This is not the best website in the world - this is just a tribute!
Go straight to the Dreamweaver page by clicking the image>> |
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My background in Web Design.
I am not a professional web designer. However - I built my first sites with HTML using notepad and a textbook called 'Teach Yourself HTML 4'. I then went on to use Netscape Composer and FrontPage Express which I began teaching on and then progressed to Dreamweaver 3 which at the time was the Rolls Royce of Web Design Software.
Why this site works well.
This site is not even running from one one single server. It is scattered all over the place yet it still works year after year because of one simple fact. It is a simple site designed in tables with the minimum amount of Javascript and not a database in sight. It sticks to the golden rule of web design which is: Keep It Simple Stupid (The KISS principle)
Another reason is that I am very good at file management and I also have a system of naming files so that I know exactly what they are and what they do. Without my system I would have forgotten where the files are long ago.
About Coding
I have struggled with some of the concepts of coding and spent hours trying to get forms to work and PHP scripts to perform. Coding does not come natural to me so any software or websites that help to do this are truely welcome. There are many sites on the web that will give you the tools to do the job - it is just knowing where to look!
Some say you do not have to know about HTML or coding but they are wrong! Unless you have some basic understanding of how the pages work you will never be able to fix minor problems or insert pre-written code into the correct place. A web designer must know about coding.
I have recently forced myself to learn some PHP scripting. I still can't write it from scratch, and probably never will, but I know enough to get forms to work now and I've even managed to enable the 'News' page to be updated from any PC.
Design
The layout and design of learn2spin conforms to certain rules of web design which will be covered more fully in other parts of this site. Several years ago the first rule of web design was that there were no rules! To a certain extent there still aren't but for commercial sites the industry has gone 'useability crazy' and 'CSS mad'. That is fine if all your customers have high end technology, latest version browsers and are 'web savvy'. However most are not!
How to learn web design
In my opinion it is impossible to learn it all at once. You need to start simple and work your way up. I have learned by a variety of methods - mainly the hard way!
I have read the books and not understood what they are talking about because most books assume you already know the jargon they use. I have watched the training videos and sometimes the same applies - they go too fast and are hard to follow for the beginner.
You just have to learn a bit at a time and as your confidence grows, try new things.
If they don't work or you get lost in the technology, then you are just not ready for it yet!
If you are a complete novice to web design, may I suggest you follow this link to 'How Stuff Works.com' where you will find a series of pages titled 'How Web Pages Work'
