Which program?

[abeekers]

Can someone advise me which programs (to make a website) are suitable for newbies?


thx in advance

Alexander

[Mikailus]

Not popular with the purists but Microsoft Front Page has a user-friendly interface and can be set to make web pages which are compatible with older browsers.

For graphics, if you are new to that also, Paint Shop Pro is a good starting point. Again, a user friendly interface and lots of features. Compatible with Photoshop filters too.

Both programs are cheaper than their main rivals and can do pretty much everything you will need them to.

Once you have some experience you can start experimenting with other programs (most are available as demos for you to try out) and learning the coding until you find which work best for you.

No matter what people say about which program is the "best" for the job though it's you, not the program, that makes the web page.

[HTML]

good answer and welcome to both of ya

Dave

[Mr. Blue]

NOTEPAD!!!!! [EDIT] N00bs may think I'm joking but we all know i'm not[/EDIT]

[Derek]

haha I agree there.

[abeekers]

Originally posted by Mr. Blue
NOTEPAD!!!!! [EDIT] N00bs may think I'm joking but we all know i'm not[/EDIT]

Don't you need understanding of scripting languages java, perl or something similar when I want to use notepad or any other basic editor (perhaps vim?) ?

[benzden]

Yes. And it's easier learning the code than trying to work with all those wysiwyg web page makers. I bought a couple and evaluated many others before finally deciding, 7 years ago, to just code the damn pages myself from scratch. You can learn at your own pace and control the entire process of web site creation.

And, unless you have good graphics skills (an artistic bent or artsy-fartsy leanings), you're probably never going to be able to create the fancy web pages that most of us like on the net. But, there are many possibilities. The best sites I've found, so far (and remembered since buying the domain name several months ago) are at:

http://www.baadsite.com

I'm just now getting into JavaScript and STYLEs coding.

My favorite editor is the SST of editors, QEdit for DOS, which is 10 times faster than anything else available primarily because I use an AT-84 keyboard and can control the function of each and every key and key-combination on my keyboard - Shift-F7 cuts and Shift-F8 pastes a line of code both done with two fingers of my left hand while the right can keep on typing. I can also move or total any blocked column or sub-column from anywhere to anywhere via the same set of key-combinations.

[Enigma]

I have to agree with benzden. I started out using a WYSIWYG program that I bought for about $14 at Wal-Mart. It was actually a fairly good program that produced reasonably clean HTML. Now, I use EditPad for all my HTML and Perl scripts. It lets me have multiple files open and make global changes across all files.

[abeekers]

Actually that is good news, I like easy to use programs. I don't want to get lost in menus- submenus- wizards -assistants and so on.

So that leaves one more question:
Which books are suitable for learning which language?

[benzden]

Instant HTML Programmer's Reference by Wrox Press
Mine is now 4 years old and was HTML 4.0 Edition

It has a lousy Index but does have all the TAGs in alphabetical order with their capabilities/attributes.

(Most of these books have a lousy index - the JavaScript Bible 4th Edition by Danny Goodman does have what appears to be a good one, though - haven't found time to get into it, yet, but it's the first thing I needed before jumping into JavaScript. Did the same with Fortran, Basic, Assembly and PowerBasic in the past.)

[abeekers]

It looks like I ´m gonna be busy reading and practising some.....

Thanks for your advice!

[benzden]

Replying to your question (similar to others for the umpteenth time) motivated me to add those recommendations to the absolute bottom of my signature site, which can be access directly via

http://jamrent.50megs.com/life/ltset.htm#bottom2

Have also placed the forums I've found that seem to offer more help than others to webmasters and budding webmasters.

[QuietDean]

My favourite books are the Oreilly Series -

http://www.oreilly.com/

The nutshell series is unique, in my experience, in that it is a superb 'newbie' book, yet remains a valuable reference to the experienced.

I have the html, css, php and mysql books.


Text editors - I use http://www.textpad.com

Syntax highlighting, multiple page views, global changes etc etc

Most importantly, I find it very comfortable to use.

[YZ250MotoX]

well...as far as graphics goes, a combination of photoshop 6, illustrator 9, and knowledge will get you a really long ways. I don't like psp, though, it's got a few key things missing. For example, layer effects that photoshop has make things incredibly simple, and it looks better. It can get costly though...

[Zaire]

I started with Dreamweaver, and now use DW Ultra Dev,

I once in a while use Frontpage, when im just try'n to throw a crappy admin page together,

Other than that, I use html-kit (chami.com) and PHP Coder from http://phpide.de