HTML programs

[jb]

My cable ISP provides 5Meg of free web site space on his server. I have registered a web site. Now I want to compose my site.

Last week I ask here for info about FTP software. Following most advice, I selected Fetch, with which I transferred a "simple" SimpleText HTML document consisting of 3 lines of text. I had copied it from a simple HTML guide which I had downloaded.

Now of course I want to proceed further, and would like advice on how best to proceed. I googled the subject and have a hard time to appreciate and fully understand all the info available.

Is there a better way to follow, and I call on my already expert friends here, to get and pass the novice stage about the subject. I understand (or misunderstand?) there are WYSIWYG programs which allows one to not have to actually have to write the HTML code of a document. I read that this is not a good idea if one wants to learn to write his own code. Are there preferred books on the subject, HTML for Dummies, may be? Are there preferred programs? Or is there a series of programs that go from simple text coding to more complex  picture coding?

jb

[Xairbusdriver]

You'll get lots of people recommending GoLive, DreamWeaver, etc. They are all WYSIWYG programs. Unfortunately, you will learn almost nothing of the extremely simple HTML language. You will also get a lot of extra code that will be forcing your site into tables so it can force your stuff into certain areas of the screen. This is a bastardization use of tables - tables were created for tabular data. Of course, the wheel was designed to make movement easier, nothing stops us from using them on a Hummer to go the grocery store!  

All you really need to write an HTML document is a text editor. Period. You can then save it on your desktop with the required ".htm" or ".html" suffix, double-click it and see what your browser of choice thinks of it. No connection to the 'net required. And I'll bet you already have a browser and at least two prgrams that can Save As... "text".

If you are adding any 'styles' to your posts here, you are alreday dabling in a form of html. It is not rocket science!

If you really want to learn the 100 or so html tags (and almost half of those are simply the 'closing' tag - the opening tag with a "/" in front of it!), and you should, there are many sites and books that can guide you.
Here are a few to get you started:
HTML Goodies
HTML Stuff
Teachers Guide to HTML

Here's a great book and an accompanying site for a world two experts:
HTML & XHTML: The Definitive Guide, by Musciano & Kennedy, published by O'Reilly
The site

But even one of those "Idiots" books will teach you more about how to use HTML than nay of the WYSIWYG programs. Of course, when you're ready, you can't beat BBEdit (9 or X) for that and many other languages. Its tools are made for this kind of thing and they are almost countless. And it is much cheaper than any WYSIWYG program, also.

I suspect that your biggest problem will be the actual design part of the exercise. It is extremely easy to create a web page (that's one reason there are so many) but it another thing entirely to design an interesting, easily usable, and accessable one (and that's the reason there are so many poor and just plain bad ones!).

Jim C.

[Paddy]

Well, Jim and I have not always agreed on the value of WYSIWYG programs... - but I'll stick my oar in. I use and like GoLive. It enabled me to get up and running quickly - I am the webmaster for 4 websites (3 of them for the North Andover Public Schools) and recently redesigned another and just took on one more, perhaps temporarily). I also have DreamWeaver and fully intend to give that a whirl one of these days too...if I can ever find the time.

However, I also got BBEdit at the same time I purchased GoLive, and continue to use it to edit and streamline code. I have made an effort to understand the coding underneath - and that certainly helps when things aren't behaving, which happens occasionally. That said, from everything I've read, both GoLive and DreamWeaver are much less prone to producing extraneous code than they used to be. Pages also tend to validate fairly well - especially if you stay away from some of the proprietary code that Adobe still needs to eliminate/change.

So, I fall into the non-purist camp - the camp that says there's nothing wrong with using a WYSIWYG editor if it suits your needs AND gets you where you want to go - in my case, a heck of a lot faster than I would have otherwise! Learning the underlying code is a good thing too, of course, and I firmly believe that you can and should do both.

There are lots of discussions on the subject - one from a couple of years ago between a bunch of webmasters:

http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum46/12.htm

As you can see, there is quite a range of opinions.

The only problem with WYSIWYG editors, is that there are no good cheap ones for the Mac - they're all at least $300 retail (under $100 if you qualify for academic pricing). The other alternatives are BBEdit (as Jim mentioned - a superb HTML editor) and PageSpinner - also an HTML editor and considerably cheaper than BBEdit. Available in both OS X and OS 9 flavors, it gets good reports at Versiontracker.

http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/3348

[jepinto]

Check old disks for html editing programs!

