Hard Light Productions Forums

Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: Liberator on September 17, 2003, 11:45:26 am

Title: HTML/Web Page
Post by: Liberator on September 17, 2003, 11:45:26 am
Does anybody know of a easy to learn Web Page editor like front page that is free or extremely cheap?
Title: HTML/Web Page
Post by: ZylonBane on September 17, 2003, 02:32:24 pm
Notepad.
Title: HTML/Web Page
Post by: Stealth on September 17, 2003, 02:50:27 pm
Quote
Originally posted by ZylonBane
Notepad.


yeah, OK... but too bad he said an "easy to learn Web Page editor like front page "... Notepad is hardly like Front Page, nor is it easy to learn plain HTML with no experience or help :rolleyes:

I'd recommend Dreamweaver... it may take a little getting used to, but the opportunities are endless, and its features will last you a lifetime :)
Title: HTML/Web Page
Post by: karajorma on September 17, 2003, 03:04:37 pm
Yeah but DreamWeaver isn't cheap either so that's not much better.
Title: HTML/Web Page
Post by: ZylonBane on September 17, 2003, 03:11:35 pm
Quote
Originally posted by Stealth
nor is it easy to learn plain HTML with no experience or help :rolleyes:
He didn't say he needed to learn HTML. He said he needed to learn an HTML editor. Can't get much easier to learn than Notepad!

Now, if the goal is something like using FrontPage, I recommend "sticking your face in a fan", or "pouring hot grease down your pants".
Title: HTML/Web Page
Post by: Hunter on September 17, 2003, 03:27:24 pm
Ah, Zylon doesn't change on his standings.. ;)  Notepad created all my websites, and shall continue to do so.
Title: HTML/Web Page
Post by: Stealth on September 17, 2003, 05:08:00 pm
Quote
Originally posted by ZylonBane
He didn't say he needed to learn HTML. He said he needed to learn an HTML editor.


wrong, he said he needed a WEB PAGE EDITOR.

for a beginner, i think using a program, like Front Page, or Dreamweaver is good.  you can get a demo version, and create/edit fully functional websites without paying a cent.  (and you can do a basic website very easily in Dreamweaver too).  for an intermediate, who's familiar with HTML's functions, i'd say switch (slowly) to notepad... but not straight off, because that's just too hard.  i, too, haven't used an editor since late 1999... my websites are either 100% Flash, 100% Notepad, or a bit of both.
Title: HTML/Web Page
Post by: Fineus on September 17, 2003, 05:21:04 pm
Lets not have a pissing contest guys, just help the man out or keep it to yourself.

Liberator, the best What You See Is What You Get editors are Frontpage (because it's chunky and writes poor code, but is easy to pick up and use from the word go) and Dreamweaver (because it write goods code, and is fairly straight forward to use - I recommend this one). Notepad is good for editing a page that already exists, and you can easily look at other sites and copy / paste / fiddle with thier code. I try to use this but often write the code in FP or Dreamweaver and see what it looks like, then write a neater version in Notepad afterwards.

Try Notepad, it's free with Windows so no worries there - if it's not your brand of vodka, look elsewhere.
Title: HTML/Web Page
Post by: Kamikaze on September 17, 2003, 05:58:08 pm
Amaya, the W3C's WYSIWYG editor/browser, free (open source).

http://www.w3.org/Amaya/User/BinDist.html
Title: HTML/Web Page
Post by: Liberator on September 17, 2003, 09:28:08 pm
I think that that will work.  Thank you Kamekazi.  I'm going to try uploading a few practice pages.  They will be ugly because as far as I can tell Amaya doesn't support frames but there ya go,  you get what you pay for.
Title: HTML/Web Page
Post by: Stealth on September 17, 2003, 09:42:49 pm
good description Kalfireth :D
Title: HTML/Web Page
Post by: Sandwich on September 18, 2003, 01:00:37 am
Quote
Originally posted by Liberator
I think that that will work.  Thank you Kamekazi.  I'm going to try uploading a few practice pages.  They will be ugly because as far as I can tell Amaya doesn't support frames but there ya go,  you get what you pay for.


Frames are generally frowned upon, since they are rarely used correctly (if such a usage exists when talking about frames). Count your blessings.
Title: HTML/Web Page
Post by: WMCoolmon on September 18, 2003, 01:58:19 am
It's very useful to know how to program in HTML, and not all that hard either. There are some good tutorials at Webmonkey (http://hotwired.lycos.com/webmonkey/authoring/html_basics/), and you can grab a syntax-colored editor for free at http://www.crimsoneditor.com.

Here's an example of a basic HTML page source. Copy it into notepad, save it as a file ending with ".html", and open it to see what it looks like when you use a web browser.


