Hi and thanks to anyone that replies to this thread.

I`m just starting out learning about web designing and development, I am really serious about becoming a designer, at the moment I work full time in the Lan Industry, I`m 33 years old and I`m looking for some advice from people that know about were I start developing my knowledge and what would be a really solid base. From what I can gather it is better to learn the coding raw than use something like dreamweaver as dreamweaver is only a tool to aid the designer ? (Is this correct ?)

I have simple HTML experience from 7 years ago which won`t be applicable now but it gives me an idea about what I`m up against.

I have started learning HTML 4 I think it is, and am able to grasp the basics so far my question is this, is the best route for my learning as follows ? >

HTML
XHTML
CSS
Java Script

Thats the coding side. From a design aspect and software I am looking at

Dreamweaver
Word Press (For Blogs?)
Photoshop
Fireworks
Flash

I really would appreciate someone taking the time and effort to help me and give me a really good idea whether the above is a good proposal for learning

With the programming I would work through HTML down ending up with java script

That all sounds like a good plan.
I would personally add php to your list down the road. PHP will help you with creating functional contact forms and when designing/working with Wordpress or many other blogs and CMS systems.

If you want to be a true pro at javascript, for sure learn it from scratch. In my case, I like to use jQuery. This is a javascript framework that really makes regular javascript tasks much easier to program.(There are other great frameworks too)

I am a true believer in hand coding. Once you understand that, you'll be able to do anything you ever want on your site. I don't use dreamweaver personally but I know it can be a great development tool. I just would never rely on DW or any editor for 100% creation of my site(That is only my opinion).

Photoshop is fantastic and the industry standard. I am also a strong believer in supporting open-source programs as well. For instance Gimp is a great tool similar to photoshop and Inkscape is a great vector graphic tool, both are free.

Welcome to this forum and use it often, it always helps me.

Some resources:
http://www.w3schools.com/
http://blog.themeforest.net/screenca...-video-series/
http://www.gimp.org/
http://www.inkscape.org/
http://nettuts.com/

Thanks for the advice

What is the best way for me to learn HTML I have googled stuff but is there any particular best resource ? And also do i learn by writing a site or writing a page ? Im not sure how to start off on HTML ?

The w3schools site is great. Start there for html.

You can learn however you like. I downloaded some simple looking free templates and then studied those by making slight changes to see how it was affected.

Excellent, had a look at the site and it looks good, i will give it a bash see how i do

Many thanks

Aslo do you have a link to what you would consider to be a "simple" template ? So that I can download and disect

http://themebot.com/free-website-tem...html-templates

There are many others, I really haven't looked for them for a while.

Nice one racer thanks for your help on this

If you're really serious about web design, you might want to also learn PHP, MySQL, and XML too.

I designed my page and I've never had to really use javascript. Basically, it just makes your site look more interactive. There are a few really beneficial features of javascript that you can use like form verification, but you can do most of them with any other scripting language, too.

When I first started I just learned HTML and CSS and my pages looked okay, but it was hard to maintain them. For example, when I changed one thing on a page I had to change that same thing on each of the other pages. I figured out that I needed to learn some PHP, and it helped out a lot.

I would suggest learning PHP even before javascript, because it's going to be the most beneficial thing you can learn.

Hope this helps

I think you need to know what type of sites you'd like to create. If you are going to be just design and have someone else handle functionality like shopping carts and backend database interaction then the following:

CSS, XHTML, Javascript, Photoshop, Flash (action scripting), Silverlight (C#)

If you plan on doing the entire site including database interaction then you will also need the following:

Server side language (PHP, C#)
SQL (Language for querying databases)
Advanced javascript skills

So I think you should first focus on what types of sites you'd like to create and then ask what you need to learn based off of that.

Best way to start, at least from my perspective, is to work by example...Try different bits of code that produce different results. For example, with html, you can practice all the basics in html like the general formatting of an html document. Give yourself a self-test once in awhile to see what your able to do on your own. It works for me. Don't go too far out of your way to learn the technical stuff, that will come with time. You will need patience while coding. Especially in times like we are in now with so many different languages you can learn. Just stick to the very basics, and you should be able to 'connect the dots' at some point which will move you to a higher level of coding.

Ps: I am 32 years old and have been around computers (generally) since I was 13...Go figure, I am still not 'making it big' YET

Nonetheless, Still having *ALOT* of Fun with the **** thing. :LOL: :S

Good Luck

Errr...... bit if a hijack of my thread there !!

