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A lot of pre-planning is called for because there are several factors you need to consider, which I've touched on below. The choices are MANY...the final decisions are hard to make too! I ended up downloading a lot of demos until I came up with the tools that I wanted to stick with and use! If you are interested in seeing what my choices are as far as image designer, html designer, etc., check out the References page. Don't let this influence you though....check out several programs and find what YOU feel good using! What is good for one person may not be good for another. The BEST programs you can use are those that you feel the most comfy with! First of all, if you don't have an editor to design your site with you may want to check out what all is out there and decide from there what you want to use, what you feel most comfy with. There are literally dozens of editors out there now...its finding the one that you prefer over all the others that is the hard part! Do you want to learn html or do you want to do like I did by taking the "chicken's way out" by using "wysiwyg", meaning "What you see is what you get" editors. This simply means that you don't have to learn html all in one whack... you simply type, insert images, etc., and it does all that "ugly work" behind the scenes for you! Every editor I've experimented with since deciding to change my editor preference of over four years had its own special points of interest for me. I wanted to use them all but of course that would be silly! If you use a "wysiwyg" editor, you will probably also need a text-based editor OR you can use Notepad, to do the fine-tuning of your html. For instance if you want to insert a midi file you need to do the coding from the inside-works *html* of your page, but this depends on what editor you decide that you want to use. The same goes for java scripts, dhtml scripts, etc., unless your editor does nearly all of those things for you too! Some of the editors come with their own method of editing html so read their documentation to see whether you will need one or not! Some programs come with their own ftp program. If your choice doesn't, you need to check out different ftp programs to settle on one of your choice. Again, there are plenty of them out there, making the choice isn't any easier than settling on anything else you like best though! I have found so many different programs that I wanted to use and that final decision was a hard choice to make! Ok, so what is an ftp *file transfer protocol* program? Well, to put it shortly, it enables you to log onto your server where your web site will be hosted and upload all of your pages and images, etc., so that people all over the world can come see your handi-work! The demos come with a help file OR if they don't come with one, if you will go to their web site, you'll most likely find a help section there with help tutorials. If you would rather, you can simply bring up the editor and dig in, but reading at least the basics will really be a big help for you! You might want to check out some of the graphics programs out there as well! There are tons of sites offering free web graphics, this one included, and you might need to edit a button or header, etc., to suit your needs and you will need to know how to go about doing that! While at the downloads site of your choice, check out image editors and find one that you are comfy with using too. They are fun to mess with and learn...some are easier than others...some have more 'bells and whistles' than others. Its finding one that you want to settle on using that is the hard part! I play with several different programs and like to experiment with others too! Once again, some html programs out there come with their own method of inserting text on graphics so that you don't have to! So read the faqs and other documentation to see what all it does and what extras, if any, you will need! Where is your web site going to "live"? Does your Internet Service Provider provide space for web sites? Do you want your own domain and if so where do you want it hosted? Do you want to pay for your web space or do you want it free? There are several places that offer free web site hosting, most of them want to stick unsightly advertising banners on every page you have though. Decide if you can live with that or if you want to set your site up somewhere for a monthly fee. Dig into your favorite search engine and see what all you can come up with and go with what you feel comfy doing. There are quite a lot of different choices, so go with what you feel suits your needs best. I started my site out with my ISP and part of it is still there! Then a year or so later I started up my own domain and am glad that I did it! A domain can be expensive starting out and maintaining though! I could type for hours and fill up a LOT of pages on all of these topics...the best thing you can do is grab a paper and pen and start writing down ideas that pop into your head or various things that you find to check into more thoroughly. Plan out a "lay-out" for your site, figure out how you want to do your site's linking from page to page, what colors do you want to use, oh there are so many things to plan on! What kind of content do you want? Do you want all your pages to look alike or do you want them all different? In planning out your site, here is a suggestion for you! Do it right the first time so you don't end up like me by having to re-vamp it all to get it into order later! If you have graphics, stick all the different graphic types into a graphic folder! Holidays into a holiday folder, etc. This keeps some order to things! For instance: My *holiday* folder contains "christmas", "easter", etc. Each holiday has its own folder with all images for each holiday in with that holiday's pages. The *graphics* is located under "design" on my site...."tubes", "presets", "sets", etc., each is inside its own folder with all content for each in the folder. Here are some sources for you to check out various web page editors and other things you may need...there are tons of sites out there to download demos from or find out other information, these are just a few! It took me quite a while to come to a final decision...I tested quite a few different programs and it wasn't an easy choice to make to settle on anything! *laughing* One of the places that I've really enjoyed visiting and learning new things from is "WebMonkey". Once again there are hundreds of helpful and resourceful sites out there! Find your favorite amongst them all by using your favorite search engine or following other links till you find a site that you like, and dig in! |
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