The newbie and the wheel

[toy_soldier]

I am learning to create a website and have found it might be easier to "cut and paste" code of sites I like rather then finding codes and scripts myself and reinventing the wheel. Please direct me to informative threads and/or links that you think might help me do it right the first time.

[toy_soldier]

Maybe this was to much of a loaded question. Any and all ideas will be much appreciated. I signed up with Hostgator, but haven't uploaded anything yet. Which host is the best? I heard transferring your site can be tricky, so I'd like to start with the best host possible.

[autocrat]

Okay.. please sit back and think.

You have come to a internet community, that like many others, is built up of the professional, semi-professional, the hobbyists and the amatuers.

All the people in any such community are there due to a willingness to learn and a want to develop.... to some extent or another.

Then you go and ask if we can point out cool sites that you can take snippets from... which is plagarism, copyright theft, intellectual right theft and in breach of several other such things that are nigh impossible to police but considered blatantly rude by anyone who has bothered to invest time and effort in making something themselves.

Now, taking a lighter and less pessamistic view, I assume what you really meant to say was something along the lines off...

... " hi folks, I'm new to this whole thing, and fancy getting a good head start on learning things properly - could anyone be kind enough to point out some sites with good tutorials, fine examples and better explanations of the asics... along with some others that demonstrate some of the more clever and advanced techniques I can learn ? " ...

Which of course would get you results like;

http://www.pmob.co.uk
http://www.htmldog.com
http://www.alistapart.com
http://www.mezzoblue.com
http://www.cssplay.co.uk

All are damned fine, most provide stuff for beginners to advanced etc...

At the end of the day, you need to learn and understand what you do... otherwise, when it does not work - you will be Screwed, with no idea how to fix it!

So go look, practice, learn... and become highly skilled with your own set of knacks and tricks... jsut like the rest of us :)

Best of luck.

[toy_soldier]

Wow. Thank you Autocrat for your candid perspective.

My humblest apologies...to you and anyone else who may feel the same way now or in the future.

I didn't realize that what I was asking for could/would be considered 'theft'. I misunderstood another's suggestion to cut and paste to save time. I will research the links you provided. I won't cheat. Hopefully, I can do everybody proud by what I expect to create.

Thanks again for your input and welcome more.

toy

[toy_soldier]

This is my first page

how exciting

[autocrat]

Fantastic!

So glad that didn't come across as "uppety", "harsh" or plain old "nasty"... (I re-read it and kind of squirmed!).

So thak you for being so understanding and showing such willingness to learn!

Istarted with HTMLDOG myself... along with Mezzo... learn the basics... as they are what will et you through... and pay attention to Bugz and workarounds (you seldomly really need a \/*_>>Hack ... a single extra Div, correct DocType and applying the correct style in the right place will often solve many an issue (or applying a style that has nothing to do with it will fix some IE issues to! *You'll learn!*).

Best of luck

[toy_soldier]

Whew!

No wonder people go to school for this. I'm sure every person that reads this post has experienced some form of newbie information overload. A week on the screen and I feel like my brain is going to pop. I'm determined to stick with it though!

Readers...please check up on my progress...and please leave any comment or suggestion that might help me stay on task.

Thank you.

toy

p.s. I have found many "top ten" reviews of different hosting companies. I would greatly appreciate a professional opinion on where I should look to find the best host(s). Thanks.

[autocrat]

Good thinking...

maybe a word with "dani" (the ever so helpfuland enlightened cscgal?)... you could maybe do a "live walkthrough" of someone coming into the area of web design, and sort of "blog-it" - should be pretty cool to see how things change!

Never be afraid to ask for som e assistance... and if you like, we can always give you some of the basic setups/starts that folk use quite often (I myself have basially used the same techniques/tricks for the last year).
Once you have learnedsomething, youthen need to enhance it and pratice it...then it becomes second nature - no thought, no looking thungs up etc.

It will come with much time and effort... think of it this way...there are many out there that claim the title of being a "web-designer"... (I'll get shot for this!), but as far as I'm concerned, most of them are simple liars... using software to do all the work for them, with little or no understanding of what does what, why or how are not designers!

But so long as you are learning... you are earning :)

[autocrat]

... Hosts ...

