Jessica

a good book or something along those lines to learn html to build a site? i'm thinking about getting a domain, and i hate those stupid POS standard ones. I had my own crappy website a long time ago, and i did learn some basics of HTML, but i want this to be a good site (it has a specific purpose). I prefer books because i can borrow them for free from work, and they'll probably be more in-depth than a starter site (i think i learned from webmonkey or something)

sherwood

code is an odd thing, any book really works as long as it has a good index of what things do.

and code is alot like working on a car, somtimes you just gotta rip something apart to figure out how it works. just open up the source to this site and you can start to see how style sheets and the like work

for advanced websites i suggest PHP coding because there is a huge online catalog of every peice of code with examples online at php.net

but for html books look into html for dummies, it's conscise and gives you what you need to know.

Jessica

I don't know squat about PHP, but i know i had to do a lot of trial and error with the HTML. FYI- this will be a website for book reviews (sounds stupid i know, but there's more to it). which do you think i should go with? Its not giong to be an advanced website with flash and crap, but i don't want it to look chintzy either. Clean, nice graphics (although those really don't have much to do with how i'm doing it i guess).

Epoch

What are you looking to do with this site?

That will be always be the first and last consideration. Coding and deisgn is wholly dependent on what you want to do... so what's your plans?

yellowbastard

I would get my hands on a copy of Dreamweaver and design your site with that. You can then convert it over to HTML and upload it to wherever is hosting your site.

Jessica

well it'll be a review site on a specific genre of books. i'm probably going to do an affiliate program with amazon (i was going to do barnes and noble, but they just have you stick up banners whereas amazon you can link directly to the item you're talking about). It'll have an index of authors, or search by genre within the genre, new books, etc. I don't think i'll do framing either because that shit pisses me off. I'm still debating if I want to have some kind of thing where just regular browsers on the site can rate each book (i'm going to try and get about ten or so reviewers), maybe with stars or something.

thats about all i have in mind right now. plus i'll do a monthly newsletter on books coming out, but I don't think i'll need to learn how to do that, lol.

Epoch

PHP then would definately be your best bet. It has a steeper learning curve than regular HTML, but it will scale much better for a site like that.

sherwood

werd, you can put yout reviews in a simple text file and upload them and have it add it automatically

Bl@ck

just get an HTML/PHP editor program

HTML/PHP for dummies h:

e3NiNe

you can always use M$ FrontPage to design the site, then go in with custom HTML to make things more fun.

I'd start with a FrontPage for Dummies book to learn how to use the interface. When that's done, you'll learn the limits of the software and know exactly what you want to do. (fixed size window popups, embeded media, dynamic tricks)