Total Newbie, best way to start learning?

Question

After much frustration with having others design my website
for me and not getting what I want, I figured what the hell, I'm
going to learn it myself. As I'm reasonably familiar with Photoshop
CS3 through my photography, DW seems the logical next step,
although I'm also considering learning to code from scratch, just
using NotePad or TextPad or something like that. The whole coding
thing intimidates the hell out of me, though.
Do I really NEED to learn the basics of coding BEFORE diving
into DW, or can DW help me learn the coding as I use the Design or
Split modes?

Answer 1

Hello,
"Do I really NEED to learn the basics of coding BEFORE diving
into DW, or
can
DW help me learn the coding as I use the Design or Split
modes? "
You don't have to, and you will certainly learn things by
looking at what
happens in code view as you do things in design view.
However, spending the time to learn the basics first will
make DW far easier
for you to use.
It will also save you a tremendous amount of time, and
frustration, in the
long run.
It will also save you from making mistakes that might end up
undoing hours
of work when you realize there's a problem with something.
A good place to start:
http://www.w3schools.com/html/default.asp
You can "play" with live examples of code that start with the
basics.
Change the code and see, in real time, what happens...right
there.
It's a great way to learn.
Or alternate at least. Go through a few pages at w3 and play
with DW.
If you just jump into DW, the learning curve will be huge and
painful.
Once you start to understand code, you'll understand how
things work, but
more importantly, what you can do.
This is key, because you will need to make an adjustment in
how you think of
design when going from static image design to web design.
When you produce a design in Photoshop, the layout will
essentially look the
same to all viewers.
However, when you produce a webpage you have users who have
different text
size settings (text is bigger or smaller while images on the
page remain the
same), view the site in different sized browser windows and a
host of other
things you can't control. The web is too dynamic.
With the above said, I'd like to give you a big piece of
advice that will
hopefully prevent a mistake many new users make.
Don't use AP Divs to layout your page.
You're sure to run across them in DW, and you might think,
"Hey, I can drag
things where I want them!"
It's tempting to use, especially because it is familiar in
function to
dragging things around in applications like Photoshop.
However, as I mentioned, the web is dynamic and using AP Divs
to layout a
page will likely result in you posting back here with
significant problems.
Things like your page breaks, text overflows into other areas
of the page or
things don't line up when I change browser window size.
There have been many people who have built entire sites using
AP Divs to
layout their pages, only to find out what the problems are
when viewed in
different browsers. They then had to rebuild their entire
site.
You're off to a good start by using this forum.
Read through some posts, and ask questions often.
It will be a huge help as you learn.
Take care,
Tim
"Payetdds" <[email protected]> wrote in
message
news:[email protected]...
> After much frustration with having others design my
website for me and not
> getting what I want, I figured what the hell, I'm going
to learn it
> myself. As
> I'm reasonably familiar with Photoshop CS3 through my
photography, DW
> seems the
> logical next step, although I'm also considering
learning to code from
> scratch,
> just using NotePad or TextPad or something like that.
The whole coding
> thing
> intimidates the hell out of me, though.
>
> Do I really NEED to learn the basics of coding BEFORE
diving into DW, or
> can
> DW help me learn the coding as I use the Design or Split
modes?
>