beginning web authoring

Hi Jay,

Welcome to the board. For starters you could hang out at this forum, read other posts and learn a great deal. A large variety of subjects are discussed here.

I can pass on to you some good links that I used and still do from time to time.

The best thing to do is just dive right in. Mistakes made are lessons learned.

Have fun and good luck. Here are a few off the top of my head.

http://www.pageresource.com/html/index.html

Don't laugh at this one. This kid is amazing. http://www.lissaexplains.com

Bravenet has some good advise and examples. You can also get a guestbook here if you want one.
http://www.bravenet.com/reviews/build.php

That should get you started.

disastermaster

Hey jaybeebub, welcome to TWF!

I learned by 'View Source'.

I've never been much of a reader. So I didn't have the patience to sit and read a book or whatever on HOWTO write HTML. No no no.. I had to do it my way, the hard way. I would sit at the computer with Notepad and Internet Explorer open and just play with it. If I found a neat site during the day, I would 'View Source' and pick it apart. I would literally delete stuff, and refresh the page looking for something that broke. I would find attributes, and just try anything in there to see what would happen.

I don't recommend this style of learning.

Hi Jay,

Two books I highly recommend are: Creating Web Page For Dummies and HTML For Dummies. Online, you can visit htmlgoodies.com and sitepoint.com for beginners tutorials. Best of luck!

Welcome, you'll learn a lot from these forums and its a great place for tips and tricks.

A while back I made a how to HTML web site, its probably not up with the others mentioned above but when I was learning HTML I found myself using more than one site as not one site had everything, and some teach bad habits.

if your interested you can find it here
http://members.nbci.com/_XMCM/ez_html/ezintro.html
(the long address removes the NBCi banners)

Sadly NBCi has stopped its free hosting and stopped all ftp (uploading of files) so I'm unable to make any changes until I find (have the money) for a paid host.

Another source is sites on bad html, as these teach you what to stay away from, there is a list of some of these sites on the "bad html" page at the bottom

hope this helps
Busy

Also get the O'Reilly book call Web Design in a Nutshell. Has some great tips and covers every single tag even Marquee and blink.

Hi,

Just a friendly warning ... get out now before the web design bug takes over ...

But if you really want to learn HTML coding, the way I did it was to follow the tutorials on http://www.pagetutor.com/,
using either Notepad or another recommended basic editor. Then I moved up to HomeSite.

I wish you the best.

Annette

Hehe, I always recommend newbies to visit
http://bignosebird.com/ It's very comprehensive with excellent examples and guide so you won't get lost.

Bignosebird was my first learning site too!

Since most of these posts have talked about the learning HTML and coding aspect of things, I'll give you a few recommendations about other things.

As far as design goes you really need to learn by experience and experimentation. Spend some time looking at other sites - coolhomepages.com showcases some of the best sites on the net. Look at really good sites and think about what they are and are not doing. This way you'll get an idea of what good design is first of all, and what's "in" and "out" of style. You might even want to make some notes about common features and design elements.

Another thing you need to keep in mind at all times is the user experience. Think about how other people are viewing your site. Is it easy for them to get around? Is everything going to work properly on their browser/platform/screen resolution? Is the colour scheme going to be hard on the eyes?

One common piece internet wisdom says that "Content is King". That says it all, don't you think? It's extremely important to have content that is meaningful and useful to the audience - that's the whole point, right?

The title of this one says it all.

http://www.webpagesthatsuck.com/index.html

It really comes down to the fact that there are a lot of ways to learn. We all learn somewhat differently. First above all though is you need to learn the langauge of HTML. Most anything suggested here from books, to viewing source, to other sites is good but you need to know HTML first.

Another thing that is definitely a good way to learn is to look over some of the reviews in the Website Critque area here. This way you get to see how others build websites and how others think of them. You can also see works in progress. I personally have learned a lot by doing this. Heck, I used to center my text until Megan told someone else how wrong this is.

I am really not trying to drum up anything for the website critique area. I just think that it is another great way to learn.

Hi Jay,

A great book to consider is:

SAMS - Teach yourself Wed Publishing with HTML 4 in 21 days - second edition, by Laura Lemay

It covers all the basics, plus goes into XHTML, CSS, Javascript etc. All the chapters have great lessons + examples. It also comes with a CD that has all source code for the projects you do... I found that just using my note pad, or a HTML editor such as Home Site in edit mode only is the way to go as what you learn really sinks in ... good luck

If you're wanting a good WYSIWYG editor to help you get started, try NetObjects Fusion - netobjects.com

It's an excellent program and the latest version (MX) is very stable.

I suggest you go to webmonkey.com and read the HTML guide. Good Luck.