Web Design

Pressure

Pressure

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Well, I searched for threads about this but this search feature blows. Anyways, I'm looking for a good web design program. I'm making my own web page and would perfer not having to code everything by hand. Could anyone give me a list of well known good programs and possibly give the pros/cons of each. I need it to be inside a reasonable price, nothing outragous. I also want to know, what is the best version of photoshop? There are so many out there!
 
Sorry dude, but if you're not willing to code everything by hand, then webdesign is not for you.

For programs however, i'd say macromedia dreamweaver mx. It'll run you in the hundreds, but it's a great program. You can't imagine how usefull it is to be able to just check how the page looks, then go back to the coding, then go back to the page and see your changes. And it has a really great markup coloring system.
 
Programming for me is not a problem but a hassle. I am a computer programmer by profession so I could easily write up my own page. To my knowledge, being new to the web design aspect of programming, most pages now are made using the assistance of some program like the one you mentioned.
 
Assistance as in code completion, markup colouring, cvs integration, deployment on server,... but not code generation.

Ofcourse pages can be generated using dramweaver but the generated html code is never as good as the one an experienced coder creates.
 
Programs i use are Adobe photoshop 7.0 and Macromedia Flash 5. Both are easy to use and with these two you can make awsome graphics and a whole website in animations using Flash. There is also a similar language too PHP,ASP included in Flash called AC or ActionScripts. Its very simple to use, but i recommend you to buy a book about AC to get a better picture of it. If Flash seems to be too difficult and you are still willing to work with animations, i suggest you take a look at Swift. Its a Macromedia software much similar to flash and alot easier.
 
If you use a program that generates all the code for you your site will end up looking different in IE than it does in Firefox. It'll generally be messed up.

And Pressure, web programming is 100x easier than C++ or whatever else.

Here's a totally free web design program that I use, it has optional code completion and a lot of other features:
TSW Web Coder 5 - http://www.tsware.net/download.php
 
Scite and Photoshop 7, thats all I need (scite is like Notepad.. But better).
 
StardogChampion said:
And Pressure, web programming is 100x easier than C++ or whatever else.
Click to expand...
That REALLY depends on the type of site you make. A JSP/Servlets enhanced site, sites with CGI,... can be as hard as Java, C++,...
 
I'm a professionnal Web Developper and I use Dreamweaver MX and 2004 and Photoshop CS. And of course if you want to do a professionnal Web page you're gonna code in PHP so no programs will code that for you. So, you should learn HTML/Javascript/CSS/PHP.
 
In my opinion, dreamweaver is a good tool to use as a page editor as you can check certain CSS and non dynamic HTML code in teh design view to make sure every looks as it should. Its when you start using the wizards to create tables etc, the problems start as it adds in redundant code segments that arn't needed and jsut confuse you. Also I have had problems in the past making my pages in dreamweaver and them not being valid xhtml1.0 transitional.
 
i use dreamweaver , create the tables , stuff to a specific flavour / size n check them in ie and fire ferrit, only problem ive come across is date/time not displayign right in fire ferrit but fine in ie
 
If you can't code html or don't want too, I wouldn't even bother with a website. Because even I learned html, and it was fun to code and then see how it worked on the net.
 
Well you can make some really nice looking websites with Photoshop 7 / CS with the Splice tool, load it up in Homepage or Dreamweaver and change the links. Really easy good looking solution, but not reccomended unless you're doing a very simple 4-5 page website with purely information / graphics.
 
Okay, I'll just code it myself lol. It won't be overly difficult. Anyway, I've been told to use HTML, Javascript, CSS and PHP. What are the different uses for all of these?
 
HTML is static information, ie tables, forums, buttons, etc
Javascript allows for dynamic information, time, popups, visual effects
CSS is the visual style sheet, colors, border sizes etc
PHP is server side programming, allows for stuf to be submitted, stored, archived, and what not
(HTML is the most important, and javascript is the most fun)
 
Notepad, using a combination of HTML and advanced CSS, and Microsoft Photodraw, occasionally using PSP or PS.
 
Then, tables will be your new friends, tables are good, tables are the key!

<table ><tr><td><?php echo 'Tables are good!!'; ?></td></tr></table>
 
I moved over from tables to css with <div> and damn that works great!
can't say I ever want to use tables again.
 
Yeah, but CSS has it's "problems", but it's mainly because of Internet Explorer displaying things wrongly.

Some of IE's problems can be fixed by using this doctype:
Code: 
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN"
    "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">

You'll need to use some hacks for other things though.
 
Okay, I've read up on xhtml. Is it becoming the new standard?
 
Tag wise, XHTML is practically the same as HTML.

For a line break, instead of [br], you would put [br].
Instead of
, it would be


Tags must be in lower case too.

XHTML is the future. HTML won't be updated anymore, but XHTML isn't that different.
 
I've been looking around at different web sites and I notice that everything is basically an object in computer programming terms. In web design do you have class files for certain areas of websites? For example, let's say you wanted to add a new news table to your website, could you just make a new instance of class you made for this? The best way I could describe it is using code. Here's the java equivalent of what I'm talking about:

News example = new News("Author", "Title", "Whatever news is", date);
News.printTable(example);

From that it would pass the parameters into the class file making a new object. The second line is a call to a printTable function, which would basically just print out the table with everything in the correct positions. This would get rid of a lot of clutter inside the HTML source code.
 
