Creating a Web Site - Some basics

Introduction

Many people who have access to and visit the various web sites on the Internet, also end up wanting to setup their own web site.

There are a number of actions that have to carried out to achieve this, the first of which is to create some web pages of your own. One way to do this is by using your own Web Editor (word processor like software for web pages) which you then 'upload' to your new web site.

We have included some information below to act as an introduction to creating web pages. We will expand on this in a later article.

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Where to start?

Before you can create a web page, you first need to know a bit about HTML, the 'language' of web pages. We have selected some books for you which are listed at the end of this article, but the W3Schools is an organisation that provides free online training for a number of web page building related tasks. As well as HTML, they also cover XHTML (a newer version of HTML), Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) and many more web related technologies. For us, it 'is' the place to start.

Start with the HTML Primer, this will show you all the HTML basics that you need to get going. Don't worry about what tools you need, the lessons start off by getting you to use the 'Notepad' application on your own PC (or the 'SimpleText' text application if you're on a MAC) and then moves you on to using a number of HTML examples with their own online HTML editor. Simply follow the or buttons to move through the various lessons.

Next you might want learn about XHTML, this XHTML Tutorial will show you the differences between HTML and XHTML.

Some background info - XHTML is a stricter and cleaner version of HTML. XHTML is also a W3C(a 'guardian' of WEB standards) recommendation. A W3C recommendation means that the specification is stable, that it has been reviewed by the W3C world-wide membership, and that the specification is now a Web standard. W3C defines XHTML as the latest version of HTML, XHTML will also gradually replace HTML. To allow for this, all new browsers now have support for XHTML.

The pages you are reading have been created using the XHTML standard.

Now that you have created some basic HTML pages, we would recommend that you now take a look at the Cascading Style Sheet (CSS) Tutorial, this will tell you about another way that you can control the style of your web pages.

Finally, when you've looked at HTML, XHTML and CSS visit the Web Primer, this will explain some more Web technologies, what 'Webmasters' do and how all of this information comes together to make a successful web on the World Wide Web.

Which HTML editor to use?

Now that you have looked the basics of HTML, XHTML and CSS and understand a bit more about creating web pages, perhaps its time to start using your own HTML (or Web Page) editor.

SeniorNet UK uses WebEditor 2006 from Namo.com for the creation of the SeniorNet UK web pages. However, as there are many different HTML editors on the market, how do you choose which one suits your needs?.

It's important also to start of with a product that is easy to use and provides a number of features to cope with your initial requirements, the generation of simple web pages. If it is also 'free', then that is an added bonus!

We came across CoffeeCup HTML Editor a while ago, it has received a number of good reviews recently. You can download a free version of this HTML editor which you will be able to use to create basic pages, you can then view your work in a 'Preview' tab. If you then like the product, you can the pay the relevant license fee (currently US$49.00 - UK£26.00) to buy the fully featured product which includes a 'what you see is what you get' (WYSIWYG) visual editing window.

HTML Editor Poll

SeniorNet UK is launching its first user poll to find out what HTML editors our members/web site visitors use, if you already have an HTML editor, visit the Poll and cast your vote.

Finally to help you move further on with creating web pages, two book on Creating Web Pages.  Both provide lots of info on HTML for web page creation and also contain free CD's with lots of examples to use when creating your new web site.

Click book cover to buy.

If you have a favourite web page/html editing book, why not let us know via the SeniorNet Forum.

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