Welcome to my little web page. This is not so much a tool for you as it is a tool for me. I have found that the best way to learn something is to try and explain what you know to someone else, and through the process of instruction make sure what you know actually works.
The cool thing about HTML and web page building is just how easy it is to get started, and how fast things can move. You can type up a web page in less than a minute and have it functioning on a web host in 30 seconds more. A web page with useful content to anyone else takes a bit more effort.
What is going to be happening here over the next several pages is the construction of a web site using best principles. The site I am going to build is a small library with a rudimentary catalog and a rudimentary client list, with the capability of clients to check out books. Coding lessons are not a big part of what will happen here. Best practices are.
Current best practice is to seperate content and structure. Content is the material the visitor to the web page reads and uses, structure is formating, style and tools that make the web page work. This makes the page load a lot faster, makes the visitors time at the page more enjoyable because of more consistancy within the page, and makes error checking a lot faster.
Unless all there is to your web page is pictures of your cat, you want to make it dynamic. That is, you want to make it change on a regular basis. When there are new pictures of your cat, you want people to come by and admire them. There are lots of tools to help you make content dynamic and pages interesting.
You will notice as you cruise through the site that the apperance of the site is consistent. When you are looking at the discussion pages the backgrounds and the text follow the same format from page to page. There is always a resource bar over to the left, and a navigation menu on the bottom. This is sturctural stuff and as much as possible, the description of the structure takes place in files seperate from the main text. I can maintain a constant format for all my pages. If I hear that readers would prefer a different format as being easier to read, I can change it in one place and have it affect all pages.
The tools I am going to discuss are some very basic ones. All of them make life easier for your visitor. All of them deal with structure. As far as content goes, you are on your own.
The Tools here are
There are lots of tutorials out there, this is more of a resource guide to what is out there. You will notice a selection of books on the resource list. These are the ones I like best so far. One of the nice things about a dynamic site, is if I change my mind and find something just as useful I can add it, and If I find something better, I can replace it.
To get started, lets look at the book list, which you can find in three different flavors here
Last edit May 13, 2009