business website: what web proggies to use?

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jesusfr3ak4evr

Gawd
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Sep 10, 2005
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My older bro who owns a small rental property business with around 30 units would like me to build him a website, since he is far too busy to do it himself. He hasn't told me exactly what to put on it, other than pictures of his buildings and other info useful to viewers. Building websites is definitely not my forte, as I've never done it before, however I hear it's relatively easy. I do have experience programming in Visual Basic, C++, and Java, but that experience is limited to introductory courses(and I'm taking Java right now). So I'm wondering, what programs should I use for building the website? Frontpage? Dreamweaver? Something else? A combination? Should I take any tutorials on any of these programs first or just dive into building the website? I would like to master web design to add it onto my list of job skills. Any help, insight, thoughts, or advise are appreciated!
 
Notepad...

No really though, use it. Don't really on WYSIWYG Editors (What You See Is What You Get) You'll be a much better web designer if you actually know the code.
 
Alright, thanks. I'll keep that in consideration. And by code, do you mean HTML? If so, is there any correspondence between HTML used in Java and HTML used in web design? I mean if I learn to understand the code in one does that mean I will understand the code in another? Also, is it realistic to really learn the code so I can build a website with just code, or should I stick to simply understanding the code?

Edit: I just realized part of Java is servlets and other web-related applications. duh! I'm still in console and windowed applications and applets...
 
jesusfr3ak4evr said:
Also, is it realistic to really learn the code so I can build a website with just code, or should I stick to simply understanding the code?
Click to expand...
I like that statement. Most people here would say build in notepad and LEARN it and LIVE it. But I disagree. If you're pretty much never going to build a website again, and don't really want to spend a great deal of time (though HTML is easy to learn), just having an understanding of the code is much more useful to a casual "developer". Much like before I had reason to actually learn PHP, i did understand a lot of it, and new slightly how to manipulate it. Eventually I found the need to actually LEARN php.

If it wasn't for the pricetag, I would recommend Dreamweaver for both its code view, and WYSIWYG view. At work I build websites using minimal code manipulation, and with my own personal work I use pretty much only hand written. It's all a matter of chosing when to use one or another.

I'd look into an editor like UltraEdit for syntax highlighting. Also, go to http://www.w3schools.com/ they have some great introductions into HTML and XHTML / CSS.
 
While building a website may only be an occasional experience for me, I would like to have a deeper knowledge of coding for my job resume. Oh, and cost is not a problem for me. I have access to Microsoft Office 2003 Frontpage and the latest version of Dreamweaver. I will definitely look into the tutorials section at http://www.w3schools.com/

I want to do really good work(or the best I can do). From what I gather, it looks like hand written code is the best. I'll experiment with WYSIWYG and hand written code for the time being. The actual website does not need to be finished until around January following Christmas break, so I have time to learn some new stuff.
 
jesusfr3ak4evr said:
I have access to Microsoft Office 2003 Frontpage and the latest version of Dreamweaver.
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Since you have the choice, go with Dreamweaver. Frontpage is notorious for sloppy code.
 
Using Frontpage for websites is like using Word to publish the JC Penny catalog...stupid.

stay far far far away from it. I use dreamweaver mainly because of the coloring of code. It makes it much easier to keep things organized in my head.
 
Lethal said:
Since you have the choice, go with Dreamweaver. Frontpage is notorious for sloppy code.
Click to expand...
I'm not entirely sure about that. I built my entire website with it. I actually found that when I was in HTML mode it was cleaning up my mistakes and laying it all out nice and neat, indented and everything. With the exception of one or two tags that I can't be bothered with it passed all those tests on the internet. I don't know about now though. I have added and subtracted a ton since then and I may have left some fragments that by themselves would be legitimate and it wouldn't know the difference.

However, you may feel free to run it through a test to prove your point.

There is a really good free WYSIWYG HTML editor out there called 1st Page 2000. I don't have a link for it, but I have the program saved on my harddrive admist a HUGE pile of junk.
 
If you have plenty of time, I would learn html with notepad, but once you're familiar with it, go with Dreamweaver as a main development tool.
 
I've been developing with Microsoft Visual Web Developer 2005 Express Edition Beta... Yah it might be in beta along with ASP.NET 2.0, but it works great for what I need
 
Another vote for dreamweaver. If you want to be hardcore, switch to the code view and it will be similar to using notepad, only with a much better help system.

