Website from scratch. PHP? CSS?

[prairiegirl]

Greetings:
I used to do web development, but am self taught, used FrontPage (and others) and am not really a coder (although I certainly can adjust html and javascript).

I am going to be doing a site that will be quite public and I would prefer not to embarrass myself. I'm not really up on PHP or CSS. I always used tables for layout purposes.

I would appreciate advice on how to proceed. Are tables for layout passe? Do I need to use mostly CSS? (I have books, but haven't really studied it yet) And what about PHP?

Arrg. I'm a tad nervous about this. Seems I'm almost starting over.

Thanks in advance for any comments!

[soccer362001]

The best thing to do is to learn CSS and not use tables for layout. You can learn CSS at www.w3schools.com.

[DaveSW]

If you're up for doing things the proper way CSS is definitely the way to go. Drop over to www.chami.com and download a copy of html-kit. Then learn to write html/css. It won't take long and you'll find you avoid the frustrations of table design. Admittedly CSS has other frustrations, but you'll have friends here to help you work around them. Drop me an email if you want more help learning stuff. I do have a css tutorial I wrote myself somewhere that you could read through if you like. It also covers some basics in html.

[erinpika]

prairiegirl,

Sounds like you have a good amount of catching up to do. I would strongly recommend looking into CSS. In the end you will be glad you did as it will save you a ton of time.

1/ If you are not ready to jump whole heartedly into CSS, you can always use a transitional approach - Use tables minimally and CSS where you feel comfortable. This approach worked well for me, now I use CSS for all of my positioning and formating. No one is an expert over night - you learn as you do.

2/ I can't imagine a professional/commercial website created from Frontpage. I'm sure they are out there, but I tend to think of Frontpage as the handyman's do-it-yourself website tool. Professional/commercia sites should be coded by hand (this is my opinion, but it is based on years of misery dealing with Frontpage).

3/PHP is a serverside scripting language. You would need to define your project a little better in order for anyone to make a suggestion as to its application/use.

[Aronya1]

Using PHP for simple includes, like headers, footers, nav bars, etc. can be learned very quickly & easily, and can save lots of time, also.

[toicontien]

Definitely take Dave's advice and download HTML Kit. Then head to my personal web site (button below) and go to "FD: Search." Hover your cursor over "Web Development" and click the link to "HTML Kit Customized (.zip)." It contains dozens of keyboard shortcuts for writing HTML and some plain default templates that validate at http://validator.w3.org/

Also, check out my second post on tutorialforums.com: Same user name, same avatar. It's got great advice for anyone just starting out in standards compliant design: http://www.tutorialforums.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=71112&perpage=15&pagenumber=3

The nut of the thread was some kid posted his site for review. It was a Photoshop image-sliced layout using tables, and of course the standards compliance hawks latched on to this poor kid and basically told him to start over. He was getting kind of overwhelmed for a bit.

The whole thread is an interesting read.

[abkilla]

ya i am going to pick up a book on css soon. but i make my sites in photoshop then slice them then code them. so i dont fully code my sites but i do most of the coding. but hey whatever works for ya. i have never used frontpage to be honest with you. i use photoshop and the occasional use of dreamweaver but not too much im still a bigger fan of notepad.

[prairiegirl]

Thank you for all of your very helpful responses. Even tho they might not have been quite what I was hoping. ;)

I will head out to the different sites you suggested.

soccer362001, DaveSW, and toicontien thanks a bunch for the links and offers of assistance. I'm sure I'll be taking you up on it.

erinpika, I did used to use Frontpage and also Dreamweaver for professional sites. Did not use the weird frontpage tags.

I'm glad to see that there seems to be a consensus here. Now I know where to go.

I'll be baaaaaaaaack...

[PeOfEo]

And what about PHP?
its a server side language, do not get into it until you have a very firm understanding of html and css as it is not beginners stuff. I would say it is intermdeiate material as far as web design goes. (Setting up backend applications, advanced server side scripting with sockets, charting, etc, and making secure applications and ecommerce would be advanced level).