# Thinking about learning how to make and/or run a website



## Zenas (Nov 11, 2010)

Essentially just for fun. Any books or free resources available off the top of anyone's head.


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## Zenas (Nov 11, 2010)

Processing: Josh's suggestion.
Analyzing...
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Conclusion: Insufficient.


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## Covenant Joel (Nov 11, 2010)

Are you wanting to run a full website yourself or just have a blog hosted for free? I.e., you can have your own domain (whateveryouwant dot com), have complete control over what software you use, upload any type of files, do basically whatever you want with it, or you can just have a blog-based site like free wordpress.com site. It just depends on what you're wanting to do. Either way, for ease, I would suggest using the WordPress software, but with your own host (starts at about $5/month) you can do other things and have more customization. WordPress is pretty easy to use and doesn't require knowledge of web design unless you want to customize a lot.

If you're looking at learning more about actual website design, using html, css, etc., then a good, helpful website is W3Schools Online Web Tutorials. There are some others, but it would be helpful to know exactly what you're looking for first.


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## Zenas (Nov 11, 2010)

I'm actually just interested in learning about it, not necessarily with the end goal of hosting my own website and/or blog. I would start something, but only to experiment with. I frankly don't think the things I have to say are insightful or interesting enough to the general public to support interest in a blog.


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## Covenant Joel (Nov 11, 2010)

In that case, w3schools.com is a good place to start. They have tutorials for all sorts of aspects of website-building.


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## Ask Mr. Religion (Nov 11, 2010)

Unless you have access to a file server to upload your own files and host them, you will have to go with the suggestions above, such as WordPress, etc. To get the full experience of web site design and development, buy a domain and a package that allows you access to the file server. That way you are master of all things related to the web site, including php scripting.

AMR


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## Whitefield (Nov 13, 2010)

Zenas said:


> I'm actually just interested in learning about it, not necessarily with the end goal of hosting my own website and/or blog. I would start something, but only to experiment with. I frankly don't think the things I have to say are insightful or interesting enough to the general public to support interest in a blog.


 
Here is how I taught myself html, css, javascript, and php --
1. FREE - download and install WAMP which allows you to run a local based apache/mysql/php web server on your computer. (USE MAMP for a Mac)
2. FREE - download and learn to use Kompozer which is a WYSIWYG html editor. This is for Windows only, but I'm sure there are WYSIWYG freeware for Mac.
3. FREE - download and learn to use NotePad++ in order to fine tune your html and css. If using a Mac, find a good text editor you are comfortable with.
4. FREE - work through the tutorials on html and css found on w3schools.
5. COSTS - find a good basic html and a good basic css book (if needed). I found w3schools and other sources on the internet sufficient to learn html and css.
6. FREE - work through the javascript tutuorial on w3schools.
7. COSTS - get a good introductory book on javascript such as JavaScript in 24 Hours.
8. FREE - work through the php tutuorial on w3schools.
9. COSTS - get a good introductory book on php such as PHP for the Web: Visual QuickStart Guide.



If you look at my webpage you will see the result of teaching myself html, css, javascript, and php.


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## Ask Mr. Religion (Nov 13, 2010)

Nice site and content, Lance! 

AMR


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## Semper Fidelis (Nov 13, 2010)

I've been tinkering around with html and css for so long I don't even remember the path I took to learn everything I know.

I taught myself Pascal in High School (Basic before that) and learned some Fortran and other programming languages in college. Once you're comfortable with the idea of programming in general then you can sort of stumble around and find things as you need to.

I tinkered around with html for the first time in 1994 by imitating other site's html pages. HTML was pretty basic back then and I haven't kept up with everything but some of the basic rules have always been very handy.

When I first built a full site with a ton of content I used Dreamweaver as the ability to keep a theme in place was very important as pages were added that would affect menus.

A few years ago, however, I got tired of all the work it took to manage a site built in HTML and moved to content management systems. I played with Scoop, Drupal, and Joomla and built sites in all three. About that time I was also building Church websites in Wordpress. Wordpress was initially a blogging platform but features have made it an increasingly powerful and extensible CMS with lots of support from 3rd party developers. That turns out to be pretty key. I've built quite a few Church websites using Wordpress as they're easy to manage by the Churches I set them up for. I still have two Drupal sites but don't play with Joomla much (though am still intrigued by the platform.

I started posting on the Puritanboard in 2005 and, about 8 months later, I was invited to become a Super Admin because the site kept having so many problems. Back then the site was run in a freeware bulletin board program. I still remember spending more hours than I care to remember upgrading the board to the latest freeware version and then having to go through a ton of customization to give it the features we needed. I fast realized that I could not possibly keep up with all that work every time a new version came out and vBulletin had the features I needed. We've been using that for about 4 years now.

Sorry for the biography but, as I recount this, it makes me realize that it's really about _time_ if you want to learn how to build quality sites. There are times when I'll spend several hours trying to figure out how to do one thing or something will get messed up and I'll have to pour through php files or css to figure out how to make something look the way I want. It's not hard to build something basic but it takes time and experience to learn how to comfortably deal with all the complexities of a web page. HTML is but one of many things I need to know to run this site. Everything from the backend to the programming can affect whether or not sites will work.

I've been trying to find the motivation to create a basic "how to" for Churches to walk them step by step through free tools and hosting packages to give them a soup to nuts basic rundown of the things they need to know to set up a wordpress site. I need to get to that.


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## Edward (Nov 13, 2010)

Download Seamonkey. Start playing with the web editor. Use the view code function to see what the code looks like, and play with manual coding. Use the browser function to see what it looks like. 

If you want to set up a website, follow the suggestions from others above. If you want to learn some HTML, and play with what's under the hood, start playing with the coding.


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## Der Pilger (Nov 18, 2010)

Others have already provided some good tips, so some of what follows may be repetitive. I might not answer your question very well, though, since you didn't specify much about what you want to do--learn how to code a site from scratch? learn the aesthetics of web site design (quite a different matter, though related)?

Regarding the coding aspect, I'd recommend picking up some basic tutorial books. The SAMS 24-hour series are pretty helpful, for example, but I'm sure there are others that are good. Contrary to what others have said, I've found W3 Schools to be quite inadequate. Their explanations are very terse and seem to assume the student already has a solid foundation in the code. They struck me more as reference manuals for experienced coders.

_EDIT: I forgot--the "Head First" series of books are very good at explaining coding concepts to beginners._

In addition, if you want to learn about the coding aspects of website creation, keep in mind that you'd be learning three separate areas: HTML (for content), CSS (for presentation), and Javascript (for interaction between the user and the site). You could get by with focusing mainly on the first two and doing just a little with JS. It just depends how deeply you want to go with it. My most recent site--*Are You Good Enough to Go to Heaven?*--was a project in hand-coding I did to learn more about web site creation, much like you, and I used very little Javascript in it, just enough to do what I wanted the site to do. The bulk of the code involved HTML and CSS.

As others have pointed out, you could also go the route of CMS's (content management systems), such as Wordpress, Joomla!, Drupal, etc. Keep in mind that although these CMS applications are often used as blogs, they can be used to create static web sites, too (i.e., where you don't keep adding new posts, so the home page never changes). I have a Wordpress blog myself, and I know that you can set up the home page this way, unlike the usual blog.

If you don't want to learn about coding but still want to make a site, I highly recommend *Artisteer*. I've had this for some time now. You can use it to make Wordpress or Joomla! templates or even just regular web sites, and it's quite versatile with regard to the variety of themes you can create. An example of a blog site I made using Artisteer can be found here: *Christ Church of Arlington Outreach*.


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