When I purchased the iMac, Page Mill and Web Page Construction Kit were included.

I use and LIKE an old version of Claris Home Page, no longer made or supported.

Appleworks will save as html.

A piece of advice from long long ago ( Diana) Find a page you like, download it, open it in BBEdit Lite, and study the code upon which it is built.

You can, in your browser, View>Source and get ideas.

I also have Dreamweaver (got to remember relative to site as versus relative to document-got me in trouble more than once!) and Freeway, which I have not had time to look at.

I use HP the most, it's how I learned, therefore it is the easier.

[themphill]

Very good and reliable advice has been given so far in this thread. An online resource which I rely on is Web Design Group's site. In addition to their comprehensive library of tools and resources for web authors, their BBS is excellent.

[jb]

Thanks guys. I have been reading, and reading, and...

There is something I obviously don't understand. I can html some text and upload to my site ok. But I just can't html an image. The way I read various info about the tag <IMG SRC=" "> seems to be only applicable to URL's of images already posted on websites. This is where I'm obviously missing something (or more appropriately some things). How do I identify an image, which is on my HD, in between the " " ? The image is a .jpeg one.

jb

[jepinto]

You'll have to upload the image also.

What I have is


All the images are loaded into the folder "images" inside the "web" folder of the site.

so <IMG SRC=" "> in the html doc is <IMG SRC="images/folder.gif ">

[danf63]

Hi, JB

Like Jepinto, I also like Claris Homepage and Page Mill.  Netscape Communicator also has a free web composing program that lets you see the html as well as work by WYSIWYG.

As for your JPEG question, first make sure to use three-letter extensions, not four.  Make it .jpg

The IMG SRC tag is for all images.  Just make sure that all of your files are in the same root folder.  You can have other folders within that root one.

[kps]

JB,

The image has to be uploaded to a server, either the same server and directory as your html pages or it could be a remote server.

Preferably, it should be the server where your home page is. What you can do is create a new directory for the images and store them there, then call them up with the <img src> tag something like this: img src="/images/my_image.jpg"

Linking to a remote server would look something like this:

img src="http://server.domain.com/some_directory/path_to_image/image.jpg"

EDIT: I must learn not to walk away when replying to a post, for TSers are fast at replying...

[jb]

Thanks again guys.

I think I finally got it! By persevering to   , I finally broke through this thick head of mine!

You can view it here.

Many  

jb

[jepinto]

QUOTE(danf63 @ Aug 30 2003, 11:30 AM)

You can have other folders within that root one.

 I just learned that!  

  which has now made one of my jobs (clearing up "sold" listings) easier.

[jb]

Well, I'm getting there slowly. I even "stole" the TS's background. Have a look.

jb

[jepinto]

You done GOOD!  And that has nothing to do with the fact you gave TS a verrrry nice link

[Xairbusdriver]

Looking great, jb! The key is to start simple. Stay with text pages, images make things 'pretty' but are much slower to download.

BTW, here is some text to replace the clear text e-mail address you have. Since you have'nt been 'live' too long, you probably haven't been caught by a 'spider' looking for addresses. Just copy the following and replace your address in the html file, save and upload it. Your address will appear normally in a web display, but (amazingly) there haven't been any confirmed proof that the 'spiders' can read them this way!

jbastien99@
videotron.ca

Just put the above between the ":" and the last quotation mark in the tag.

"A thread in time saves the ripping of the universe" or something like that!

Jim C.

[jb]

Thanks airbusdriver. Followed your suggestion and modified the e-mail address coding as you suggested. What is a 'spider'? If one wants to know my address, does'nt one merely have to click on my page's "here" word and get to see my address anyway when that same one's email client opens? I obviously don't understand the purpose of 'hiding' my address in the HTML coding. May be you could explain further. Am I to understand that 'spiders' only look at the HTML coding source?

Thanks again.

jb

PS I just learned to add a simple black border around a picture, by adding 'border=6' to the IMG SRC address code. See here.  
What is the additional code to add color to that border? I guess it's a little more complicated than merely adding 'border color=red', which I tried and did not work. Anyway I'm reading, and reading, and... having fun in the process!