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A good program for first time web design?

Frankydan100

Frankydan100

macrumors regular
Original poster
Dec 5, 2010
156
0
Birmingham UK
Hi guys ive decided in my spare time to start learning some basic web design skills, Im going to try learning html and css basics first so I have a good ground knowledge but also wanted to know what programs people would recommend for starting out, Ive heard of 'WYSIWYG editors' maybe one of them could help? What are popular ones for mac? I do want to try and start to grasp the foundations of writing my own code though and not just using a pre-made one.

Free programs would be cool but I dont mind paying for a decent program.

Any help/advice is much appreciated. Thanks
 
Flux sounds like a proper solution for you. I do not know if it is too pricey for you, though.
 
Thats brilliant guys thankyou, Il get downloading soon and have a play around.

So flux is also a 'WYSIWYG editor' yes?

I dont mind paying for it but is it going to be leaps and bounds better than the free BlueGriffon software?
 
One more quick question too if you dont mind?

What are the proffessional WYSIWYG editors available? Ones that are used by proffessional web designers?
 
I believe Flux (http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/25386/flux) is wysiwyg editor that does the work for you. This appears to be a professional product to complete with Dreamweaver (Adobe).

BlueGriffon will be a professional product once out of beta. The basic install is free but the complete plugin pack is $29.95, AFAIK. Not sure about the price.
 
Last edited:
Frankydan100 said:
Would it be a good idea to try and learn things like html and css though to give myself some knowledge around how it actually works or is it abit pointless?

Thanks
Click to expand...

Depends on what your goals are?

I watched a tutorial video on the Flux webpage and it allows you do everything from scratch if you wish.

If your goal is employment, you would want to know how to do this from scratch.

Edit: sorry for changing my previous post.
 
munkery said:
Depends on what your goals are?

I watched a tutorial video on the Flux webpage and it allows you do everything from scratch if you wish.

If your goal is employment, you would want to know how to do this from scratch.

Edit: sorry for changing my previous post.
Click to expand...

Its not really for employment ive just finished College and im a nurse now, its more of a hobby I suppose although im only 26 so you never know later in life maybe.

Think il prob give it a go learning some of the code and see how I get on but also have a play with some of the programs.

Thanks again for the info.
 
I don't mean to bash WYSIWYG editors, I haven't used one for years and maybe what's available today has improved to be actually usable. But I have always found them unusable for anything but the most basic stuff.

If you're even semi serious about learning web design, I would strongly suggest against them. You don't learn much by using them and often you will need to tweak the code they produce anyway for aesthetics, performance and standard compliance reasons. I'd also argue that with decent html/css skills you will get results faster than using WYSIWYG editors.

So my suggestion is to find a good editor that has html/css syntax highlighting, code completion, formatting etc (I personally use Eclipse, but any will do) and learn html/css/javascript from scratch. You will learn more, code faster and produce better results.
 
Les Kern said:
Wow, sounds like fun.
Click to expand...

Hard to tell from a text on a message board but it sounds like you are being sarcastic.

But you know what? It should be fun. If it isn't fun don't do it. It will show in the end result if you didn't enjoy doing it.
 
barduck said:
I don't mean to bash WYSIWYG editors, I haven't used one for years and maybe what's available today has improved to be actually usable. But I have always found them unusable for anything but the most basic stuff.

If you're even semi serious about learning web design, I would strongly suggest against them. You don't learn much by using them and often you will need to tweak the code they produce anyway for aesthetics, performance and standard compliance reasons. I'd also argue that with decent html/css skills you will get results faster than using WYSIWYG editors.

So my suggestion is to find a good editor that has html/css syntax highlighting, code completion, formatting etc (I personally use Eclipse, but any will do) and learn html/css/javascript from scratch. You will learn more, code faster and produce better results.
Click to expand...

Thanks for your advice I think will be taking this route.

Does anyone know of any good resources for learning, ive been following this brief intro guide here http://uk.lifehacker.com/5788442/how-to-make-a-web-site-part-i-understanding-and-writing-html

And have looked at the resources here http://www.w3schools.com/ as a means to learn some foundations.

But any suggestions would be most helpful.
 
Frankydan100 said:
Thanks for your advice I think will be taking this route.

Does anyone know of any good resources for learning, ive been following this brief intro guide here http://uk.lifehacker.com/5788442/how-to-make-a-web-site-part-i-understanding-and-writing-html

And have looked at the resources here http://www.w3schools.com/ as a means to learn some foundations.

But any suggestions would be most helpful.
Click to expand...

"Head First HTML & CSS" is a fantastic book for beginners. You can get the ebook from O'Reilly and they usually have buy 1 get second free deals going directly from their site. You could also pick up a used physical copy from Amazon on the cheap. They have a whole series (JavaScript, PHP, MySQL, SQL, etc.). Although I studied Computer Science at a top university and have no trouble getting through highly technical books, I really like the style they use and find it helps me retain information.

Also for what it's worth, I use Coda for professional web design. It's available on the Mac AppStore for $99.

Good luck!
 
ByteOfApple said:
"Head First HTML & CSS" is a fantastic book for beginners. You can get the ebook from O'Reilly and they usually have buy 1 get second free deals going directly from their site. You could also pick up a used physical copy from Amazon on the cheap. They have a whole series (JavaScript, PHP, MySQL, SQL, etc.). Although I studied Computer Science at a top university and have no trouble getting through highly technical books, I really like the style they use and find it helps me retain information.

Also for what it's worth, I use Coda for professional web design. It's available on the Mac AppStore for $99.

Good luck!
Click to expand...


Cheers for the info, ive found a copy on amazon for £11, seems pretty decent. All the reviews ive read of the book are very posotive too. Thanks il give it a look.
 
iPresentee and Web Host

Has anybody ever heard of iPresentee which is a website that sells templates for building websites? Is i Presentee good?

Also, is there a recommended Apple friendly web host?
 
I've done a few sites, nothing too technically challenging.

I started out with WYSIWYG (Dreamweaver on Windows), but once I moved to Mac my licence wouldn't work and I couldn't get on with using it on a virtual machine.

I started to code instead and have now built using CSS/HTML. It helped me to base what I was doing on the WYSIWYG sites initially, but the more confident I got the less I relied on looking at them. The web is a treasure trove of tutorials and advice so don't be afraid to ask even the most trivial quesions on coding sites etc; they really help.

I now use TextWrangler for coding in (it's on the Mac App Store). I don't know if it's the best programme to use but it works for me. Good luck with whatever route you take and if you're just doing this in your spare time, enjoy it.
 
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