Camomac....thank you!
I did look at the source but I must have been blind not to see "wordpress 2.1.2"....lol.
EmpyreanUK,
My goal is to do webdesign part time and for local businesses. I have a full time career doing computer forensics which I love but I know a lot of local people looking to have websites created for their businesses. I would say small sites anywhere from 2-5 pages or maybe a little more.
So I guess what I am looking for is what are the main tools that people use to accomplish the type of sites I am looking to create. I would definitely like to learn HTML at the very least but would also like to get up and running sooner rather than later. I am also learning photography so I would like offer photo services as well as web services and hopefully make a nice little part time business. Also, I am using a mac so are there tools specific to mac or does the platform really not matter?
I appreciate both of you taking the time to answer and any information to help start me on the path would be most appreciated.
Thanks!!
Steve
Web design applications have, in the past, broadly been split across two categories. There are what at least used to be known as WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) programs and then there are text editors.
From what you explained in your post, it sounds as though the first of these categories would be better suited to your needs. WYSIWYG editors follow a visual approach to website construction, and allow you to create web pages by positioning graphical elements on-screen to produce your desired layout. When you export these designs to actual web pages, a WYSIWYG application will translate, or interpret, your design into HTML and CSS code.
The most famous WYSIWYG editor is Adobe's Dreamweaver, which is available on both Windows and Macintosh. This costs hundreds of pounds, however. Strictly on the OS X side of things, more popular alternatives include
RapidWeaver and
Sandvox (both of which are available on the Mac App Store), as well as Apple's iWeb. These programs are not considered as 'professional' level apps, though, especially so in the case of iWeb.
What I'm about to say probably won't go down too well with other web designers and developers, but if your intention is simply to make very basic (in terms of functionality rather than appearance) websites, consisting of just a few pages, as you have said, for some local businesses, then I think a WYSIWYG editor will be perfectly capable of enabling you to do so. I do not personally have any experience with any of the WYSIWYG apps I've mentioned here, so am unable to offer you any recommendations, but RapidWeaver and Sandvox both appear to have good reviews on the app store.
If you do indeed go on to practice web design as a part-time business, then such an app will at least allow you to start producing webpages during the meantime between now and you learning HTML. And if website design becomes an ongoing thing for you, then doing so will be essential. In addition to learning HTML, you will also need, at the very minimum, to learn CSS.
Creating websites directly with HTML and CSS is something performed through the use of the second category of apps I mentioned. Text editors are used to type out the HTML and CSS code that will be used to describe your web page's content and appearance.
There are many available for the Mac. I personally use TextWrangler (which is free), and have always done so on OS X. I've also tried out skEdit which I found to be very good. There are many other alternatives, though, some paid and others free. Ultimately your choice of text editor will be something quite personal: they all function in broadly the same way, and the code you'll be typing into them will be the same whichever you choose. Whilst having a text editor, and being proficient in its use, is essential *the text editor will be the bedrock of your web design work *your particular preference will come more down to which interface you like more, or which example of code highlighting you prefer.
There is also something of a relatively new breed of application available, whereby a 'project' view is taken of each website, and where text-editing functionality is combined with basic FTP functions, visual or menu-driven CSS editing and, best of all, the ability to display a live preview of changes to your webpage. The two best (perhaps only?) examples on the Mac are
Coda (available on the Mac App Store) and
Espresso. I personally prefer Espresso, which has particularly excellent CSS editing capabilities, but both are really superb applications.
Applications such as these make managing larger projects, and updating changes between your local, development copy of the website, and the live version available on the web, much more straightforward. However, they may not be necessary for you just yet, as if you are just beginning, the plethora of functions and snazzy workflow paradigm may distract you from the nuts-and-bolts work of learning HTML and CSS. It's hard for me to imagine learning with one of these to apps, though, so it may also be that I am chatting nonsense and over-complicating things. Both have free trials available, so you can always give them a try and make up your own mind.
Peripheral to these 'core' apps, you will also likely need some supplementary programs. One example would be a solid FTP client, which will be necessary to transfer files to your web server. I use Transmit 4, which is excellent, but I feel that at £23.99, in today's app-market, it is now overpriced. The Mac App Store has many viable alternatives, for example Flow, which is priced at £2.99.
Anyway, this is probably a large enough wall of text for you to glance over for now. If I can offer any other help or advice then I'd be happy to follow up any other questions you might have.
Good luck
