Harrythethird

Hello! I'm interested in creating a website with features slightly more advanced that what it seems most online web building sites have to offer. I'm looking for the ability to create a site where users are able to register a username, log into a members area on the website giving them different capabilities after having logged in, and their own personal profile, like this site, and many others. Are there any advanced web building sites/tools that can do this? I am versed in basic HTML, but no coding beyond that, and I'm lost as to where to start. I've been trying to find a hosting site with advanced site building tools, but they're all so vague, and seemingly basic, I'm unsure what options are open to me. Can I just pay for a domain, build the site with offline software, and then upload it to the host site?.. If so, what is the most thorough and advanced, yet fairly simple to use, software? I'm looking to start small, with a lot of room for expansion. I know that ultimately if I reach my goals with how big that I want the site to get that I will eventually end up with my own server, so the capability to transfer anything I create from a host site or program to my own server is also very much desired.

Any advice would be much appreciated. Thank you!

leroy30

Hi Harrythethird,

Give Microsoft's Web Developer Express a go! It's free and absolutely scalable. You can start with your regular old HTML websites and as you progress you can start to learn server-side programming which you'll need for logins and members areas.

To have your website on the internet you will need to register a domain name and have somewhere to host it. You could build your own server (expensive) or pay a small monthly premium for some web hosting. Most companies that let you register a domain name will try to upsell web hosting anyway.

Just don't choose GoDaddy. Their control panel is horrible and incredibly slow.

Good luck!

Le-roy

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sdesign1

Wordpress is probably one of the easier Content Management Systems to get up and running and if you are lucky you can get away without having to use PHP - just plugins.

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Web Design Liverpool

Harrythethird

leroy, thanks for the response, I'll definitely check out Microsoft's Web Developer, but I was hoping to find something that allowed me to have logins and members areas from the get go, do you know of any program or website that allows this type of system to be created without the knowledge of advanced code?

sdesign, isn't wordpress exclusively for blogs? I'm not sure they'll have the tools for what I'm looking for.

Any further advice would be much appreciated!

Harrythethird

Does anyone know of any other forum, or website that I could research to find out the information on the tools that I'm looking for? Literally any info would be much appreciated, as I'm completely unsure of where to go from here.

CaldwellYSR

wordpress.com is for blogs, wordpress.org is a CMS which is pretty strong and one of the more popular ones today. It has login features like you wanted and there are thousand of themes to choose from. You could also make your own custom theme if you wanted, or hire someone to make a theme.

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~ Krymson Productions
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Harrythethird

Oh, I had no idea, awesome, thank you! I'll check it out right away. Thanks again!