How did you make your website?

Hey guys,

I really want to setup a website... I have a mac, so there is a built in site maker called "iweb"... It doesnt really seem to make sites all fancy as some of the other users sites are... I want to setup a site, so that you could like click on the animals, and it brings you to another page and stuff if you get what im saying... So i just wanted to know what you guys use to build your sites...

Every bit of info helps!
Thanks,
Brandon

Grit - Spit - and a whole to of duck tape

http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/h...nguins1jpg.jpg

Naa I used Dreamweaver CS3 and photoshop.:D

mmm I was about your age when I started tinkin around with Websites...it's never too early to learn!

First, you need a domain. Godaddy is good for domain registrations. (not hosting..see "next")
Next, you need hosting. 1&1 is cheap and does the trick.

Now - you gotta build your site! woohoo! the fun part :D

Photoshop isn't exactly at everyones fingertips. Yeah - you can download the 30 day trial, but it will take you months to learn it. Go with Gimp for now for your graphics (oh yeah, you already have Gimp...for your logo!!...i'll leave that note in there for others)

Think of Websites like...a Car.

You have your designers that design the outside and make the car pretty (graphics)...and then you have your engineers that make what's under the hood!! (the code) that's the part that matters the most :gj: of course, I'm biased because I'm a web developer.

You need to learn HTML first. Then CSS. That should get you going in the right direction :gj:

Or....you can hire someone, like I did! I hired AaronP to do my website. I knew that I wanted a more professional looking site than I would be able to design on my own.

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Originally Posted by Freakie_frog

Grit - Spit - and a whole to of duck tape

http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/h...nguins1jpg.jpg

Naa I used Dreamweaver CS3 and photoshop.:D

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:D

Of course, you CAN use Dreamweaver - those kinds of editors help newbies out a LOT. I use to use DW exclusively and learned a lot from it..but eventually it comes down to really understanding the code and using the code view to fix boogered up code..DW is far from perfect.

I code by hand in a text editor(ultraedit, though any text editor, even notepad, works). I'm pretty new to this web programming/design stuff so I'm learning all the basics and learning to make a modern website from scratch before jumping into using Adobe Dreamweaver(a WYSIWYG, or "what you see is what you get", website builder) or anything like that.

It sounds like the kind of website you want to design would be pretty easy to just code by hand after reading a book or two on html and CSS. You wouldn't need PHP or javascript or mysql for anything like that, but a working knowledge of photoshop(on my list of "things to learn") or similar image editor/creator programs will help with any graphics you might want for your website.

My suggestion to you, if you don't know anything about web programming, HTML, or CSS, is to first read up on HTML. It's very basic in structure and you can read over the entirety of HTML and understand it in an afternoon. Then build a home page using just HTML so you get a working knowledge of how to write HTML code, that would take another afternoon.

To "prettify" a webpage, the easy and modern solution is using CSS, which adds styles to HTML tags to change font/color/position paragraphs, and many more interesting possibilities.

If you want to learn CSS(highly recommended), I recommend picking up a book called "The Missing Manual: CSS", also written sometimes "CSS: The Missing Manual". Google might be good enough to get you all the HTML resources you need, but this book really covers CSS much better than any web resource I came across.

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Originally Posted by Nate

You need to learn HTML first. Then CSS. That should get you going in the right direction :gj:

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This too. I highly recommend these links, in fact this is where I started reading up on HTML and CSS just a couple months ago.

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Originally Posted by rabernet

Or....you can hire someone, like I did! I hired AaronP to do my website. I knew that I wanted a more professional looking site than I would be able to design on my own.

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Did he do it for free?

Edit: Nvm, i just realized you said "hired"...

I used SwishMax to design my site. It was fairly easy to learn with a little practice. The program builds a website like a movie with scenes and frames.

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Originally Posted by DBD

Did he do it for free?

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Hired implies payment.


I vote sticky this thread because Nate is the MAN for that breakdown. I too have been considering a site for next year.