Need help designing a website! Total newbie here so please be patient!

[Lorraine_ie]

Hi all, im new to this forum and know little or nothing about webdesign - im trying to set up my website. i have already set up the hosting with www.iccm.ie and they have website templates already built in - one of which i chose but im not happy with it so i want to change it but it wont let me edit outside of the template - do i need some sort of program to edit the site?? how exactly do i do it??

I realise this is total beginners stuff but would really appreciate any advice anyone could give me.

Thanks so much in advance

Loraine

 

[ddt]

Well there are a lot of options to choose from. But first you will need the files. So, if you have a template you need to get access to, you will need an FTP or your File manager.

FTP (File transfer protocol) Example: PC you can use SmartFTP, for MAC you can use Fetch.

File Manager (Usually provided by your host.) lets you arrange, edit, upload and change permission on files to your server.

I recommend you use the free trial of SmartFTP or Fetch to access these files.

Contact your host for the Hostname, username and password you will need to enter into the FTP program.

Once you get access to your hosted account via FTP or Filemanager you will need to locate your root folder. You will want to download your index.html file and all associated files that you want to edit. For ex. (index.html , home.html , contact.html ect...)

You can edit these with a basic notepad or txt editor that comes on your computer. Also you can buy a program like dreamweaver. Or you can use an open source program.

Open source means free program ran by a group of people. Like fire fox is an open source browser.

This is all just the start. I suggest you read all on the internet you can find and a very good book.

I recommend to start with the book by Dummies titles HTML, XHTML, and CSS all in one desk reference

Hope this helps you in your road ahead of you in the world of web design and development.