Good resources for web dev

[zoombapup]

Well, at some point I'm going to have to gather at least minimal skill at developing our websites. I'm getting tired of not being able to just throw together a newletter subscription page etc.

So, are there any good resources y'all could recommend in terms of learning website skills enough to get started with selling online etc.

I'm really looking for good PHP and CSS resources. Anything that teaches me just enough to make a functional, search engine friendly, user friendly, sales page.


I'm not looking to become a pro web developer. Dont mind learning PHP, but really hate HTML :)

Any advice/resources gratefully recieved.

[Pyabo]

hmmmm... I seem to recall an article linked on Digg within the last couple of weeks called "The Top 100 Resources for Learning Web Development" or something equally applicable. Maybe top "tutorials?" Pretty much exactly what you were looking for... and it was organized by category... 10 sites on design, 10 on HTML/CSS, 10 on etc. See if you can find that... maybe I'm smokin' the crack again.

[mot]

With HTML and CSS it's easy, just find a page that you like on the web and look at the source code, it's all there.

Be careful with PHP, the web is filled with lame tutorials written by people who don't know it very well.

[Nexic]

Dont mind learning PHP, but really hate HTML

Well you won't get very far without learning some HTML. PHP and CSS are really just optional extras, HTML is the meat and potatoes.

[zoombapup]

Yeah, I know. But its just lame. I'll live.

[Maupin]

Html is just presentation, so it's not very complicated, and surely there are good WYSIWYG editors available. The ones I tried out in the late nineties didn't completely suck, and they've probably only gotten better.

Content is the most important part of the equation... a simple layout and good content is all you need to make a really attractive website.

[Tertsi]

All current WYSIWYG editors tend to suck if you want an exact, graphically pre-designed layout.

[Gary Preston]

I'm not a fan of Wysiwyg editors, although I've occasionally used them to get a rough layout sorted but usually then throw everything they've generated away and build from scratch using any old editor like Programmers Notepad.

For CSS, I mainly just use the specs and tutorials section
http://www.w3.org/Style/CSS/
http://www.w3schools.com/css/default.asp

Anything that isn't clear after a brief read through is usually sorted by a quick google.

Again for PHP the main documentation is usually enough http://www.php.net/manual/en/

I don't really use any other sites other than those, except for the odd google to find a snippet now and then or clarify how something in the specs is done. So I'd be interested in any other good sites too :P

[Polycount Productions]

Well, at some point I'm going to have to gather at least minimal skill at developing our websites. I'm getting tired of not being able to just throw together a newletter subscription page etc.

So, are there any good resources y'all could recommend in terms of learning website skills enough to get started with selling online etc.

I'm really looking for good PHP and CSS resources. Anything that teaches me just enough to make a functional, search engine friendly, user friendly, sales page.


I'm not looking to become a pro web developer. Dont mind learning PHP, but really hate HTML :)

Any advice/resources gratefully recieved.
Why not grap some template from templatemonster.com and tweak it a bit?

For search engine learning I've heard that Aaron Well's SEO book (seobook.com) is top notch. Can't personally recommend (since I haven't read it), but I've heard many people recommending it.

[oNyx]

Html is just presentation, so it's not very complicated, [...]

You also don't really need much HTML. It boils down to maybe a dozen important tags. All you need is a basic structure with just enough hooks for styling.

---

Follow this rules and you'll save lots of time:
http://www.mezzoblue.com/css/cribsheet/

Good articles about specific details:
http://alistapart.com/

Important Firefox extensions:
http://chrispederick.com/work/webdeveloper/
http://users.skynet.be/mgueury/mozilla/
http://www.getfirebug.com/

[svero]

Im not a big fan of wysiwyg editing for web. I'd echo the sentiments of people saying learn html. I'd say learn html, css, and then php in that order.

[Sysiphus]

Absolutely agree...and that would surely mean also learn browser bugs in table rendering, css problems , and there's plenty of extra things to care about. usually keeping if widely compatible css tags and knowing usual html problems in a or b browser is enough. I'd recommend installing at least IE, Firefox, Opera, Netscape.Mostly IE and Firefox surely..

Yet though, I like and non limited wysiwyg called 1st page 2006. I use the only code mode, it has some advantages over using something like notepad , scite or notetabLight...
But, yep, only after you've learnt enough html and css.

I am often required to totally use DreamWeaver at jobs, but that is not necesarily the only and better option..yet though I like it: is quite good too. But as well I use it in code only mode.

Simply, knowing this things(html, css, php) gives you all the control.

