[trains are bad]

Right now I'm using basic html and a text editor to make a basic website to hold my DIY project chronicals, articles, and images. The goal is a simple website with text, clickable picture thumbnails that open up to large size images, and basically links around. I don't want anything fancy, but I don't want it to look dated or crude either. I eventually want to add a Google or Paypal checkout.

The thing is, I don't know if I'm making a mistake here as I literally just view the page source of other websites to learn how to do things--I don't want to make a lot of progress and then realize that I should have started out using flash or CSS or something fancy that I don't even know of, because my site doesn't work well on certain browsers or on iPhones or whatever. What do you think? What tools should I learn and use? What kind of pitfalls am I heading towards?

In the meantime, I'm not sure how I should structure the files that my website is made out of. I have an index.html file and all the rest of the page files all sitting in the same directory. I have a folder in that directory that all my images are in. I think the stoneage thing to do is use ImageMagik to create a bunch of thumbnails, and make it so when you click the thumbnail image you go to a page with nothing but the large version. I want to keep it all sorted though. I don't know if I should make a separate thumbnail directory in the same folder with the html files, or make it a subdirectory of the images folder, or what.

 

[revolink24]

Using HTML for layout is bad. Really bad. If you want columns, boxes, sections, whatever, learn CSS. Seriously. It will make your life much easier.

That said, free content management systems like Joomla! or Drupal are a big help as well. And while I actually can code by hand, I still find myself using Dreamweaver more often than not. You might want to look at KompoZer as a free competitor in that space.

Learning by reading is a great approach: Just know that when you read source code, you're missing CSS, which is pretty much the entire layout and design 99% of the time these days.

 

[intoflatlines]

Dreamweaver is nice because you can make changes in code and see how it affects the actual page and vice versa.

 

[Primetime1337]

I second the easy use of drupal or joomla or another cms. It will save you a ton of time and look far better then what someone new to website creation can do ....

 

[Shark50521]

x2 on what intoflatlines said, and I agree 100% that using HTML for layout is a bad idea.

 

[d3adeyes]

just remember 1 thing when it comes to a website K.I.S.S. (keep it simple stupid) if a website is easy to read and easy to find things as well as having good and accurate info people will return there if it is hard to find things or there are flashing things or things that follow a pointer they are intrusive and 99% of people do not like it, so think neat and clean over glitz and glam.

 

[TheAttorney]

x3 on Dreamweaver. But only if you're in for the long haul - which sounds like you might be if you're planning to get shopping basket facilites etc. If that's the case, then you'll save yourself a ton of effort by getting a product to do all the hard bits for you - including thumbnails, CSS organisation, file organisation and upload tools etc.

Adobe now own Dreamweaver, and they do various packages including Flash and Photoshop. All good stuff, but it's hundreds of bucks all in, so again it depends if you're in it for the long haul. There are cheaper packages, but Dreamweaver is the one I know and is used by many professionals.

 

[Mr. B]

Notepad rules!

I think you're already taking the right approach. You just need to add CSS to the mix. Learning DIV tags and CSS values might seem daunting at first but it is perfectly doable, even if you've been dependent on tables to format pages.

If you are dealing with enough pictures, you might consider installing a image gallery package on your server like Gallery. I've been using it on my website for years and I find it works quite well.

You might also poke around at CSS Zen Garden if you still need to fully grasp how powerful CSS is. After that you might google milimalist CSS to get a better idea what can be easily accomplished by a beginner.

I'll pop back in here later should any other questions come up. By the way, I love your sig. I could never part with my OM gear even though I shoot Canon digital now.

 

[krmathis]

HTML with CSS is the way to go.
I am no expert myself, but read a couple of books on the subject and looked through other peoples work. That in addition to using a validation service got me going.

 

[InFn-0]

For developing your website, dreamweaver is the way to go. To make money, you need WordTracker, its demand and supply

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