere. My college gets a discount for us, $300 for like five or six Adobe products. I can't afford anything until I get my new laptop though.

Ouch...

fyi thepiratebay

If you're in college, you can get the education discount for the entire Web Premium suite for ~$400. I just bought it. The best investment I ever made.

^This.

True. However im not starting college until fall 2010 also, they never really mentioned the program when i went to visit the college i want to go to. However they did say that i get a free mac.

^ WHAT SCHOOL ARE YOU GOING TO
My school this past year gave me a free Macbook o:
But I have to return it cause I'm not staying there ):

Northern Michigan University

Oh okay lol. Different school. You COULD always hack the software but I don't really do that stuff >___>

I was thinking that.
I found this free software called NVU. Anyone heard of it and know if its any good?

Dreamweaver makes very bloated code. You really should make everthing from scratch. I could make some mockup templates for you. Like a template of an entire php website. then you just do the html/css and content.

Yeah i would like that because im sometimes terrible when it comes to making things from scratch. My friend helped me out a lot when i started making myspace layouts and coding them.
However, i guess my main thing is, you know how with myspace you can change something, then go back to the profile and see if its aligned or not? Thats what i want to be able to do.

^ You'd need a website (even just freewebs or a subdomain or something) and FTP for that. I can help you with that, if you want (: PM me.

Freewebs doesnt allow php.
Im writing a little something for you know.
And im including a contact form.
I would suggest studying the whole thing so you know how it works. Thats almost as good as doing it yourself. haha.

Just to compete with gabs... I can give you a subdomain on my site to test stuff out to. And I have unlimited bandwidth

Bloated code? The templates that come with Dreamweaver are web standards compliant, and the only thing extra they don't need are the comments, which are useful for people who are just starting to learn. Simply a matter of pushing "backspace" to get rid of all the grey areas.

But really...the best program to built a website: yer brain. HTML editors just give you clues to shortcuts. You could build a site as functional as Yahoo entirely in Notepad if you wanted.

Compliant doesn't mean it doesn't have shit it doesn't need.

The templates have a doctype, stylesheet, and a couple div and paragraph tags. The comments are there for educational purposes, and if you don't need the comments, you don't need to use a template. *shrug*

Im basically saying that, when you make it yourself you no you arent adding unnecessary crap. Sometime things are added but left empty. I need a better text editor for mac though. Also dreaweaver adds a lot of uneeded spaces.

And I like knowing that I made my site myself from scratch. Some people couldnt care less about that.

No Gabs. Please. Gabbee or Gabrielle.

Im not really looking for a domain yet, but maybe in the future i will someday.
For the moment i just want to make layouts for people to use for their website?

Though for some reason i feel so clueless

How about gabi girl? Or gabe? or guppie?




Then use wamp. Or if you want it to be online I can give you, whatever.josephbcohen.com or whatever.wefuze.com.

http://www.wampserver.com/en/download.php
Then put all the files that you wan to test, go to computer wamp and put them in www. Then open wampserver and go to localhost/ in the address bar. It will work like a server would.

Ill send you the zip file as soon as I can figure out how to make it so you can have separate keywords for each page which is new to me.

How bout you just stick to my real name.

Tomates, if you need a tester page, let me know.

Ok, Gabbee it is :)

Here you go Nat.
Whole Website Template

I suggest that you learn how to code from scratch. I find that if you understand the language well enough, Dreamweaver does make designing much easier (even at the cost of some extraneous coding). But really, when it all boils down, your users probably won't care if you have "bloated code" or not. What is more efficient for you (and eventually your clients) should be what's important.

Personally, I think you should start learning PHP. I think when it comes to separating novice programmers/designers to more "legit" web developers, you need to learn some sort of dynamic code. PHP, I think, is the easiest to learn and the quickest to master. I know it's a loaded statement, but knowing the ins and outs of PHP is not as bad as it seems.

I have to give credit to www.lynda.com for the skyrocketing improvement I've made since I started "becoming serious" about web development. It's an online library full of video tutorials that is in-depth about an enormous number of topics for $25 a month. It's worth the price.

^is there a 30 day trial? I watched some tutorials on someone elses account nd LOVE how that site runs.

There isn't but I mean I go through about four different movies in a week. It's WELL WORTH the $25.

