SC008Y_MAD

iTrader: (5)

I want to make a website for my self to putexhample of my work on instead of handing out CD etc. Sort of a online portfolio.

I have seen a few nice websites and i was just wondering how there where made. I have saved the web site and opended it up into dreamweaver and also opened the addiational image files in photoshop and i can see that the site is made up in sections(top bit, bottom bit, left and a right bit) to make the shape of the site. Hope that makes sence.

how is this done? How is it made. What other software could i use other than dreamweaver.

http://clintdavis.net/home.htm

http://www.litchfieldmedia.co.uk/

cheers

Darren

Iain Young

I just use a text editor to edit the html code, and photoshop to create any images, (although paint shop pro etc can be used just as easily). There's no need for expensive software like Dreamweaver if you are willing to spend a bit of time learning how to do things properly

bob269

Google are currently beta testing an online page editor, could be worth a look

RichB

Unless you want to get into web site development I would suggest there is little point in trying to learn HTML.
It depends how slick you want it. But how slick you get it depends on how creative/graphically minded you are.
I am a programmer but consider myself to have an eye for design, I have used Photoshop and Dreamweaver amongst others but any site I build always looks a bit mikey mouse if I'm honest. Don't expect to suddenly churn out a design masterpiece with or without the help of a web site builder program.
You could do worse than looking at template based sites, they will look nicer than what you will achieve to begin with but most designers or people in the web industry will spot it a mile off, who cares though if they are not your customers. As Bob mentions, something like Google will give you a good starting point, lots of domain name companies are selling web site builders, 1&1 (I hate them!), Easily to name a couple.
If you are on a Mac, get your self iLife, it comes with iWeb that allows easy publishing of photos, blogs etc.

HTH

Rich

bob269

FYI this is the link, you do need a google email address registered tho, but they host the site for free.

http://pages.google.com/-/about.html

SC008Y_MAD

iTrader: (5)

Thanks for the comments guys.

In dreamweaver is there any other way to make a site other than using tables or frames with i don't know how to use.

Darren

p.s. No I am a PC owner. Can't afford a Mac yet

bob269

You need to use tables to keep your page aligned when viewing in various resolutions or with different browsers, they are pretty simple once you get the hang of it.

If you want a wysiwyg editor (in a fashion) you can use microsoft publisher or to a lesser extent ms word. It will generate the output you want, altho anybody who edits their html in notepad will tell you how horrific the code is generated by ms office

Iain Young

Tables are ok for basic stuff, but positionable divs give you more control and tend to be more predictable across different browsers. Which you use really depends on how fancy you want to get

Iain Young

Nooooooooopooooo - msoffice generated html is horrible, bloated, and often only displays correctly in Internet Explorer. Nasty

SC008Y_MAD

iTrader: (5)

Come again?

Iain Young

Think of a div <div></div> as a block of html code. If you set the style attributes correctly, you can position this block of html anywhere on the page, either relative to other elements, or at a specific x,y position. If you do this, then the thing you are putting on the page will always appear in the same position, regardless of browser, resolution etc. You can also overlap divs (create layers), move them about, make them semi-transparent etc.

SC008Y_MAD

iTrader: (5)

thanks for that little insight.

RichB

Iain, lets not lose sight of the fact we are talking about someone with little or no experience of web site building (no offence Scoo8yMad) so to go off about div and positioning is a little bit OTT Perhaps save that for HTML lesson 5!

If you do want to learn the basics you could do alot worse than working through some tutorials like http://webmonkey.com but dont expect to become an expert in 30 minutes....

Good luck!

Iain Young

True, but I'm a firm believer that if you are going to learn something, you might as well learn how to do it properly

D16GER

Here is another useful link for learning Dreamweaver.

It even has video tutorials!

SC008Y_MAD

iTrader: (5)

I have done a few websites in dreamweaver that ihad to do for C/W at Uni also i learn't a bit of html in notepad.

so i have some idea of what he was on about (he i mean Iain Young).

I also have a Dreamweaver book called Macromedia Dreamweaver (MX2004) for windows & Macintosh -visual quickstart guide by J. Tarin Towers