â€Â¦ it really is. All I want to do is create a site using FrontPage 98 and my HTML editor, MySql 5.0 as my database, PHP code, and apache. But the more I read the more confused I get. What do I need to do first??? At this point I’m not worried about a host, I will use my ISP provided webspace (50mb) to test. When I see I can do it then I will purchase a hosting plan.
Anyone with knowledge about how a newbie can get started building a website with the above, I would appreciate any pointers.
I used to be a web designer and make my own pages etc. Now I' too lazy and use 4images for galleries and Joomla for sites. Why try and re-invent the wheel when you don't have to.
I have to learn all this because of setting up the WPL site separate from DPChallenge. The WPL is not in any way trying to take users away from DPChallenge, just offering them another venue in a team format.
I will learn this crap if it takes me a year or more!!!! :P
Like Megatherian says, there is no need to reinvent the wheel.
But if you are interested in really going at it, and learning web development from the ground up, here's a very basic outline of where to start, and sites to check out.
1) Before I start programming, I create a site layout as an image in Photoshop, using layers, etc. to organize your graphical components.
You basically want to end up with a picture of what your website will look like. Add sample text, pictures, etc.. This will be your "idea board", so by the time you are done with this step, you will have a much better idea of what your site should look like in the end.
Most of your design will probably be accomplished through CSS. You don't want an image-heavy layout that weighs down everyone's connections.
Once you are happy with the layout design, hide all content layers, and begin exporting/saving the images you will actually use in your site.
2) You'll probably want to ditch FrontPage 98 at this point. If you are in need of a WYSIWYG editor of a similar vein, there are many different programs to try.
I have never used Amaya, but it seems solid. There are lots of other WYSIWYG apps out there. Eventually you'll grow out of them, and will be able to write code and CSS without needing the WYSIWYG crutch (with PHPEclipse, for example).
Unless you picked a pre-existing free layout off the internet, you will now need to turn your bunch of disconnected images into the picture you made in Photoshop. A simple one-page example will be enough.
Start real simple - just an HTML header and footer (its always a good idea to stick to web standards):
Note the stylesheet reference. You'll need to create this file, where you will keep all your CSS definitions.
You will want to work your way up from that hello world to the picture you created. If you are going for a standard 2 or 3 column layout, here are some ready ones for you:
After you have a layout, you can move on to the coding part.
3. Install WAMP (Apache + PHP + MySQL) on your Windows computer.
Rename all your .HTML file into .PHP. Put it and the images and CSS files you created into Apache's http root directory. or something like that folder (unless you want to mess with the apache.conf file and reconfigure a custom file path).
Open your browser and go to //localhost to see if the server is working and properly configured.
If it works, open that .php file you created. See how it looks in your browser. Its simple and boring now, but little by little, start turning your static file into dynamic masterpieces.
.... ok, if you weren't already overwhelmed, you are probably feeling a bit overwhelmed now. Take it easy - three easy steps - 1. Design. 2. HTML. 3. PHP. :)
Like Megatherian says, there is no need to reinvent the wheel.
But if you are interested in really going at it, and learning web development from the ground up, here's a very basic outline of where to start, and sites to check out.
1) Before I start programming, I create a site layout as an image in Photoshop, using layers, etc. to organize your graphical components.
You basically want to end up with a picture of what your website will look like. Add sample text, pictures, etc.. This will be your "idea board", so by the time you are done with this step, you will have a much better idea of what your site should look like in the end.
Most of your design will probably be accomplished through CSS. You don't want an image-heavy layout that weighs down everyone's connections.
Once you are happy with the layout design, hide all content layers, and begin exporting/saving the images you will actually use in your site.
2) You'll probably want to ditch FrontPage 98 at this point. If you are in need of a WYSIWYG editor of a similar vein, there are many different programs to try.
I have never used Amaya, but it seems solid. There are lots of other WYSIWYG apps out there. Eventually you'll grow out of them, and will be able to write code and CSS without needing the WYSIWYG crutch (with PHPEclipse, for example).
Unless you picked a pre-existing free layout off the internet, you will now need to turn your bunch of disconnected images into the picture you made in Photoshop. A simple one-page example will be enough.
Start real simple - just an HTML header and footer (its always a good idea to stick to web standards):
Note the stylesheet reference. You'll need to create this file, where you will keep all your CSS definitions.
You will want to work your way up from that hello world to the picture you created. If you are going for a standard 2 or 3 column layout, here are some ready ones for you:
After you have a layout, you can move on to the coding part.
3. Install WAMP (Apache + PHP + MySQL) on your Windows computer.
Rename all your .HTML file into .PHP. Put it and the images and CSS files you created into Apache's http root directory. or something like that folder (unless you want to mess with the apache.conf file and reconfigure a custom file path).
Open your browser and go to //localhost to see if the server is working and properly configured.
If it works, open that .php file you created. See how it looks in your browser. Its simple and boring now, but little by little, start turning your static file into dynamic masterpieces.
.... ok, if you weren't already overwhelmed, you are probably feeling a bit overwhelmed now. Take it easy - three easy steps - 1. Design. 2. HTML. 3. PHP. :)
Thank you for all your advice. I will run with it and see what I can accomplish.
Again Thanks!
SDW
Lots of useful pages in the last post. I thought I'd also try and break it down a bit for you -
FrontPage 98
Okay. The first thing to do is to stop using FrontPage. Uninstall it if you have to. Whilst it can, for some people, be easy to use, you are divorcing yourself from the content of your pages, and actually making some jobs - like integration with server-side stuff, potentially harder.