So many out there, and most of them are resellers of resellers of resellers...

Avoid "Virtual" setups - they are not only limited in capability, many are poorly setup and tend to be a pain as far as support goes.
(Though they may be ideal for your first few sites as they are also ddamned cheap).

You can get "Shared" - they tend to be a bit more expensive, but you often get a full Cpanel option with it (I myself hate Plesk), so you have more control.

UH-hosting was my original set (now part of ecliple?) - fantastic support!
Fast-Hosts are also an alternative - not fantastic... but fairly priced.

Just find some, lookat the packages and prices... keep an eye out for things like SSH... you may not use it or need it - but it is a good sign that at least one person there knows there job :D

[toy_soldier]

Thanks again Autocrat for you comments. I've been studying web design for a little more then a month now and it does get easier the more you practice and study. I'm half way through HTML Dogs' tutorials and am thankful their structure gives the student "hands-on" experience.

With regard to talking to "Dani"...

How does a community member chat with another community member? I would like it very much if she would either inject thought into my thread or maybe through her blog.... I figure the more dialog I maintain with others, the more likely I am to see this project through to the end.

I'll continue my search for the perfect host. Hostgators' customer service is sub-par and their video tutorials are kind of lame.

To all, a good day.

toy

[autocrat]

Okay... you could look around some of the threads 'till you see "cscgal" as a poster... simply click on the name (cscgal), and a little dropdown should appear... oneof the options is "send a private message to..."

You should be able to figure it from there :)

[toy_soldier]

Thanks...I'll give it a try!

toy

[toy_soldier]

I ran into a problem today. I tried to save a notepad document (a css file) and Notepad saved it as a Firefox document...not a notepad document. I can't get my html document to 'pull' info from the css document:(

any suggestions??

toy

[autocrat]

novel!

okay... if you are in windows, you can change the option to view file Extensions... and replace whatever it is called with ".txt" or ".css".

Alternatively, if you right click on the file and go to properties, you should have an option to change association... so change it from FF to notepad.

Alternatively, you can right click on see ifyou get a menu option for "open with"... notepad may be in there... or you can then opt for "choose" and scroll down to notepad

Let me know if it works.

[toy_soldier]

Guess what...I had an extra quotation mark in the code!

Talk about a newbie...duh...

toy

[autocrat]

It happens... no matter how long you've been doing it!

the trick is to look for stupid mistakes first!
you'd be amazed how many do a minor change... then send ages wonderig why it doesn't work...
so Validate as you go!
Every little thing you alter, pass to a validator, as it willhelp catch any mistakes, and save you ages of screaming, shouting and rippig out hair!

http://validator.w3.org (I think)

[MidiMagic]

Always poofread your work to see if you any letters or words out.

[toy_soldier]

Thanks for the tip on the Validation service, Autocrat. Also, I really liked the examples of Typography on the Mezzo site. I was wondering if you (or anybody) knows of threads dedicated to links of cool stuff to check out.

Happy days to all

toy

[autocrat]

Well, I gave you one list all... but some others to include as...

Useful sources...
http://pmob.co.uk
www.456bereastreet.com
http://bitesizestandards.com

Examples of differing CSS for thesame Markup
www.csszengarden.com

A good source of possibles...
http://www.w3.org/Style/CSS/learning

Plus the basics, from the origins...
http://www.w3schools.com/css/css_examples.asp

Personally, I strongly recommend trauling through the W3 site and copying out their tables for CSS - I made a word document of around 9 pages when I first started so that I could have an on hand reference ....
....then I went and made a little document with "Tips & Tricks" and everytime I found a useful method, or notes on how to overcome a problem, I would try it, and when I got it workig and think I understood it, would write it up and print it out.... I got around 16 Tips & Tricks within 3 weeks - and I printed them out too.

If you play around, you may find different ways to do things - the darn thing about CSS is alot of thefixes or techniques are reliant upon what is already in place... so sometimes a clever bit ofcodewon't work for you due to previous properties.

So, once you hae a technique or method you like that seems to work on multiple browsers.... make a note of it in a word doc etc.... and keep it (date it too :) ).

[mike092103]

I'm starting a web page soon, and i thank the 2 of you for giving me some references. wish me luck. going to study and learn before i dive in.