Getting started with web design and development

[rdonovan1]

I was just wondering if there might be anyone here that can advise as to how to get started quickly with Microsoft Frontpage creating both business and personal websites.

I have been doing some reading about it and I have also been taking some online classes related to it, but I guess that I am now at the point where the rubber meets the road as no matter what you do in life there is going to be a fair amount of studying and one heck of a lot of trial and error just by actually doing in practice as that is how most of us tend to learn things.

I have been playing around with the software program and I have been looking at the parts like creating a personal website and the customer support website as well that are in the templates, but unfortunately they are both pretty basic and don't really seem to provide the personal and professional quality that I am looking for so that I can not only express myself better to people like friends and family, but to also prepare and present professional looking presentations that will attract potential investors into my business ideas and to provide the look and feel of a good quality ecommerce site as I am looking at trying to make money both online and offline and both time and money are very short for me and I was hoping that maybe someone might be able to give me some good suggestions as to how I can handle this better and to improve my skills with Frontpage better.

[Redcore]

Not really...I hate Frontpage (as most professional developers do) :P

There's a Frontpage Fiend running around this section, he should be able to help you out quite a bit once he stumbles upon this thread :)

[bluesoul]

I agree with Redcore. If you simply use the Design View of FP the way most users do, it creates a bastardized version of HTML and stylesheets that aren't readable by all browsers. It also becomes very difficult to isolate problems in the code when the source is that unreadable. What I personally use and typically advise is Adobe Dreamweaver, but there's no substitute for learning the code, and learning it past simple memorization, but being able to think with it and come up with solutions that generated code will not, at least not with the same elegance.

If you want to improve the looks of a website, you need to learn CSS as well. It's best thought of as an extension of HTML, and you can be as creative as your imagination and skill take you. There are hundreds if not thousands of tutorial websites at your immediate disposal, and many of them will teach you the proper code, not just a workaround through FrontPage or Dreamweaver's Design View.

[Jaxo]

Frontpage... not so much.

Here are a couple of good sites that can help you along the path of HTML and CSS enlightenment.

W3School

htmlite Tutorials

HTML Goodies

That just barely scratches the surface.

I have used Frontpage back in the day, GoLive, and now am using Dreamweaver (The best out of those choices I think) The big advantage of learning the code, for myself at least, is being able to use notepad to edit or fix an issue when no other option is available (Which I have done on more then one occasion).

Good luck on your website building adventures.