     This is what appears in your browser's title bar


     Put your page here



Oh, a good alternative to frames are tables. :nod:
Title: HTML/Web Page
Post by: Kamikaze on September 18, 2003, 02:41:44 am
If you get around to editing html markup manually I recommend you read about xhtml and css at W3C's website as well. (see csszengarden.com for why css is so great)
Title: HTML/Web Page
Post by: Liberator on September 18, 2003, 12:28:06 pm
Well I've got the practice 1st gen pages up.  Only a couple of the links work and it's not pretty, but it's a start.

www.swooh.com/peon/liberator

I'll get the 2nd gen up when I get some time.  Probably next weekend.

Also, if someone has an idea for a better title, PLEASE drop me a line.  That one is not good at all, but it's all I could think of.
Title: HTML/Web Page
Post by: Liberator on September 18, 2003, 04:35:10 pm
Anybody have any thoughts/suggestions/ideas for the above?Take a look please.
Title: HTML/Web Page
Post by: Stealth on September 18, 2003, 04:46:06 pm
don't try CSS or XML or anything else yet.  just learn basic HTML, everything else will fit in
Title: HTML/Web Page
Post by: Kamikaze on September 18, 2003, 06:33:00 pm
I disagree, you can put on better habits from the start by using xhtml, xhtml is barely (if at all) harder than html.

Liberator, make the site more exciting I say, even a few colours help. I recommend you start with tables, as they can look rather good without too much effort (and you can organize data much better). Just don't use bright/plain colours, try various borders (I prefer no borders, simple line borders, or dashed borders), as for a title, an informative title is recommended. (Or at least, an attention getting title, followed by an explanation) It took me a bit to realize that was a homeworld related tc.

About colour scheme, I think it's easier to make a good looking colour scheme if you stick to similar colours. For example, lots of blues together look good, as do greens together and reds together (not red+green, that sucks). Just be careful with using colours that are too similar.
Title: HTML/Web Page
Post by: ZylonBane on September 18, 2003, 08:19:32 pm
Quote
Originally posted by Kamikaze
For example, lots of blues together look good, as do greens and reds.
I'm going to have to kill you now.
Title: HTML/Web Page
Post by: YodaSean on September 18, 2003, 09:05:08 pm
Quote
Originally posted by Sandwich


Frames are generally frowned upon, since they are rarely used correctly (if such a usage exists when talking about frames). Count your blessings.


When I made my own weird website (http://www.geocities.com/radioactiveyeti)  I found them pretty useful for making a sort of side menu(and not have to retype it for every page).  I guess there are other ways to do that, but not with notepad.  They look fine as long as they blend with the website(no borders) and scroll with the rest of the site(which mine don't becaue I forget how :p )
Title: HTML/Web Page
Post by: Solatar on September 18, 2003, 09:22:05 pm
Notepad and HTML for Dummies. HTML is very simple, so it's not hard to learn the mark-up.
Title: HTML/Web Page
Post by: Liberator on September 18, 2003, 09:39:18 pm
I got a little farther into the 2nd gen index page and have decided to use Frontpage Express.  It has a little more functionality with a nearly flat learning curve since I've had a class in Frontpage.
Title: HTML/Web Page
Post by: Kamikaze on September 18, 2003, 10:15:22 pm
Quote
Originally posted by ZylonBane
I'm going to have to kill you now.


Errr, ambiguity...

I meant greens together look good, as do reds together. Not red + green. :blah:
Title: HTML/Web Page
Post by: ZylonBane on September 18, 2003, 11:15:07 pm
Ah, ok. Fatwa rescinded.
Title: HTML/Web Page
Post by: Liberator on September 19, 2003, 02:09:52 am
Okay, couldn't let a sleeping dog lie.  Okay, he wasn't sleeping, he's been jumping around in the yard all day.  

Anyway I've got the second gen pages up, tell me what you think.
Title: HTML/Web Page
Post by: Sandwich on September 19, 2003, 06:24:09 am
Quote
Originally posted by Liberator
Okay, couldn't let a sleeping dog lie.  Okay, he wasn't sleeping, he's been jumping around in the yard all day.  

Anyway I've got the second gen pages up, tell me what you think.


Although simple, it's much better than going the other way and building annoyingly flashy jumpy animated pages. :yes: :nod:

You're on the right track.
Title: HTML/Web Page
Post by: Turnsky on September 19, 2003, 06:30:20 am
Quote
Originally posted by Sandwich


Although simple, it's much better than going the other way and building annoyingly flashy jumpy animated pages. :yes: :nod:

You're on the right track.

ditto.. animated pages tend to kill bandwidth madly..