Frontpage also crams loads of unnecessary waffle code into the pages that you make, which means that they will be bigger (slower to load, less efficient), somewhat less likely to work on broswers other than IE, and your pages will be more complicated to understand if you try to revisit them later in an editor other than FrontPage or just in Wordpad / notepad.
Other alternative layout editors were suggested in the previous post. My personal suggestion would be to find a web site that teaches basic HTML, learn that, so that you can write up simple pages, and then learn CSS, so that you can make the pages look nice. With CSS, the layout of a web page, can be completely seperate from the content of a web page, which is what you want. You can change the look and feel of your entire site by changing one page of CSS. The w3 tutorials or places like Glish.com and A List Apart were invaluable to me when I was doing this sort of stuff.
Once you have got the building blocks that are HTML and CSS, you can start to look at server-side stuff like PHP and database-driven code.
Apache
I shouldn't think that you will need to learn that much about Apache, unless you are very serious about a web project. If you need to install Apache, because you've got your own co-lo box with nothing other than an OS on it, then fine, read up about it. If that means nothing to you, then the most you are ever likely to do with Apache is to create a .htaccess file to put in basic security. That's easy enough to read about. With a lot of web hosts you can't even do that, and can safely forget about Apache in the knowledge that your ISP or hosting service will deal with it.
PHP
It might be worth learning some simple PHP so that you can create your own, more flexible, web site. The PHP site itself is a wealth of information, and there are numerous tutorials dealing with forms and how to process them, cookies, and even database integration. Learn simple stuff first and work your way up. Even see if you can just take an existing page, and convert it so that it's all done through PHP - that would be simple (and fairly pointless) but would at least show how easy it is to do.
MySql 5.0 as my database
Again, there's probably not a lot of use in spending a whole heap of time learning MySql. If you need something that's database-driven, chances are that someone has already coded that part of it for you. This will save you hours of work in both developing a database structure, finding out how to get your data in-to and out of it, writing the PHP to do all of that, and testing it to make sure that it is secure. If you're determined to learn about it, then the mysql (free) side has a good amount of info, or if you get stuck on something then drop me a PM and I'll look at it for you.
Lots of useful pages in the last post. I thought I'd also try and break it down a bit for you -
FrontPage 98
Okay. The first thing to do is to stop using FrontPage. Uninstall it if you have to. Whilst it can, for some people, be easy to use, you are divorcing yourself from the content of your pages, and actually making some jobs - like integration with server-side stuff, potentially harder.
Frontpage also crams loads of unnecessary waffle code into the pages that you make, which means that they will be bigger (slower to load, less efficient), somewhat less likely to work on broswers other than IE, and your pages will be more complicated to understand if you try to revisit them later in an editor other than FrontPage or just in Wordpad / notepad.
Other alternative layout editors were suggested in the previous post. My personal suggestion would be to find a web site that teaches basic HTML, learn that, so that you can write up simple pages, and then learn CSS, so that you can make the pages look nice. With CSS, the layout of a web page, can be completely seperate from the content of a web page, which is what you want. You can change the look and feel of your entire site by changing one page of CSS. The w3 tutorials or places like Glish.com and A List Apart were invaluable to me when I was doing this sort of stuff.
Once you have got the building blocks that are HTML and CSS, you can start to look at server-side stuff like PHP and database-driven code.
Apache
I shouldn't think that you will need to learn that much about Apache, unless you are very serious about a web project. If you need to install Apache, because you've got your own co-lo box with nothing other than an OS on it, then fine, read up about it. If that means nothing to you, then the most you are ever likely to do with Apache is to create a .htaccess file to put in basic security. That's easy enough to read about. With a lot of web hosts you can't even do that, and can safely forget about Apache in the knowledge that your ISP or hosting service will deal with it.
PHP
It might be worth learning some simple PHP so that you can create your own, more flexible, web site. The PHP site itself is a wealth of information, and there are numerous tutorials dealing with forms and how to process them, cookies, and even database integration. Learn simple stuff first and work your way up. Even see if you can just take an existing page, and convert it so that it's all done through PHP - that would be simple (and fairly pointless) but would at least show how easy it is to do.
MySql 5.0 as my database
Again, there's probably not a lot of use in spending a whole heap of time learning MySql. If you need something that's database-driven, chances are that someone has already coded that part of it for you. This will save you hours of work in both developing a database structure, finding out how to get your data in-to and out of it, writing the PHP to do all of that, and testing it to make sure that it is secure. If you're determined to learn about it, then the mysql (free) side has a good amount of info, or if you get stuck on something then drop me a PM and I'll look at it for you.
Thank you for your advise too. I have copied both yours and Nefir post and saved them along with the links as a starting tool in becoming a good web designer. I know that sounds like a high goal but I want to be able to design web pages and build them from the ground up. Thanks to both of you. It means a lot to me that you both would take the time to write these helpful post.
SDW
I'm rebuilding my department's website at UM using Dreamweaver. My previous experience was Frontpage which was no help at all (code is actually easier than WYSIWYG). I learned coding by looking at the codes of other webpages (right click, view page source). The advice you have gotten so far is excellent - wish I had it when I started... :)
That is SO true. Lucky for you, pretty much every site editor worth its salt, WYSIWYG or not, has sufficient code highlighting and usually lets you turn off the WYSIWYG display.
For the longest time I was hacking away in Dreamweaver, ignoring its layout view, until I switched to Eclipse + PHPEclipse. Its a very powerful integrated development environment for a multitude of languages. I especially like the automatic syntax checking, the history of file changes, and comparison tools that make your life so much easier.
