Help Ristar sort his life out

[Ristar]

You guys may know me as a handsome, skilled music composer - creating fantastic scores that capture the essence of the subject matter perfectly.

What you don't know is that I started a job yesterday that absolutely guzzles dicks. It's probably one of the worst jobs I've ever had and I've realised that I'm going to have to learn some new skills as Music and Art don't really get you anywhere unless you have very good luck.

Now, what I would like to do is teach myself web design. There are a lot of people out there that would love to have a website made for them and I reckon I'm smart enough to do it.

However I'm retarded when it comes to HTML and such so I was wondering whether any of you beautiful people have any advice on books I can read that will help me learn this stuff.

I would like to learn some HTML and CSS to begin with. Any advice on other things I could learn? And any good books for learning these things?

My job seriously sucks though, it's one of those where everyone hates it and is just waiting for the next thing.

Thank you!!!

[Sparks]

I'm not good with web design, definitely not an "expert," but when I did make a website I did the design in Adobe Fireworks, then imported it into Adobe Dreamworks. This was the most basic of site designs though, and I'm not even sure if it was stable or not. Either way, if I had Adobe programs at home (we used them at school) I'd probably still be fiddling around with it. Dunno if you have those or not.

[1LT Worm]

HTML is pretty easy to learn...but CSS is where the money is. I think you should concentrate on CSS. And possibly MySQL (or another database language) and PHP, because while it might be fun to make awesome looking websites in the short term, getting experience with data management will probably help in the long term.

[USC]

W3C Schools has some pretty good tutorials on pretty much every web-based language, as well as reference guides for the obscure stuff.

Adding to what Lt. Worm said, try to study MS Access if you aren't able to practice SQL at the moment; it'll give you the basic idea of how databases work, and is used quite a bit in the corporate work.

[Duckboy]

drink it all away

end it all

life is meaningless

[DimensionWarped]

HTML is pretty easy to learn...but CSS is where the money is. I think you should concentrate on CSS. And possibly MySQL (or another database language) and PHP, because while it might be fun to make awesome looking websites in the short term, getting experience with data management will probably help in the long term.

I keep hearing CSS is on its way out, though honestly I don't know dick about web design aside from a little HTML and AJAX + Ruby on Rails.

[Gamerdude]

W3C Schools has some pretty good tutorials on pretty much every web-based language, as well as reference guides for the obscure stuff.

W3 Schools is a good starter reference, but be careful...it's a good reference for most things, but based on a recent web project I was assigned at work, there are a decent number of things that they don't get right, which gets to be frustrating when you're trying to figure out why something doesn't work as you intend.

For a CSS reference that is wonderful for understanding the compatibilities between browers, I'd highly recommend: Quirks Mode CSS. They have pretty good examples as well.

I've honestly not read a HTML/CSS book in a very long time, so I wouldn't be able to comfortably recommend one. However, if you have a specific question about an issue you're having, I'd be glad to help you figure it out. I enjoy web design. While I'm not that great at the actual design elements, I like working on web pages .

[Andrew]

I keep hearing CSS is on its way out, though honestly I don't know dick about web design aside from a little HTML and AJAX + Ruby on Rails.

How can CSS be on its way out when it's the standard in which websites are styled? And proper CSS3 support is on its way in.

[USC]

W3 Schools is a good starter reference, but be careful...it's a good reference for most things, but based on a recent web project I was assigned at work, there are a decent number of things that they don't get right, which gets to be frustrating when you're trying to figure out why something doesn't work as you intend.

Unfortunately, things not displaying properly in a webpage just comes with the territory. There are way too many variables (computer resolution, different browsers and between browser versions, security restrictions, plugins, etc) to write a perfect standard. That's where the old human intelligence comes in...

[1LT Worm]

Yeah, definitely learn some AJAX....that shit is pretty dope.

[Gamerdude]

How can CSS be on its way out when it's the standard in which websites are styled? And proper CSS3 support is on its way in.

Yeah, CSS isn't going away any time soon.

Unfortunately, things not displaying properly in a webpage just comes with the territory. There are way too many variables (computer resolution, different browsers and between browser versions, security restrictions, plugins, etc) to write a perfect standard. That's where the old human intelligence comes in...

Well, yes, but I'm speaking of things like this: http://www.w3schools.com/tags/att_form_target.asp

The target attribute is not deprecated (stack overflow thread discussing that here: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4828740/non-deprecated-equivalent-of-form-target), even though W3 Schools say it is. This can cause a lot of confusion and searching for unnecessary alternative solutions. That's what I mean by you have to be careful with what W3 Schools tells you because they are known to be incorrect on things frequently enough that it's a problem. They are in no way associated with W3C, who sets the HTML standards.

But yes, inconsistencies, especially with CSS and JS, exist in this realm. You cannot escape it.

[GSF]

I think it will help you to read this.

W3Schools did help me a lot when I tried immersing myself in the world of HTML and CSS, but still: Tread carefully.

I recommend you to try designing whatever comes to mind, a personal CV site, a miniblog, anything - I started modifying forum themes, and diverged from there (speaking of which, I still have the new theme on frozen status, I need to get up and finish it)

As for sites, I recommend checking CSS3info once you get the basics of CSS, where you can check and read on each of the new individual properties of CSS3. http://www.css3.info/preview/

(also note, CSS3 doesn't mean you need to learn a completely different world - it's just CSS2 with more features, functions, and parameters)

Also, there's this gradient generator for CSS3, useful to learn about how the gradients work in it, because modifying values and F5-ing pages is going to get annoying in the long run. http://gradients.glrzad.com/

Finally, this color scheme designer is extremely useful when designing, because you want to keep harmony in your color schemes. It's a key of good design. http://colorschemedesigner.com/

And as for tools, first of all get a real, decent text editor. Notepad++ is a favorite of many, but I preferred Notepad2 back on windows.

Kompozer is a WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) editor that lets you design websites as if you were working with MMF2 frames. It's a good tool, but I recommend designing very basic stuff with a text editor before going deeper.

[Andrew]

On the subject of text editors, if you're up for learning a little (and I mean a little) and happy to use beta software, Sublime Text Editor 2 is all kinds of amazing. Multiple cursors are amazing, CTRL-D to select subsequence finds of selections? *drool* Using anything else feels weird now.

[Aaron C-T]

You'll probably want to check out Codecademy.

[GSF]

Oh right, Codecademy recently added web to its repertoire. Definitely check it out, Ristar.