After only a week and a half, I've become really fluent with Dreamweaver's workflow, AS3, and OOP in PHP. I'm working on learning JS right now.

There is a 1 day trial though. Im going to wait till I get our new internet which runs at 6mb a second and go download crazy.

But it looks like right now I can watch every video. Or does it disable it after I watch a few?

I have a unlimited volume code for the macromedia 8 suite, which includes macromedia dreamweaver, I think it was the second to last version before adobe bought the suite from macromedia. It's completely legit volume code, it was for when I was going to Florida Virtual School. I never had to send back the materials. So, if you want it, PM me. You'll have to find the download elsewhere... the cd is too badly scratched to read unfortunately.


You can find very similar video tutorials on youtube joseph.

well ill be using the cs4 suite so no point. But what is so great about lynda is that there are whole movies. not 10 minute low qaulity tutorials.

^ Right. I mean they have a few of the movies available for free, but to get really in-depth in some of the topics, you'll need to subscribe. Personally, I think for what you're getting in a month, $25 is a steal. They really don't miss a beat when it comes to learning about an entire subject. (They even have a 2x speed mode on their new beta player. I've been zipping through entire tutorial topics in a few hours instead of a few days now.)

O! I love that idea. Ill subscribe for just a month at some point. But it realy is a steal cause a book on photoshop costs 50 dollars and it takes weeks to read.

^ Right. It's really great too because you can work with the code right next to the player or the program that you're trying to learn and do it yourself without having to switch back and forth.

Thanks~


Yeah, i know i should make it myself, but i guess i just want something to look off of to help me out a tad.

Don't get me wrong. Dreamweaver is an absolutely amazing program. But it's probably best to at least get familiar with the PHP that will make your site stand out amongst the rest.

Hey Jon! I have an account with lynda.com now! Could you suggest some good movies to watch. I know there are a few for each program. Id like to watch a php one, a javascript one,maybe one in flash, photoshop, or illustrator.

^ PHP Essentials Training, Dreamweaver CS4 Essentials training (if you don't know it), Flash CS4 Essentials Training, and I haven't checked out Javascript yet, but you should check that out any let me know.

You really just can't go wrong with it. Really.

I download php esential training. Photoshop for the web. Javasript essential training and Creating a First Web Site with Flash CS4 Professional. ps, to download get downthemall firefox add on. Open a video, then open downthem all select the .mov file and download it. I had 10mb/s download so I download 1.3gb of video.

DreamWeaver, I have seen it do some bloated coding, but when a website loads in milliseconds it doesn't matter if it has extra code or not.

DreamWeaver is also good for everything beyond HTML, which is why I use it. It makes editing PHP files simplistic, when locating a given error in a PHP file DreamWeaver makes it easier, unlike say Notepad or something of that nature.

Stay away from flash, it's literally useless unless you are doing videos. Every time I see a fully flash based website it reminds me of the few months before Web 2.0 caught on, it's unpractical and ugly as hell.

I used references to learn HTML, PHP, Coldfusion, MySQL, ASP and a little Java. Found a website I liked, and ripped it apart until I found what i wanted to use.

Another thing I would recommend is copying a code and basically tearing it apart. Try putting different numbers in and such to see where it relocates. I actually don't mind if people use my coding because I know how hard it is to make your own, so if you want mine to see how it works then just PM me.

Whoah where the f*ck are you looking? I have seen some fantastically beautiful flash-based sites that made me super jealous of teh flash skillz. That said, there's a lot of ActionScript behind it.

Obviously, it has it's drawbacks (SEO problems) but it has some sound advantages over CSS/XHTML sites (motion, interactivity). Just like any other tool, Flash has it's place and has to be utilized properly.

You seem to have a problem with the poor design a lot of Flash websites have, but there are loads of terrible CSS sites as well.

See:

http://www.v5design.com/
http://www.sensisoft.com/

Flash is not impractical or "ugly as hell" by itself.

And the like: http://you-inspire.me/gallery/web/flash

CSS is actually on its way to catching up with Flash functionality. In CSS3, you can do audio and motion tweens. And therein lies the amazing Safari 4. If you have Safari 4, check this out: http://www.apple.com/safari/welcome/ That's entirely CSS and HTML5.

If you want to make a dynamic website especially using java based you can use eclipse.