Help Please (complete beginner - stupid question)

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Sioonoo

New Member
Hi all,

firstly let me start by saying I have no web design experience at all, and I am not the sharpest tool in the shed.

ok my question is how do web designers design websites, as in I know websites are coded but from what I see when I look at a website code is a load of jibberish for example (the following is not mine and I just used a random website and this is the code that showed up when I clicked View source)

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN">
<html>
<head>

<title>Bodybuilding.com - Training For 100-Meter-Sprint Success. - David Robson </title>

<!--<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" />-->
<link rel="shortcut icon" href="http://www.bodybuilding.com/favicon.ico" />

I obviously cut a massive part out as it would be pointless putting the whole code in for demonstration purposes, but my question is this no one could possibly just sit there typing it in knowing how it's going to look, there must be some tool you can use that you can look at the screen going... I would like a blue title in this color, I would like a photo here etc and it writes the codes for the decisions you have made, the reason I ask is because I want to do web design but if it is coding from scratch I think for me it would be mission impossible as I am a tool.

any replies would be greatly appreciated

be gentle!

p.s. I just read this and I want to make it clear, I am not making out that web design is as simple as just choosing a title etc or devaluing the work that designers do as I know it takes months to make a top notch website, what im getting at is there must be a way of seing how a website is looking as your coding it!

Sioonoo
 
Last edited:
anna

anna

New Member
You can use a program like Dreamweaver or Frontpage that will help give you the visual cues you are asking about... However- they are often completely unreliable, and the best way is to hand code everything using text editor or notepad or something.

I'm by NO MEANS an expert coder (FAR FAR from it) but I've found it helpful to use Dreamweaver in the code view, and or, notepad, that way I can learn about hand coding and still see a somewhat accurate visual representation. Often times, I find myself just checking the page live on a browser to see what it looks like online.

Hope that helps, I'm sure others will be able to help you even more.

Don't be so hard on yourself, none of us are the sharpest tools; you just have to make do with the tools you have! :)
 
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d a v e

New Member
sounds like you need to buy a wyiswyg editor (or look at something free like kompozer) BUT you need to learn how web pages are put together and how html and css work, at least on a basic level - wysiwyg editots (whay you see is what you [sort of] get) are great if you couple them with some understanding - just like any tool

http://www.htmldog.com
http://www.opera.com/company/education/curriculum/
http://www.w3schools.com/
http://www.cssbasics.com
http://www.sitepoint.com/article/html-css-beginners-guide/
http://net.tutsplus.com/tutorials/html-css-techniques/design-and-code-your-first -website-in-easy-to-understand-steps/
 
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Sioonoo

New Member
anna said:
You can use a program like Dreamweaver or Frontpage that will help give you the visual cues you are asking about... However- they are often completely unreliable, and the best way is to hand code everything using text editor or notepad or something.

I'm by NO MEANS an expert coder (FAR FAR from it) but I've found it helpful to use Dreamweaver in the code view, and or, notepad, that way I can learn about hand coding and still see a somewhat accurate visual representation. Often times, I find myself just checking the page live on a browser to see what it looks like online.

Hope that helps, I'm sure others will be able to help you even more.

Don't be so hard on yourself, none of us are the sharpest tools; you just have to make do with the tools you have! :)
Click to expand...

why thanks alot for your help! :) hard on myself or brutally honest.... I am not sure! :D
 
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Sioonoo

New Member
d a v e said:
sounds like you need to buy a wyiswyg editor (or look at something free like kompozer) BUT you need to learn how web pages are put together and how html and css work, at least on a basic level - wysiwyg editots (whay you see is what you [sort of] get) are great if you couple them with some understanding - just like any tool

http://www.htmldog.com
http://www.opera.com/company/education/curriculum/
http://www.w3schools.com/
http://www.cssbasics.com
http://www.sitepoint.com/article/html-css-beginners-guide/
http://net.tutsplus.com/tutorials/html-css-techniques/design-and-code-your-first -website-in-easy-to-understand-steps/
Click to expand...

cheers dave, thanks alot, I shall do some reading!
 