Many thanks for everyones help here

I basically want to be able to think of a theme for a site, and then sit down and layout the tables and images, fancier stuff I may think of getting someone else to do the work on it until i get up to speed. I would like to be able to design pages that are interactive and functional but that really look the part as well perhaps with some form of flash intros were applicable

Sounds really daunting learning all this programming, does anyone have an estimation of how long it should take the average person working say 3 hours a week learning HTML how long it would take before I was ready to move on ?

I learned html in about a week, it's really easy. then i just gradually worked with css and javascript and learned that too. and now i'm still learning all of the stuff by looking at this forum

you should be able to create good looking pages with all that, but it won't be too dynamic (or have very much user interaction), but you said you said you would get someone else to do that for you.

i've been building my pages for about a year, and i know html, css, and xml really well, but i'm still trying to get the hang of php and javascript

Wow a week for HTML either your a super brain or it is actually possible for me to learn it fairly quickly as I do pick things up i put time into thanks for the info and all the replies, Im glad I joined this group all very helpful information

Thanks

Chems

No one is going to learn all of HTML in a week, but you should be able to grasp the basics fairly quickly. HTML, after all, doesn't have complex logic, like a programming language, since it is only designed for markup and display.

Modern webpages don't mean much with HTML alone, however, so if you're interested mostly in the knowledge of how to make webpages display, I recommend learning CSS as completely or more completely than you learn HTML.

The thing you'll learn about HTML, when you study CSS, is that most elements can be made to display pretty much however you like, but there are going to be good practices and bad. Without good CSS, a webpage becomes unmanageable by today's standards.

There's been a lot of discussion as to what order you should study things when you start advancing. A lot of people will say: "study PHP before you study JavaScript", or "study JavaScript before you study PHP". Neither is really true, since it really depends on what you end up being good at. Honestly, you could escape without ever learning PHP, since there are many languages that can be used to program a server. I say this not because I think PHP is bad, because I don't. It is true that once you have a programmable server platform, stuff like JavaScript becomes so much better, since it is capable of leveraging the power of the server, though not manipulating it directly.

I recommend, that whenever you learn anything, learn it as thoroughly as possible, and try to pay attention to best practices whenever possible. It other words, learn the rules before you consider breaking them. Along the way, you receive will plenty of good advice and plenty of bad advice, along with a lot of outdated advice masquerading as good advice. Try to learn the difference, and follow what is happening now as much as possible.

Is this a no win situation? Heads I win...Tails you lose deal?

It's just my two cents

I think that before you do anything else, you need to get a good grasp on HTML and CSS. These two make up the foundation of web design/development. I love the books sitepoint offers and would especially recommend this and this book.
Keep active in forums and follow blogs. Ask lots of questions. In this field, you will never be done learning and you can't learn it all, but it is definitely interesting and exciting (well, at least I think its exciting, but I'm a geek)!

Thanks for the advice every one. I notice there hasn`t been a mention of XHTML ? Is this because your lumping HTML into the same bracket in other words saying I should learn HTML but meaning HTML / XHTML ?

XHTML is just HTML defined with an XML schema. Because it has to follow XML rules, it is somewhat stricter, such ridged enforcement of tag closing, which is a good thing. It is never a good idea to not close tags, so don't try to get away with it just because you happen to choose HTML 4.01 over XHTML 1.0.

XHTML is supposed to be all lower case, so no <P> or <EM>, and self closing tags (like <input>, <link>, <meta>, <br>, <hr> and a more), are supposed to have a /> at the end (<br />, <hr />, etc...). None of this actually matters in reality, but it will cause the validator to choke.

Other than these few items, and the way the <html> tag opens up after the DOCTYPE (<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> instead of <html>), XHTML 1.0 and HTML 4.01 are exactly the same.

Ahhhhh the light bulb has come on, you tried to explain this to me in my other post and i couldn`t grasp it, I`ve just read this post and now fully understand

There are small differences between HTML and XHTML some of those differences being that XHTML is strict and HTML is less strict, with XHTML everything needs to be in lower case, and also closing brackets MUST be used were applicable, there is a different way of using the closing bracket so in the case of

HTML

<img src="flower01.jpg" alt="Yellow Flower" width="125">

- (This hasn`t been closed and isn`t good practice these days)

XHTML

<img src="flower01.jpg" alt="Yellow Flower" width="125" />

- (Always closing brackets were needed)

For those that may be interested reading this thread here is a list of the XML markup languages, XHTML is buried in there amongst a whole heap of others

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...rkup_languages

Also

XML schemas can be used to create XML documents for a wide range of purposes such as syndication, general exchange, and storage of data in a standard format

Here is an example of some of the XML schemas usages

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_XML_schemas