I never did like frontpage, I like to edit the code sometimes, and the output from frontpage was nearly as bad as Word 'Save as HTML'
 
I recently learned how to do it using notepad (well, notepad2, so that I had syntax highlighting), and I learned everything in two days, maybe 6 hours of work total. My site is http://worldofwaldman.f2o.org. I found it incredibly easy to learn, and I feel really good knowing that I didn't use a program like Dreamweaver to make it work.

Now I can edit it by hand quickly and easily, and because I coded it myself, it is very easy to navigate, because I know why everything is the way it is.
 
Alright, so let me get a few things straight. I should use Dreamweaver for building. I need to learn HTML for Dreamweaver. What else is there to learn? Where do PHP, XHTML, CSS, XML, XSL, etc come in? So in other words if I were to lay everything important to learn on the table, it would be: Dreamweaver, HTML, and what else? Thanks for the help everyone!!
 
Ok, Dreamweaver is to HTML what Visual C++ is to C++. It supports syntax highlighting, and code cleanup, therefore making your code much easier to view. It also supports "simple" editing, which I find more of a hassle than just coding by hand.

HTML and XHTML are nearly the same thing, only XHTML is considered to be a more modern language. It's structure makes more sense, and you should deffinitely start with XHTML if you are just learning now since it will be better in the long run when HTML become depreciated.

PHP is a language, much like C++ that allows you to have the server run a bunch of scripts and code before the site is sent to the user. For example, lets say you want to make a table with 5 rows and 100 columns, it would take a long time to do it by hand, but with PHP, you can just include a loop in your code, and the HTML will be generated by the server itself.

CSS is also a newer technology, and what it allows is separating form from funtion, so in your main page, you just have to tell it to import from whatever.css, and you only have the basic code on your page. That way, it is much easier to look through and navigate because you don't have tags and everything everywhere for background images. It basically allows you to throw all the layout information into a seperate file, so that you don't have to look at it while you code your site.

XML is what inspired XHTML to be what it is, XHTML is basically HTML, but structured more like XML.

XSL, well, I have no idea.

I learned all my XHTML and CSS from HTML Dog

Some of the more advanced stuff (PHP and whatnot) is probably optional for you at the moment, and it would be easier to learn how to integrate it into your site afterwards, but for now, just try and stick to XHTML and CSS.
 
Dreamweaver gets my vote too, If your just doing a lay out for your brother, I would just download the free 30 day trial from www.macromedia.com and build it asap. It can write unnecessary code, but until you have been doing it for a while, you won't know the difference.


and btw IMHO front page is the WORST WYSIWYG... EVER!! Visual web developer is good for any kind of web app for the beginner, and if your just hand coding... HOMESITE blows notepad out of the water.
 
If you want to take the time to make a site in Dreamweaver or notepad, go for it. Those are great for making sites that aren't overly interactive.

If you want to make a site that works (business-wise) grab a CMS like Joomla or Mambo. With the massive amount of plug-ins for it that are business related, you can get a site up, showing product, processing orders, and handling support in a day. Plus, you can still futz around making a nice template and such in notepad if you really feel like it.
 
i would say Dreamweaver, it's probably the best web page editor out there..

as for XML and XSL, you probably won't be needing them.
XML basically holds data, XSL allows you to control how a XML document should be displayed.

For example, I got this from the XSL website, http://www.w3.org/Style/XSL/WhatIsXSL.html,

if you have a xml doc:

Code: 
<scene>
  <FX>General Road Building noises.</FX>
  <speech speaker="Prosser">
    Come off it Mr Dent, you can't win
    you know. There's no point in lying
    down in the path of progress.
  </speech>
  <speech speaker="Arthur">
    I've gone off the idea of progress.
    It's overrated
  </speech>
</scene>

you can control how you want the <FX> to be displayed, and how you want the Speech element with the speaker name of Arthur to be displayed.

All this information would be in an XSL file:


Code: 
<xsl:template match="FX">
  <fo:block font-weight="bold">
    <xsl:apply-templates/>
  </fo:block>
</xsl:template>

<xsl:template match="speech[@speaker='Arthur']">
  <fo:block background-color="blue">
    <xsl:value-of select="@speaker"/>:
    <xsl:apply-templates/>
  </fo:block>
</xsl:template>
 
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