Newbie questions on shape creation and placement

[Ja Di ksw]

So, warning up front. I have never programmed anything for a website and these questions will probably be so dumb you will be frustrated that people like me exist. Now that that's out of the way ...

I made a quick PDF (yes, spacing and alignment are all off, it was done quickly) of the general layout of a website I want to make, just with filler text showing where I will write something or have a picture. Through my university I have access to Dreamweaver (which looks intimidating to me) and Rapidweaver. However, I can't find a way to make the boxes and images arranged like this in Rapidweaver, or how to set it up without the annoying headers and footers in their themes.

Are there any options for drawing these shapes and inserting text, like you would do in a drawing program? How do I make it so there's no theme? Even downloading the "multi no theme" or "multi flat" theme that my google-fu came up with still don't let me control background color and the like.

Thanks for the help. And yeah, I know I should just pay someone to code for me, but I don't exactly have spare money just sitting around .

 

[designguy79]

I don't use Dreamweaver WYSIWYG at all and have not used RapidWeaver, so others might be able to weigh in from other perspectives. I do know HTML, CSS and some JS.

Option 1: Create your design in Photoshop and export to HTML. Positive: design elements will (generally) all stay the same. Negative: bloated code, images will make for large download for visitors and less flexible for editing in the future

Option 2: Scrap your design and use a template from Dreamweaver, Rapidweaver, or better yet, WordPress. WordPress would open up more possibilities and benefits from using a CMS.

Option 3: Learn HTML and CSS. This would take the most time, but you would be better off in the long run and it would give you the most flexibility and you can set up the design and layout however you want (well, within the constrains of modern browsers)

Hope that helps!

 

[Ja Di ksw]

Thanks for the help!

Opt 1) I've got it almost completely done in Adobe Illustrator, I wanted to organize how it looks. I'm a little worried about just exporting it like this though (can I even from Illustrator? Not sure).

Opt 2) I really don't want to scrap the design, I've been very unimpressed by the themes I've seen in Dreamweaver, and I control a Wordpress site that someone else coded for my job, and it's just frustrating to change anything major on it. That could just be how the programmer set it up, though.

Opt 3) This would be the best, I'm just a little wary of how long it would take me to do. But perhaps I don't really have another choice.

Thanks again for the help