As a beginner with HTML, I could use some help getting started with HTML and CSS. This is what I would like to do for now. I would like to create templates with the appearance of frames, that is, one side of the page (left side) with a different background, along with a list of links, small images, pull down (drop) menus, etc., and the other side of the page (right side), the main part of the page, with a different background, main text, images, more links, pull down (drop) menus, etc.

I'm also interested in having a background that doesn't move when you scroll up/down the page.

What is the easiest way to get started, without having to read hundreds of pages of manuals, and/or many webpages. Thanks.

-- vjamacaddict, G4 iBook, OSX 10.3.9

A good way to start is reading lots of tutorials and checking out the source of webpages. Also a reasonable html editor might be useful. I used Arachnophobia when I was learning about this stuff... But HTML is pretty basic, it is just a markup language afterall.

Check out http://www.w3schools.com/default.asp for all kinds of web references. And I found http://www.webmonkey.com to be useful as well.

Of course this is assuming you want to be a source code oriented web developer, the alternative is WYSIWYG editors like Frontpage... but I don't endorse this form of web 'development'. However the benefits of a tool like this (when you are learning) is that it is possible to 'draw' what you want to see, and then convert to a source code view to see the generated source. It is worth noting that this source will typically be much more complex than is required... for one reason, it is easier to develop a tool that handles complex pages the same way as simple pages, and another reason is that the generation of complex html is likely to convince newbies that they are incapable of creating such rubbish by hand - hence coupling them to the tool they have initially chosen.