Hello SEN,
This is a questions for those of you who are web designers out there. I want to learn how to create websites and I was wondering where I should start with this task. I already know how to code in HTML and some Javascript, but I need guidance as to where to go from here. All help would be obliged.
Thanks.

AListApart.com has some very good articles on CSS. They have (old) articles on things like Suckerfish Dropdowns and CSS sprites. (Suckerfish dropdowns are interactive hover menus like the ones used in SEN's site navigation -- but implemented using pure CSS, and not JS.)

QuirksMode.org is a similarly good resource for JS.

Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox (on his site, UseIt.org) is a very good source for information on web usability. (Making your site easy to use and browse.)

Definitely try to look into and code using semantic markup (HTML) and unobtrusive JavaScript.

Firefox has by far the best debugging tools for web development, by which I mean the Firebug add-on. Get Firefox, get Firebug.

Basic guidelines for you to research and follow:

• Code according to web standards.
  
• If IE does something different from other browsers, then IE is wrong.
  
• Whenever possible, use CSS to control something visual instead of HTML. Try not to add extra elements to HTML just to achieve a visual effect.
  
• Never use table elements for layout. Never.
  
• Use unobtrusive JavaScript, and whenever possible, design your pages so that they work even if JavaScript is completely disabled. (You can test this using Firefox's NoScript add-on.)
  
• Always add a DOCTYPE to your pages to ensure standards-compliant rendering in browsers. I'd recommend the HTML 4.01 Transitional DOCTYPE.
  
• Design accessible pages.
  

Condensed version: Learn HTML, CSS, and Javascript. Follow that up with a server-side language - preferably PHP or Python. In that order. You can learn by following tutorials online or reading a book. Books cost money but are also much nicer.

The generally accepted best site for learning all the basics is W3Schools, use it to start off your coding career, from there you need to find some sort of theme or subject to practice your new skills on, find something you want to write a small, read-only site on and do it.

When it comes to learning further coding, use tools such as Firefox's Firebug or Chrome's Inspect Element feature to pick apart other sites that you're interested in, learn how they did their own code. Talk to more experienced coders. You will never be the best at all aspects of web coding, don't expect to be, typically people learn the basics of all of them, then find one and focus in on it, exactly what you will end up doing.

Thank you everyone for your very helpful advice. I think I will be able to start off from what all of you have given me.

Fix'd. Though I should note my Inbox is pretty full...

HTML is basically the same as bbcode, but bbcode is just alot more limited. Try replacing [ and ] with < and > with some of the bbcodes you're familiar with.

DT_Battlekruser said this to me on his own forum 5 years ago.

Or you can learn some server side programming and just go straight for a flash site. Most people won't like it but you can do a ton of more things and it'll look prettier too. But nobody but movie/music/or any promotional use them ;_;

Flash sites...

Anything you want to with flash can be done with HTML5, Canvas, and heck even SVG. There's literally no reason to make flash sites anymore.



Ugh. Can't believe I'm revisiting that dumb old topic again...

Problems with Flash

• Inaccessible to screen readers; you'd be screwing over the blind and those with bad vision.
  
  • This also prevents search engines from indexing the site's content, as they often can't extract text or anything meaningful from a Flash object. Bye-bye, Google listing!
    
• Slow to load.
  
  • You have to wait for the entire Flash object to load before being able to do anything.
    
  • Often, the whole site is contained in one Flash object, so you need to load the whole site just to view one page.
    
  • Uses more memory; there's an additional layer of abstraction (the Flash plug-in) whenever anything like a click happens.
    
• Requires an external plug-in to be viewed.
  
• Difficult to bookmark specific pages in most cases, as Flash objects like this rarely check query strings in URLs, etc.
  

Benefits of traditional (HTML/CSS/JS) code

• Viewable in any browser
  
  • Does not require a plug-in, which makes it more accessible and reduces memory usage
    
• Standardized
  
• Accessible to screen readers, search engines, etc.
  
• More usable
  
  • Doesn't use that much memory, as there are few superfluous layers of abstraction.
    
  • Specific pages can be linked to, bookmarked
    
  • Text can be read, actions performed, even if the page hasn't fully loaded
    
  • You don't have to load the whole site just to view one page
    
• Developer-friendly
  
  • Easier to modify
    
  • Easier to debug
    
  • Fewer ways something can go wrong
    
  • More flexible languages (JavaScript)
    

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Jul 30 2010, 6:56 pm by DavidJCobb.

Actually modern search engines can index flash content, from what I understand. But it's still not a good option.

I didn't mean to start a whole flash vs html5 debate here XD. And regarding Centreri's post, would anyone care to help me out on some good books to start off with?

If you do a few torrent searches for eBooks on HTML, CSS, and Javascript I'm certain you'll turn up plenty of results.

Fastest way would be to take a Javascript class at a community college or something. Or follow a good online tutorial and toy around a lot on your own.

Sounds good. Thanks. I'll try doing that.