For those of you that haven't figured it out.  When it comes to true web design, I am not even a novice.  But thanks to everyone, I can SEO my keywords like the best of them.  But that doesn't do me a lick of good when I can't even get started on my rebuild.

I have "procurred" a copy of DreamWeaver 8, and have "toyed" around with it trying to get comfortable with how it works.  (Still trying to get comfortable.)  But before I step a foot forward.  Where do I start?  I've heard of the advantages of using CSS, though extremely time consuming to get started.  Than there is Cold fusion, PHP, ASP VBScript,  ASP .NET, XML, XSLT,  and so on.  I'll be green enough to acknowlegde that I don't know what half of those are.  Cut me some slack though, at least I dumped SB and am trying to grow.

Any suggestions?  Any sites with "free" DW8 tutorials?

Last question, should I go ahead and open a new domain.  When ever I try doing something new, it keeps wanting to through the files on a server that I haven't got ready yet.  (yes, dumping the old domain too...)

Thanks again to everyone.  This site is the only reason I am trying at it again, and hopefully the correct way this time about.

SSL (Sorry So Long) 

Michael

CSS is helpful in the long run, but it does take more planning.  If done right, though, you end up with a site that is consistent and easy to change.

ASP, PHP, etc. are scripting languages designed for internet use.  I would hold off on those unless you are ready to devote yourself to hours upon hours of learning.

And I know nothing of DW.

Hello Michael,

Glad to hear you are set in learning this web stuff. I do not use DW but others here do and are well versed in it.

Yes there are tutorial sites out there. g search

My suggestion is to start out with the basic HTML before you get into the XHTML or others. I will admit there is not a huge difference until you start getting into the validations.

When you say dumping the old domain do you mean you can't keep mjsmall.com or just the existing site as it is now?

Learning HTML and CSS is actually easier than it might first appear. Myself, I took on learning both as I went and in a matter of just a few weeks I was doing XHTML and not using tables for site layout.

Jody

Between that 90 day DNS thing.  Plus, part of the SEO advantage.  A new domain name in-line with the type of site would be best.  After all, it's not like I can develop brand name recognition on the web, so why not more topic oriented.  I don't mind the foot work to re-establish, compared to what lays ahead, SEO will be the easy part.

Thank you for you input, I'll check them out.

Ive been using Dreamweaver 7.01 for a couple of years and I wouldnt use another editor.

I rarely use it for it's wysiwyg features, more for the colour differences on different code types. I can see exactly what is where just by scanning the page. Or for the "page" view when I start to confuse myself.

I haven't got such a good memory but as long as i can remember what tag I need, i can use the wysiwyg to show me all the possibilities that go with it.

The styling in wysiwyg is beyond crap though. Gotta admit, Id rather type it all out that let dreamweaver have it's wicked way with my page!

But i love it. Haven't had any use out of the FTP feature yet, Im happy enough with WSFTP.

As for the server side technologies you want to use, have a look at

http://forums.site-reference.com/viewtopic.php?id=3474

As for getting started - I seem to remember earlier versions of DW having some good templates. They weren't very SEO friendly, unfortunatly.

I still believe that it would be quicker for you to learn how to hand code - I've never been able to reproduce the quality of hand coding in a WYSIWYG editor.

step 1 - draw, with a pencil - on paper, what you want your template to look like
- where do you wnat navigation, images, header graphics
- choose your font sizes and colour scheme
Step 2 - divide up your page into sections
- design/make/code each section as a separte html file
Step 3 - use tables or CSS to build the structure or framework of your page
Step 4 - put the code from each of your seperate files into your structure
Step 5 - twaek until happy/bored

I agree with griffinsbridge on the actual use of Dreamweaver. This threw me for a while, because handcoders were always dicussing the crap that happened to their layouts from the use of a WYSIWYG editor. I could not get the problem, never having had one with DW. I think the perception is that we use the "picture window"

Nope, never even tried it. I use the code/design layout with the design portion about an inch high on a 22" monitor.

What it helps with are two things: one if you code something horribly wrong, which happens to me sometimes when I drink beer , the display in the window will sometimes lob a flare that edit > undo might be merited and second, when you are editing or working on different areas of the page you can click the design view roughly where you want to be in the code and the code view zips elegantly and with haste to that location too. Gnarly I say.

And that's all there is to the WYSIWYG nature of Dreamweaver for me and whole bunch of other guys and girls. More like a WYCIWYSBIALEWTTP editor (What You Code Is What You Get, But It's a lot Easier With the Tools Provided).

Boy, do I hope fifty zillion people read this and understand the attraction isn't the design window.

Was that a rant?

If so, I think it was my first. So, be gentle. Have her home by ten....

DW8 is definitely a good choice. I too use the Code view more often than not, the syntax highlighting is great, and both griffinsbridge and DMX were spot on.

But, if you cant hand code, then DW8 is still great - here's why.

DW8 by default adds in the Doctype Declaration, and all of the header code. Second, it does not do aesthetics with HTML tags, it uses CSS. Unfortunately, it creates them internally, but simple cut and paste and you can move it to an external CSS.

The design view (the WYSIWYG part) isn't all that bad, and with some work at it you can create a pretty decent site.

I suggest checking out Open Source Web Design for some templates - most of those are W3C Validated and don't look all that bad. You can either use a template there, or at least study the code to learn how everything works. I am a hands-on learner, so I learned by looking at others' code and figuring out what controls what.

DW8 was a good investment (or a nice P2P download - shh! I wont tell!). For beginners, it is definitely alot better at producing code than FP and the like. I use it all the time, and I wouldn't go without it!

I've been using Dreamweaver for about 3 years...well...total. Had a little gap in time where I stopped web design altogether.

I love text pad and the refresh button

www.textpad.com

syntax highlighting for over 100 languages
user developed modules & plugins
made by englishmen (and women)

Northie wrote:

I love text pad and the refresh button

Hoorah for real coding!! ;-) a man after my own heart.

I used to use Textpad, and also Crimson Editor (which is IMHO far nicer).

My favorite editor is PSPad http://www.pspad.com/, which I discovered a few months ago. I now do a lot of work in PHP, and it's great for that - you can error check scripts from within the editor, and ctrl+space brings up all the functions, which makes life so much easier.

Crimson and PSPad are both totally free by the way....