Sadly, there's lots of non compatible stuff. With lots of work, though, you can end up with something rendering well and similar in almost every browser out there (also safari, etc) :

http://www.westciv.com/style_master/academy/browser_support/index.html
http://www.quirksmode.org/css/contents.html
http://www.webmonkey.com/reference/browser_chart/
http://members.fortunecity.com/browsers/
http://centricle.com/ref/css/filters/?highlight_columns=true


I tend to like a lot this site
http://www.richinstyle.com/

There's more advanced specifications, but maybe I am just getting old, I used to look here :
http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/

I dunno, but seems a basic step by step html tut:
http://www.html.net/tutorials/html/lesson2.asp

And if you want to know more advanced stuff, xhtml, etc:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTML

i did picked a lot of info on browsers probs in here:
http://www.utoronto.ca/ian/books/xhtml2/exerpt/css-4a.html

There's much other stuff you go finding as you work, in a or b browser...IMHO, this must evolve, as is now, if want to keep every user happy, is a royal pain.
Ie, pngs transparency bug in IE6(yet the most used browser), etc...

[KNau]

I've always used WSIWYG editors and never had a problem. I'm curious what percentage of time the above posters spend working on their websites as opposed to developing games.

Not to offend but a few of the posters who stated against WSIWYG editors have sites that are essentially affiliate link farms, which is a different business model than developing and selling one's own games.

[Sysiphus]

Well, I have used both ways. And indeed yet do...

When you combine it with other scripts, systems, etc, it comes handy to go down to the code.

I also bang something fast in a wysiwyg when in a hurry or if doesn't matter. But knowing a bit of the mentioned allows me to control over the output. It can be important , not needed, or essential, depending on every case.(btw, lately my profession is more web design than making games..yet though, I've worked in more than 14 comercial games in the past(inside companies))

[Nexic]

Not to offend but a few of the posters who stated against WSIWYG editors have sites that are essentially affiliate link farms, which is a different business model than developing and selling one's own games.

Huh? Who has an affiliate site?

WSIWYG is fine for a basic site but if you plan on doing anything remotely special you need at least a basic understanding of HTML. For example designing a site in photoshop, then chopping it up to make a webpage is often tricky in WSIWYG editors since they sometimes do unexpected things that ruin the positioning when it really needs to be exact. You will also find your page bloated with useless code that can often make browsing slower for certain people and in some extreme cases can mess up your search engine rankings.

[Greg Squire]

I'm a professional web developer by day and I'd echo svero's sentiment. WYSIWYG editors have gotten better over the years, but they can still introduce some bloat and sometimes the HTML code will still needs to be tweaked (cleaned up) when precise alignment is needed. Once you start writing code (PHP or the like) that generates HTML code, you really need to know what the HTML is going to do.

So I'd recommend svero's same order: Learn HTML, CSS, then PHP, and maybe some Javascript (for form validation and the like). At least the basics of all these.

It's also important when first learning web development to know what is occuring on the server and what is occuring on the client. It's not a self-contained like a standard stand-alone application.

PHP isn't my strong point (I work with Java and JSP mostly), but when I've done stuff with it I've turned to the source (which would be http://www.php.net/manual/en/index.php). There's lots of example code and resources out there, but as previously mentioned some of those aren't the greatest example of well structured PHP code.

Here's a few begining PHP tutorial sites (no sure if they are the best out there or not).

http://www.w3schools.com/php/default.asp
http://www.freewebmasterhelp.com/tutorials/php
http://www.phpbuddy.com/

[brianhay]

As web design isn't a core, recurring part of your business, why not just use a quality content management system like Drupal (http://www.drupal.org/)?

You'd still need to learn some HTML, CSS and maybe PHP (at least to install and configure PHP apps etc) but you could start with one of the many accessible, tableless, CSS templates and modify to suit your needs.

On the other hand, CMS's are good for medium to large sites but might be overkill for a small game site. In this case, a good HTML/CSS template with simple PHP includes for common page elements like site navigation, header, footer and search might be a better option.

Brian.

[zoombapup]

thanks for the info people. I've looked at HTML before (I've written web browsers before), so it wasnt really the HTML that was bothering me, other than my dislike for it.

It was really that I didnt want to spend too much time on this.

In the end, I think I'll pick up a valid CSS tableless template and hack it up a tad (as Brian suggested). I'm just useless with any form of visual styling really, so I was a bit windy about it :)

[Michael Flad]

http://www.csszengarden.com/

this is a great sample page for what can be done with CSS alone. It's not a tutorial site or the like but I found it while searching for information about webdev and it's pretty interesting if only as some kind of inspirational source.

[Maupin]

thanks for the info people. I've looked at HTML before (I've written web browsers before), so it wasnt really the HTML that was bothering me, other than my dislike for it.

It was really that I didnt want to spend too much time on this.

In that case, the easiest thing to do is pay someone to design a page around your content. Shouldn't be too expensive for a static page.

Depending on how complicated you want your page to be, you can also just take a few hours and copy a layout you like and insert your content. Though with CSS that's not as easy for a beginner as it used to be.

The most important thing to remember is that a page doesn't have to be complicated to look good or be useful. Content is king, and often simple is better.

[michalczyk]

I found these sites/forums very informative when developing my own site:

http://www.sitepoint.com/
http://www.webmaster-talk.com/
http://forums.digitalpoint.com/