Archive for the HTML Category

by Louis Zhang

Professional website design is expensive, so it’s worth looking at the various free website design software that is available. There are many reasons why people are looking at developing their own websites.

Websites are an essential part of most businesses today. Those who do not have a website are missing out on a large sector of the market.

Individuals are also becoming more aware of the benefit of having their own website, whether it’s to post pictures to share with family or friends, or a place to showcase their talent via posting their writings or artwork.

Novice web designers would do well with WebPlus, A free website design program. It is readily available online.

Nvu is another good choice that can be used both with Windows and Macintosh systems. You don’t need to know any HTML with Nvu. With a range of pre-developed templates and ready-at-hand images it is easy to put together a website. A range of free tools are included in the program to make things easy.

Most website designers are of the opinion that Dreamweaver and FrontPage are the best software to use in designing a website.

Dreamweaver is an Adobe Product and although it’s one of the most detailed and well-equipped web design software programs, it comes at a steep cost.

FrontPage is also very expensive, and like Dreamweaver requires knowledge of advanced HTML to make good use of the program.

Beginner web designers have no need to go to expensive programs to create their websites. There are so many free website design software options online that it is easy to find a program to create your site. The final design is often very professional in appearance and can’t easily be told apart from sites designed with more expensive software.

As long as the individual using the free website design software understands basic computer commands and takes their time choosing a template, colors and fonts, they can create a great looking website in under a day.

Most free design programs include an interactive tutorial that will educate the user on the workings of the software. This will aid them in producing their own customized website.

If you have had little or no experience in using web design software, there really is no need for you to spend large amounts of money on professional design software. You can simply download a free software package and create your website quickly and easily.

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by Charlie Martin

Of all of the different kinds of programs on the market today, many people feel that Microsoft’s recently released ASP.NET blogging software is the most advanced.

In many ways, this particular program is more adaptable and more versatile than any other blogging software on the market. Although most of the people who favor the program are accomplished coders who are familiar with programming languages like html and C++, this new program from Microsoft is much easier to use than a lot of other blog design software that incorporates hands-on coding.

The best thing about ASP.NET for blogging is you can use a number of languages with it. This allows coders from all over the world to use it.

If you are a seasoned web designer and are familiar with java or perl you will find this software very easy and helpful.

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by Andrew Whiteman

Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) has become as pivotal a technology in the building of websites as HTML. Originally, CSS was mainly used for defining the appearance of text (font, size, colour, etc.). However, with the improvement of browser compatibility with the CSS specification, CSS is now the recommended method of controlling all aspects of the presentation of HTML documents within the browser window.

Adobe Dreamweaver is a very widely used platform for developing web sites and web content and, although used by experienced developers, is also widely used by non-specialists for whom Dreamweaver’s user-friendly visual interface takes the pain out of web site creation. The way in which Dreamweaver implements CSS is very important for the casual user, since it will influence the kind of sites they end up producing.

Previous versions of Dreamweaver assumed that most users would be using tables to control the layout of their web pages. Dreamweaver CS3 is the first version of the program which encourages users to create CSS-based web page layouts. When the users create a new web page, they are offered a series of CSS layouts, on which they can base the new page, consisting of single, double and three column designs.

Instead of using tables to control positioning of web page content, CSS page layout makes extensive using of the DIV element an HTML construct which can contain just about anything, including other DIVs. The preset pages created by Dreamweaver CS3 contain a series of DIV element with the CSS code that controls their positioning. The placeholder text within the DIVs includes useful tips on customising the preset pages for your own use.

CSS works most efficiently when you can place all of your CSS code in one external file and link that file to each of your HTML pages. Dreamweaver CS3 still does not make it easy for inexperienced users to create CSS-based pages in this way. If the user creates ten web pages based on Dreamweaver’s preset CSS designs, each will have its own code embedded within the page itself. There is, however, a great feature for moving embedded code across to an external CSS file. You just select a series of CSS definitions, right-click and choose “Move CSS Rules” which is available in the “CSS Styles” section of the context menu.

Although this ability to move CSS around is really great, it’s not something that beginners will necessarily think of doing. It points to the fact that Dreamweaver could still do with a few enhancements to its implementation of CSS.

Dreamweaver CS3 still has includes the automatic creation of CSS styles whenever the user applies font attributes to text. Simply removing the ability to select text and apply these basic attributes would prevent this from happening. From a beginner’s point of view, it would be far more useful to just have a “Style” menu with an option to create a new style if no styles already exist.

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