Pesmerga said:
Well you can make some really nice looking websites with Photoshop 7 / CS with the Splice tool, load it up in Homepage or Dreamweaver and change the links. Really easy good looking solution, but not reccomended unless you're doing a very simple 4-5 page website with purely information / graphics.
Click to expand...

Ti133700N said:
Then, tables will be your new friends, tables are good, tables are the key!

<table ><tr><td><?php echo 'Tables are good!!'; ?></td></tr></table>
Click to expand...


I tell you boys, table hacks are bad! BAD!

CSS and Xhtml Strict all the way!

</nerd talk>

But seriously, yeah, learn xhtml. Nearly identical to html. And learn PHP while your at it. And some good advice would be to make ALL your pages Xhtml Strict. That way when IE ****s up your page, it's not your fault. You used completely standard and non deprecated coding. And yes, in Xhtml everything is like an object, with objects embed in them.

Xhtml, php, css, they're all super easy to learn. Look at me, i'm only thirteen and i've got it all down.

Here's a good example of Xhtml and Css working together. The PHP pages aren't up on this site version, but since you program for a living, you pretty much already know php, just maybe a bit of syntax.

http://www.sitesled.com/members/sinkoman/

And even if you don't get into web design, it's good to know the principals of a good looking and behaving website. My site design skills helped me a bunch when I was working on math and social studies projects. Math is pretty much a given *cough php cough* but for other projects, it really helped knowing how to make everything look good together while retaining practicality and maintaining a good use of space when it came to visuals.

I say go for it!
 
How the hell did I double post? I was just editing my post!

Sorry Asus, I have failed you :borg: Lol.

EDIT: Might as well put this post to good use.

For the classes, yes there are classes, you would use css for those. The css class would have stuff like, width, background color, height, text behavior, font faces, font sizes, tones of other stuff. Then you would link to the css file that has those classes, or you could just do it straight in the html (not as standard though) and then you would drop your class onto any html tag. I try to use DIV tags for everything, then edit the parameters for the individual DIV's in a seperate css files. I try to keep my css code out of my html files, plus, divs are extremely versatile. You'll see what I mean if you check out the code for the site I linked to in the post above.

And then there's the php objects and stuff. You'd probably know how that works.
 
I want my site to have a similar to most websites so it's easy to navigate. Basically here's what I'm aiming for is a layout similar to this site. I want a banner at the top of the site. Then I was a bar that goes down the left side of the page, news boxes in the center and another bar down the right side of the screen. Would XHTML mixed with CSS be the best for this kind of set up?
 
Pressure said:
I want my site to have a similar to most websites so it's easy to navigate. Basically here's what I'm aiming for is a layout similar to this site. I want a banner at the top of the site. Then I was a bar that goes down the left side of the page, news boxes in the center and another bar down the right side of the screen. Would XHTML mixed with CSS be the best for this kind of set up?
Click to expand...

Yes. CSS would be perfect for this. A few nice and easy Div's and it's done. Clean, simple, and no table hacks required.

And you're gonna need CSS for everything xhtml and webdesign. Seeing as all styling tags have been deprecated since CSS.
 
Pressure said:
News example = new News("Author", "Title", "Whatever news is", date);
News.printTable(example);
Click to expand...
That indeed is a nice and clean example indeed, though it would be better if you'd use html template pages. This way you don't have to hard-code your html ànd you could re-use the News class for other/new deisgns.
 
Now I just need to decide how it's going to look graphically.
 
Pressure said:
Now I just need to decide how it's going to look graphically.
Click to expand...

I'd say buy a whiteboard, then work with your site on that. Draw mockups on peices of paper in your free time, and use the whiteboard to make a final design. Then as you make more paper mockups, put down the changes you like on the whiteboard. Then number all the major sections of the page and use a piece of paper to describe them.

Once you've got your homepage done, you can create a css file with all the stylings you want to have on every single page (like black background, arial fontface, size 14 headers, this navigation bar, etc etc) then link to that file on every page, and then use the classes and id's from that file for everything. That way you don't have to rewrite all your page stylings.

And for the templates, I say just use css. Css can do everything a template can and more.
 
That's what I've been doing, except I use paper not board. I'm trying to decide now whether on the side I want to make buttons for the sections or just the normal urls. I did a top banner for the site for fun in like 5 minutes. I thought it looked kinda decent but my friends making me one instead since he's experienced in photoshop. Do you mind if I message you on AIM if I have any questions sinkoman?
 
No problem. I haven't done anything web design in a few months though so I might be a bit rusty.
 
I need Photoshop CS, but I have been really getting into PHP for the last few months pressure.

If you need any help with PHP just ask or need any scripts I could help with that to.

Remember images can really help out your site.
http://www.dhost.info/min/
That is my site(WIP), I was converting it over to my old clan BPT though never finished. Anyway I haven't been exactly updating it, but you may notice that the left and right images bring out the center. Not only does it make it look better in terms of color, but it makes it seem to "Come Forward".

Anyway think of PHP like this
All PHP code before going to the client is converted into HTML.
So lets say something like this
<?
$x=1;
while(x != 3)
{
echo("1");
x++;
}
?>
That would say 1 3 times in html. This allows people to never see your PHP code.

In javascript everything is done in the browser. Thus clients that don't support various things may not have everything working.
 
I still don't see the need for PHP unless I need my website to do anything special. XHTML seems sufficient enough to get the job done by itself.
 
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