Welcome to the MacNN Forums.

anim8ing · Nov 16, 2001, 10:10 PM

Heyas, I have a few questions. I want to get into web design, but don't know where to start. What program and/or books should I start learning with. If computer experience matters at all, i'm not new to the mac (i doubt it matters anyway) I know a little html, but not a lot. Could someone point me in the right direction? I have about 5-8 hours a day that I could devote to this. Thanks in advance to anyone who can help!

Wanted to add this too. I REALLY want to get into the 3D design (4D XL, Lightwave, etc) This is where i would love to start leaning if possible)
Anim8r

[ 11-16-2001: Message edited by: anim8ing ]

train · Nov 17, 2001, 08:30 PM

Start on the web itself. There are thousands of websites out there that will teach you the basics of web design. Just use the search engines. Start making a personal site or another project and continually improving it.

good luck

-train

Originally posted by anim8ing:
<STRONG>Heyas, I have a few questions. I want to get into web design, but don't know where to start. What program and/or books should I start learning with. If computer experience matters at all, i'm not new to the mac (i doubt it matters anyway) I know a little html, but not a lot. Could someone point me in the right direction? I have about 5-8 hours a day that I could devote to this. Thanks in advance to anyone who can help!

Wanted to add this too. I REALLY want to get into the 3D design (4D XL, Lightwave, etc) This is where i would love to start leaning if possible)
Anim8r

[ 11-16-2001: Message edited by: anim8ing ]</STRONG>

pobodysnerfect · Nov 18, 2001, 01:26 PM

well, program wise I have had the best luck with Macromedia products, such as Dreamweaver, Fireworks and Flash. Some of course will tell you to try and learn as much HTML as you can before diving into such things as Dreamweaver, but for me I found it helpful using Dreamweaver and then looking at the code and learning that way. Dreamweaver does the best job IMHO of writing the cleanest code and also not messing with any code you have written by hand.

Fireworks is an outstanding image editing program specifically designed for web work, I have loved and used both programs since the first version and have also used other programs such as golive and the like but in my opinion they don't compare. I don't think I need to say much about Flash for it speaks for itself.

For books I have found that to be a personal choice. For getting started quickly I like the quickstart series, and also the learn xxxx in 24 hours books. But take time in the book store and read the first chapter or so of some books to see which one makes the most sense to you personally. Good luck!

ford prefect · Nov 18, 2001, 11:26 PM

don't depend on wysywyg editors. learn as much HTML as you can. Visual quickstart books are good. And the 24hour books are good too. The guy at www.htmlgoodies.com is pretty good at teaching, but I don't think his design ideas are all that great.

Then just write a bunch of code, and make some pages.

VRL · Nov 19, 2001, 05:53 AM

Another option: Just get basic programs (Adobe PageMaker, Claris HomePage and/or BBedit) and start working/learning. All you need to start making graphics is AppleWorks - nothing fancy, but a starting point. Work your way up from there.

As for books, the first ones I got were "Creating Killer Web Sites" and " Secrets of Successful Web Sites". There a bit old now, but still good. And you can get them cheap now (try Mac Professionals Book Club, e.g.).

The important thing, IMO: Get started, and post a site to the web, even if it's simple. Then, build on it with something new every day (or as often as you can). ... And dare to be original - do not just copy what others are doing.

slipjack · Nov 21, 2001, 11:37 PM

As always... it's best to have a concrete goal. Design it out a bit on paper, then execute.

Doing is Learning!

Caveat:

It's much easier to learn while doing if there are people around tha know what they are doing. So, school, or maybe an internship somewhere are always good options.

Kestral · Nov 22, 2001, 03:12 AM

Originally posted by ford prefect:
<STRONG>don't depend on wysywyg editors. learn as much HTML as you can. Visual quickstart books are good. And the 24hour books are good too. The guy at www.htmlgoodies.com is pretty good at teaching, but I don't think his design ideas are all that great.

Then just write a bunch of code, and make some pages.</STRONG>

Just wanted to say, thanks for the link Ford!! I'm going through the primer right now and have to say, it's most excellent!! (Sorry for the Bill & Ted reference, it was on the boob tube this weekend) I'm on part 2 and I'm already coding. The funny thing is, I'm using BBEdit to work on it and while futzing around, I noticed there was a HTML Palette in the menu options. So I pulled it up and oh man, it is schweet! Now I know what HTML coders love BBEdit so much. And here I was using it all this time as a pseudo-word processor writing stock research, when it had all this cool power under the hood. Wow, I feel like a Ferrari owner who just discovered second gear lol! Having a lot of fun right now, hopefully by the final part (part 7), I'll be footloose and fancy free.

Millennium · Nov 22, 2001, 10:54 AM

The best HTML tutorial I've ever seen is at http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/Guide . It's fairly basic, but it will get you through the basics of HTML and even a little CSS. Truly excellent stuff.

This isn't to say you should code all your pages by hand; WYSIWYG tools can do that pretty well, though you should run them through MacTidy or something when you're done just to clean things up. But you should at least know how to code a page by hand; it will help you for tweaking pages, fixing errors, and the like.

Kestral · Nov 22, 2001, 09:22 PM

For those who want to code "by hand", I can't say enough about BBEdit - I finished that HTMLGoodies.com primer last night (and quite a few more on the site) and it was great. Using BBEdit and the HTML Palette, every time I learned a new tag example on the site, I just clicked on the the palette and boom - all you do is enter the data and BBEdit automatically formats it. Sweet! I'm still not at the point where I can just get a tag dictionary and stop the tutorials, but I have to say, if I knew HTML was this easy, I would have learned it in 1996 (of course, the tutorials at the time sucked dishwater like there was no tomorrow - I tried to find sites on the subject back then and even the simplest tutorials read like a text on advanced quantum mechanics). The next step is to design a vanity web page of some sort. Of course, all of this is leading to my more ultimate goal of learning some form of programming language so I can write programs again. The last time I did so was in the Commodore 64 days, and back then, I wrote a fully functioning BBS system. Keep in mind that despite the ease of use of BASIC, there were no API's - everything, all the I/O stuff, database management of message base, etc etc etc, was all original code done by hand. I can only hope that something like C or Java still follows the same basic principles of programming (ie. registers, loops, subroutines, if-and/or-then). Because combined with the ease of use and power of Interface Builder and the powerful Carbon/Cocao/Java API's, I'm feeling optimistic and hopeful about writing some simple apps. ie. I want to turn my Excel version of my Black-Schoales option pricing calculator into a carbon/cocao/Java(?) app, build my own program fro I-Ching divination, and maybe simple blackjack program. These are simple, straightforward apps that hopefully are relatively easy enough for a newbie programmer, but challenging enough and with just enough instant gratification to keep me interested.

infiniti · Nov 26, 2001, 06:15 PM

May I suggest a book called "The Art & Science of Web Design" by Jeffrey Veen.

It's not very technical, but focuses more on the theory and concepts behind good web design. Check it out.

Cheers,
Infiniti