Dakota82

If this thread is too off topic for this forum, please delete it and forgive me.

I am working on designing my website but, I am reluctant to publish something because I am not absolutely pleased with the set templates with host gator. If only there was some random place I could browse more templates and design them more personally, that would be great!

So, I have been thinking of trying to design the website on my own! I figure I could get something decent going with free NVU web design software but, I am clueless about HTML Code and what not.

Does anyone have any suggestions for how to go about learning some basic skills for web design? How does one learn HTML Code?

Well, I appreciate everyone's help here.

Sincerely,

Dakota82
Tanyan Omani Yelo
Walk Well

Artkansas 

How do you learn HTML? Practice.

You can get books from the library. Make a simple page with a template. Make a copy of that page you have made with a template, open it in Notepad and look under the hood. Decide what change you'd like to do, then flip through the book till you see what code to change. That's how I got started.

Why Notepad? A text editor like that makes the simplest code. Editors like Front Page and Dreamweaver make things much more complicated than necessary. Templates make it easier to do as the template wants, but they restrict you as well.

nkfrench 

Find a webpage you like, right-click, View Source, and see how it was written.
Use www.w3schools.com and other online web tutorials.
Start small with "Hello, World" simple webpages and play with gradually adding stuff to it.
I am also a fan of using Notepad instead of fancy html generators.

Artkansas 

What sold me on Notepad was dropping a page I had written in Notepad into Front Page and saving it. With no changes, the Front Page version of the file was 50% bigger. Thats a slow download.

I actually prefer Textpad to Notepad. It has better search and replace functions, macros, is much more robust and can handle several documents at the same time.

I still miss the Brief text editor by Underware.

NukeouT

Find a friend who knows how to make websites.

or obtain and learn Adobe Dreamweaver.

or learn how to script in HTML, and make art assets in Adobe Photoshop

or pay for a site making service such as squarespace. (note that you still will need some HTML, because you cant do everything you want with the user friendly interface)

or hire a web designer

or determine if there is a service for your needs already. Such as: blogspot for blogging, deviantart or conceptart.org for art, ect.

greyghost_6

Depending on what you want on your website really depends on how you code it. You can do it in flash (which I know nothing about) but have heard it can be easy and look nice if done in a way that makes sense. I would suggest using CSS (Google it) and there are SOOO many places online that let you code directly in the web site to see what certain commands do. If you are doing a site that has more user input you will also have to learn something like CGI scripting. It really depends on what you are wanting the site to accomplish. It sounds like you need to spend a few hard hours googling and finding out what you want to accomplish and what you need to know to get there. I have a site for my home computer repair biz that I did in notepad (css mainly) that looks fine, basic links, basic text, a few pictures, nothing fancy. Good luck!

calamarichris

+1! But I still think Dreamweaver is a great learning tool. You can fiddle around with creating pages, and view the HTML code simultaneously (and clean it up once you learn how it works.)

FellOff

It really depends on what you want to do, sir. If you just want to create the quick little web-page here or there for self-use, I would suggest sticking with templates and site-building programs. They've all been mentioned above. If you want to get serious and get paid building websites, there are a few more options, depending on your learning ability and the amount of time you have. You could view the source on pages, get a book, and teach yourself. Or you could take a few online degree to learn more and go from there. It's up to you.