Web page design

[Thabiso]

Hola Guys.
Help me out here.I know nothing about Web designing,I have no xperience whatsoever.Now Im very interested in designing my own webpage.What do I need(programs) to design this.
Any help will be appreciated.

Ta in advance.

[PickledOnion]

You will no doubt here a million different opinions to your questions but here goes mine!

You need two things to start off with.

Firstly I would suggest a WYSIWYG type of web page design programme, this ensures you don't 'need' to know any programming languages. I started off with MS Frontpage, it is a possible option to start with, many web pages are made using this and it is fairly cheap. Drawbacks to this are that it is a MS product so I try to leave it alone and it is very basic and you can tell a web page made with FP a mile off.
If you have money, then I suggest something like Dreamweaver, very good, very professional end product, takes a bit of getting used to but well worth it.

Secondly you need a graphics programme. There are many, many progs out there from Paint Shop Pro to Fireworks. Try downloading free trials of them and see which you like.

You design the buttons and pictures in the graphics programme and then export/import them into your web page design programme.

If you are really serious then try learning HTML, Java, blah, blah, but as a beginner I would not suggest this. Get into it (and it is addictive)and then you know what you need to learn!

Hope that helps a bit.

PO

[rh71]

It depends what your intentions are. I agree with the above... but keep in mind that if you would just like to do a one-time personal page, then go with those WYSIWYG editors. Dreamweaver or GoLive are the top dogs there... Frontpage is a popular one, but I've never personally touched it so I can't comment.

If you'd like to start a career or a nice hobby with web design, then you'd want to learn HTML and some graphics editing. You'll save yourself a lot of heartache/headache later on if you get the basics down up front... especially because you'll need to do some troubleshooting at some point.

[This message has been edited by rh71 (edited 07-30-2001).]

[Deamon J]

I don't realy think it is right to depend on WYSIWYG editors. These can do things that you don't know about.

Also they can easily go out of date with the advances in all the codes that are used on the web.

JavaScript.
HTML
DHTML
ect.

And you will inevitably have to debug your code at some point so realy it is better if you don't have any experience, insted of getting a programme you should GET some experience. So get a WYSIWYG programme if you like but soon you WILL need some reference whether you like it or not.

[Virus]

I would suggest getting a text editor with tabs and syntax highlighting (e.g. UltraEdit). Then go to http://www.w3schools.com/ and go through their tutorials, examples and quizes.

[techgrl21]

I had an HTML textbook laying around last summer, and I decided to pick it up.
It's nice to know that you can "cheat" with programs like FrontPage, but it's also nice to go into the HTML side of things, and do your own customizations.
It's always good to know "how things work" right?
There are 1000's of places on the Internet that offer HTML tutorials. Give it try..