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elbow83

New Member
i'd agree with anna on that...
Dreamweavers code viewer is great and teaches you a lot... its handy having some coding knowledge to fix bits or tweak some elements...
however, seeing as dreamweaver is very expensive and sometimes a pain in every part of the body there are other applications that do things quite well...
a friend of mine showed me Xara designer 6, very easy to start using and you can put what you want where you want it and it'll work...
i stand to be corrected by the more experienced designers on here (being a newbie myself) but thats my 2 cents worth...
maybe download a trail version of Xara and have a play around. otherwise there are always the free progs like Joomla
 
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sarahdaniels

New Member
if your a newbie who wants to design your very first website you can use dreamweaver just like what other said or MS frontpage. they can easily access the codes and just put the things that you want. i also learned a site called lynda.com for people who wants to set-up their website. but if you can affor just hire a web designer.
 
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LandisCreations

New Member
Hi Sioonoo,

We all started where you are at some point in time. Web design / development is just like any skill, it's something that you'll get better at with practice. When I started, if I wasn't using a tool like Dreamweaver or Frontpage (/shudder) I was completely lost.

After working in the industry for a few years, I'm much more comfortable without the constant use of the visual side of the programs and actually use them very rarely. It's all about experience.

If you're serious about getting into web development, there are a lot of useful tools mentioned here already. The other posts in the forum can be helpful as well, as people are asking questions about specific issues and getting answers, which you can use to learn things in small pieces.

It can be daunting, but if you stick with it and aren't afraid to ask questions (much like you just have), you'll be just fine.

~Nathan
 
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LouTheDesigner

New Member
LandisCreations said:
We all started where you are at some point in time.
Click to expand...

Huh? When I was born they put an <ankle> tag on me :)

But to the OP, I would definitely use Dreamweaver to embark on your journey here. At least, it will generate the bulk of gibberish for you. You'll learn from the code that gets generated for you when you place elements into the design view.

-Lou
 
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Designer77

New Member
A few years ago I was a complete website design newbie. So, I can relate to your problems. Read each of the points below and digest them well. This will definitely help get you out of your website design newbie stage.

* Practice, practice, practice
* Make hundreds of web pages.
* Learn something new with each web page.
* Restrict your page sizes to 500 words per page. People often do not like scrolling down. If you have more than 500 words, break it into two pages with a link at the bottom right-hand corner to the next page.
* Learn about external style sheets as quickly as possible.
* KISS -- Keep It Sweet and Simple. Have lots of white space between paragraphs and graphics. Make sure that the paragraphs are short (say, 2 sentences). Do not have a bunch of movement (Flash or blinking text). That can really be a distraction.
* Have lots of contrast between the text and background colors.
* When I was a newbie, my biggest problem was browser compatibility. Things would look beautiful on Firefox but ugly on IE (Internet Explorer).

After months of research, I solved that problem by using a library of code called YUI 3.0. If you go to the freewebsitedesigntutorial website mentioned below, each template has YUI 3.0 built into the head of the source code.
* Your titles and H1 headings should both summarize your page content in a few words. Remember that your titles and H1 headings both tell the search engines what your page is all about. Put a lot of thought into them.
* You learn new website design techniques by
* - Using the forums
* - Using W3Schools. For instance, if you want to learn about changing font sizes with HTML, enter this into your search engine: w3schools font sizes.
* - Putting freewebsitedesigntutorial dot com into your favorites and using it often.
* - Using the search engines.
* - Having one or more word processing files in which you enter all of your new information. At the top of each one, have an index so that you can retrieve anything you have learned.
* Never give up.
 
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JoomlaExpert

New Member
as a newbie, you will be doing a lot to create websites. As for me I used Joomla in creating websites and honestly I was able to build Joomla websites for just 24 hours and not days or weeks. I suggest that you try it out with Joomla video tutorials. Its fun and easy and you will be open for more tools to design on your Joomla site.
 
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