Thanks for the replies, so far.

Ummm.....what would be the best program to start off on to build a website? I am completely knew to this to the point that I don't even know the lingo yet. I am starting at square 1 right now. I have Microsoft Frontpage 2000 and have heard that this is good and have heard that it's not (as I'm sure that I'll hear often about each program from time to time). I am getting ready to get Dreamweaver, but didn't realize that a website could be made with this. Can a website be made out of any program? Also, what are the best graphic programs? This is another area that I'm looking into. I have Photoshop and Illustrator. It seems like Illustrator might be easiest for me to figure out, at this time.

I could go out and just pay someone to do this for me, but really, really want to learn how to do this myself. I've done the lameo homepages that different websites offer; like AOL's and ivillage. I only wish that I could find a program that was that easy.

Jeeze, I knew there was one more question..............

Anyway, thanks for the link. I checked it out. It's saved in my faves. All of the HTML stuff really confuses me, but I'm beginning to figure out the basics of it.

I can't speak for others on this forum, but FrontPage has given me nothing but problems...but it's easier for the beginner (with no knowledge of HTML) to create a quick page.

Dreamweaver far surpasses FrontPage in my opinion. But unlike FrontPage, it takes some getting used to. But once you get the hang of it, it's great.

If you have Microsoft Office, you can also create webpages in Word, Powerpoint and Publisher (publisher is actually easier to work with than frontpage).

There is also Adobe GoLive which is a little tricky to use...it's a resource hog, though. Need lots of RAM tu use it. Also, it's not very user-friendly (IMO).

I don't use any of these, though. Occasionally, I'd use Dreamweaver for a quick page, but anything that takes precision for layouts I just code by hand (because I usually get it done faster this way ).

Whichever program you decide to use, you still want to have a strong grasp of HTML. If you know how stuff works on the backend, you will have a much easier time making things work on the frontend. I would recommend any of the O'Reiley books for learning.

What also helps is to build a page (using dreamweaver), then take a look at the source code to see how it did what it did. Or, if you see a webpage that you like, view its source so see how the designers did it. This is probably the biggest resource for new web designers...looking at examples of other people's code. I know that worked for me when I first started out.

Hi clueLessTN,

It seems that most of the most intricate site designs are designed with some WYSIWYG editor (i.e. Frontpage, Flash), so it certainly wouldn't hurt if you became familiar with one of those programs. However, as a beginner, you should definitely learn how to code by hand (i.e. using a text editor, such as Notepad). Only when you become adept at image designing and templating should you start creating templates using Frontpage. Coding by hand is undoubtedly the best idea if you are aiming for a simple, attractive design.

As for image editing software, I recommend Adobe Photoshop and JASC Paint Shop Pro. Both are very popular and relatively easy to use, and they are both powerful and flexible. Highly recommended!

From your post, I get the impression that you meant to post this as a reply to another thread. Please let me know so that I may merge this thread with the original.

Conker

prissed,
You are right in the fact that I need to just learn HTML and all of the basics and how to "code it" (is that right) to begin with. I'm trying to do this all in a hurry and have come to learn that it is not as simple to begin with. I'm sure it's very simple once one gets the hang of it though.
I am getting ready to start a business and my first "store" is going to be on the Internet. Things are already coming along in the business sense, but it's just getting it out there and promoting it and using the least amount of cash, as possible. I have sites wanting me to become a vendor so that I can sell things online, but to do so, I need that website. I think I'll go to the bookstore today and check out the book(s) that you recommended. Thanks for your reply.
conkermaniac,
I'm confused w/ the meaning of "text editor". Is this used for copying/pasting the codes? Or for something more?
Oh and this post was moved to this area. It was a reply to a thread that I started in the Introduction area. I kinda introduced myself and then came off w/ a zillion questions and they moved me. Thanks for reply also. Guess I just need to learn all of this and stop trying to find the easy way into it. I know that once I learn it, as w/ anything in life, it'll become second hand.

HTML is all text. It's a "markup language" written in plain text (not formatted, like you see in Word) to tell your web browser how to display your page.

If you go up to your menu in Internet Explorer and go to View >> Source you will see the HTML rendered for this page. If you go to Start >> Programs >> Accessories >> Notepad you will get the default text editor for windows.

There are other text editors that will color code your HTML to show where your tags are, and which tags are which type, etc.

For Example:

<TITLE>My Home Page</TITLE>

Will display what you see up in the title bar, next to " - Microsoft Internet Explorer"

<BODY BGCOLOR="blue" TEXT="white">

Will make the background color of your page blue, and any text on your page will show up white. More:

<BODY BGCOLOR="blue" TEXT="white">
  <H1>MY PAGE</H1>
  Welcome to My Homepage
</BODY>

Anything between your "BODY" tags will be what is displayed on your page to see. So, in the example above, it will display a header ("H1") tags that says "MY PAGE", and on a line below it in white text, it will say "Welcome to My Homepage".

Just a few examples of basic HTML (and I mean, very basic).

prissed,
I think that is the part that I'm starting to figure out. And I've figured out how to use the [url] [img] and those links for the forums. Could one do a whole HTML post? I know that might seem like a strange question. I started wondering that last night when I posted a link on a forum and realized it was just like the other HTML tags.
Another thought just popped up; [] are different from <>. What's the difference? The brackets post links and images and the other things make words look a certain way? So, could I post a link using the [] and then after those use <> to change the way the font is displayed?
Anyway, I sidetracked a little bit there.
When buttons and such are used, are these just a series of words (HTML) also? I think I can figure enough of the basics to get words on my page. And, I know how to get a picture on there. I am unable to get clickable buttons. Maybe I should just do links? That would probably be much simpilar from the start. You think?

I have a question about hosts and domain names. Should I take it to the appropiate area to avoid being moved again?

Again, thank you SO much for helping me. I SO want to do this so badly and feel like I'm starting to get it. There's just a lot of other things really confusing me.

edited be/c I figured out that "sorce" and notepad part

The difference between the [] and the <> are that [] are used for what's called "bb code". This is used in place of true HTML because people would have too much control over posts if real HTML were allowed. So bb code was invented to allow forum owners to have more control over which tags would be allowed for formatting without having someone totally take over the forum by posting an entire website up.

There are some minor differences between html and bb code. Some of the tags can be transferred over to HTML (and vice versa) by just switching brackets. <B> <I> and <U> all work for both html and bb code.

URLs are treated differently. In bb code, you just have to use [ url ], but in HTML, you have to use an <A> tag. So, a link in HTML would look like: <A HREF="http://www.webpage.com">Link</A>.

There are two parts to an html tag. First is the tag itself. Take <A> tag - or the anchor tag. Then there are attributes of the tag. If you have the attribute "HREF" in the <A> tag, this is a hypertext reference, in other words, a link. If you set your HREF attribute to "http://www.webmastertalk.com", you have a link to WT.

I strongly recommend picking up a beginner's guide to HTML to learn how and why HTML references things the way it does, and what works with what.

This might be of help:
http://www.freewebmasterhelp.com/tutorials/html-basics/

But of course nothing beats a real book!

david,
I already had this site saved in my faves before I even joined this forum. I was once into all of this and didn't get it and gave up, but had saved that site in my faves. It is extremely helpful and what has gotten me to understand a lot of what I do (which still isn't much, but I'm starting). Thank you for the link.

Try this I made it easy to understand.
http://thecrowshow.com/paste/paste.html

The Crow,
Yours is also one that I have. Thank you.

personally id start with notepad
if you dont understand the code your going to run into problems at one point or another so i think your better learning the dynamics of a site first