[LucasK]

Hi everyone,

After some consideration (and realising Microsoft Publisher makes a pretty crummy website designer), I've decided to take the plunge and enter the world of website design.

Now this is from a guy who couldn't put his PC back together after taking it apart.


Right now I know how to use HTML in text (ie. formatting it, making it bold, etc), but the problem is I have no idea how to place objects in certain positions (ie. putting a picture into a certain position on the website). Is there any books or websites with info for beginners?


Thanks,
Lucas.

[Karen]

I think they have a "html for dummies" or something along those lines in print that may help. Actually, there are probably several books available to learn html. Take a look at amazon and see if any catch your eye.

As for web sites, you could visit htmlgoodies.com, this site has pretty good tutorials.

Or you could get a free hosting account at geocities, or one of the free places that offers an online editor. The editor that geocities uses offers a simple click on the code you want, and it places it on the web page for you. When the code is placed on the page it is placed in the real code so that you can see what the code is.

Hope this helps,
Karen

[ericesquire]

You need to get a WYSIWYG (What you see is what you get - wizzywig) program such as Macromedia Dreamweaver. You'd be amazed at how well they work, especially for beginners.

[Onyx]

In its basic form HTML does not allow for the exact positioning of elements on a page. Originally it was all text based and you simply 'marked up' certain words or sentences with different HTML styles. Eventually inline images became available, but these were images that you placed in with the text, so you didn't really have much control over them.

As demand for web pages increased people found new tricks to make them look better. One of the most abused features of HTML is the table element, as it allows you to divide the page up into a series of boxes and therefore crudely place elements on particular areas of the page. Even today you'll find most formatting is done with tables, although this creates problems for disabled users who have to use alternative software to render the pages, and as such is frowned upon in accessibility circles.

These days there are many new features that allow you to position elements more prcisely, such as CSS, but there are also many different browsers out there to cater for and they don't all support the same features. Things are getting better, but careful research of your target audience is vital if you want to play with non-standard features.

My favourite site to recommend for people just starting out is http://www.webmonkey.com (Go to the beginners section at the top) You'll find a lot of help here and much of it is aimed at people who are new to the whole web design thing.

A WYSIWYG package would help you to get straight into it, but knowing the fundamentals is pretty much essential in order to understand how and why things change on different screens and what the limitations of HTML are. This is especially true if you are used to creating documents in packages such as Word as you'll be used to positioning and formatting things exactly, where as in HTML it's all about positioning stuff relatively.

DreamWeaver is a stunningly good package that provides everything you could need, but it's still worth knowing the basics.

Good luck!

[LucasK]

Hi,

Thanks for the responses all. I'll start with the Webmonkey site and see how much of the basics I can learn, before giving a trial shot of Dreamweaver (the real one is so expensive, if the trial version is indefinite I'll probably stick to that).


Thanks,
Luc.