[Samione]

Need to rack the brains of anyone who has a clue about web stuff, so probably pretty much anyone.

I wanna set up a website for myself, but, I have no experience in doing so.

Can anyone recommend any guides for the process? Not the design part, but getting a domain, hosting and all that FTP shit. Also would like to know who people in the uk get/reccomend hosting/domains from.

Being a total web/coding noob, what's going to be the best solution to design a website that is going to look how I want, and functions well across most browsers? It won't be mega content heavy, probably have a few links (about, gallery, contact etc). I'm not really prepared to dive straight into coding, so if I dipped into it would I get anything worthwhile out of it?

Quite alot there, any info or help greatly appreciated though

[Do Gooder]

software. I am a fan of dreamweaver - you can start out in the newbie freindly design veiw... and easily upload stuff through dreamweaver's own FTP... if you fancy getting your fingers dirty in future... you can slowly wean yourself onto the excellent code view (as i did).

also heard good things about freeway.

host. my personal site is with United Hosting. all good so far.

another option is just getting the hosting and installing indexhibit - it is a very plain, very easy to use CMS specifically designed for portfolios. a lot of folk customise it to 'jazz' it up... i just use it as is.

[Samione]

Cheers, is it easy to transfer photoshop mockups and turn em into websites with DW?

[pgo]

No, that's the worst possible way of building a website.

Shame on you, Do Gooder. Shame!

[Do Gooder]

nuffin shameful about dreamweaver!! it's a good place to start out imo.

never done the slice and dice photoshop stuff... I rough up a layout in illustrator(or photyshops) then jump straight into dreamweaver... producing any graphics i need on the way.

best i can say is... when starting out keep it really simple, with a nice clean consistent navigation. avoid frames and layout using tables.

and read pgo's thread of course.

[pgo]

Dreamweaver's great. Design View is not. It teaches people the wrong way to think about how web pages are constructed - as if they were a visual object, like a printed page. It's probably detrimental to anyone who wants to learn how to build web pages.

[Samione]

Is possible to build a website with minimal functionality that works across browsers with DW design view? At some point i'll get more in-depth with coding, but for now I don't have the time/know how.

[Do Gooder]

Originally Posted by pgo

Dreamweaver's great. Design View is not. It teaches people the wrong way to think about how web pages are constructed - as if they were a visual object, like a printed page. It's probably detrimental to anyone who wants to learn how to build web pages.

not entirely on your side there when it comes to wee simple sites like portfolios. but that said.. i certainly wont defend design view as being better than working with code.

detriment or no. i'd say that seeing what design view does to code (both good and bad) is greatly helping my learning html and css.

[Do Gooder]

Originally Posted by Samione

Is possible to build a website with minimal functionality that works across browsers with DW design view? At some point i'll get more in-depth with coding, but for now I don't have the time/know how.

hard to give a guarantee on that. depends how much you run amock! you can commit all kinds of nasty sins in design view. Do take heed of what pgo says in the basics thread.

older versions of dreamweaver where terrible for this.. but CS3's starter html pages.. with basic columns and hacks for IE already in place offer a very quick way to pop out a site. used one to rush together The Good Academy (needed something in place for funding, built the site in an afternoon... the pointy nav links took rather longer mind)

[Samione]

Looks like DW will be fine for what I want then.

[Do Gooder]

what have i done! pgo is going to hate me even more.

tomorrow i will have to repent.

[cjgraphix]

Originally Posted by Do Gooder

what have i done! pgo is going to hate me even more.

tomorrow i will have to repent.

Dreamweaver made you do it. It's the universal excuse.

[Samione]

[Do Gooder]

i can enter that in the self portrait comp

[Samione]

and the dreamweaver propaganda comp...

is there as much of a universal hate campaign against flash sites?

[Do Gooder]

i can see why dreamweaver is hated.. it offers shortcuts to lazy folk.

but if you use it with the intention that you are learning to do better than dreamweavers design view can offer. i say that's a good thing.

flash is hated generally because of it's common use for crap intros, 'concept' navigations and superfluous bling bouncing around the screen... i think the hate is greater for that sin.

[Hunch]

If Dreamweaver design view is good enough for your first site (and it probably will be), use it. From your first post it sounds like right now you want to build a simple site for yourself. Not become a professional web developer.

Use the tool that gets the job done most easily for you. Unless you're a complete fucking simpleton, the idea that doing it that way is going to teach you the wrong ideas is bollocks. When you're ready to progress to coding, it'll make no difference. Forget anyone who tries to tell you different.

[haku]

I did my first HTML site in dreamweaver. It was full of tables, screwed up CSS and invalid code! But I recently went and stripped the whole thing down, and re-wrote it, and I'm actually pretty happy with it. It was a good way to start for me, although I'm glad I spent the time after that figuring out how CSS worked.

[Do Gooder]

i started out with dreamweaver 3 ( i think )

don't think i will be revisiting those early sites anytime soon!

[Dusteh]

At least with dreamweaver you can start off using the software as a crutch, and as you gain in web design know-how it contains the tools to do things properly, unlike say, starting off in Frontpage only to find that it was the wrong direction to go in and you have to ditch it.

I love using Dreamweaver, but I don't even bother with design view at all anymore - I just use it as a code editor.

As long as you don't commit the cardinal sin which many first-time posters on here seem to have done, which is to learn how to cobble together a website in designview and then think they are now a professional web designer.