Hi everyone, I am new and was hoping someone can guide me about my way. I am experience in VB but am trying to take a jump into the html world and plan on creating a website. I have a webhost in mind that supports mysql, a paypal account, and was in need of help on whether to use a CMS or something like Dreamweaver? My goal is to have a site that has pages with the following infomation main page product infomation page How the product works page FAQ page Contact Us page and then have a link to the paypal upon choosing which consulative service the consumer would like. The service would have a one time startup fee and then a monthly reoccuring charge.(I believe paypal would be able to handle this) With my desciption in mind is there some CMS that would best meet my needs or another software that i can use? Any help is greatly appreciated as i am learning something new everyday.
For an under 10 page site static html is your best bet. In reality you only need to create one nice looking page and then use that as a template for the remainder. Take the time to learn the basics of html using a css stylesheet and divs , not tables for structure. I started with FrontPage and it took me years to overcome the crappy code. DW is reputed to be better but it still won't compare to a hand coded site. Notepad2 (free) is all you need.
I see your suggesting a static page. One follow up question if i may. I was thinking of trying to design my one html form page to gather the name address phone number and product ordering before sending to the paypal link. I guess i would be able to do such with my unlimited mysql that my host provides. Then I could have Paypal send back a note one the fee was processed to my database to start processing the order. Would the static route still be the route to go? I am new so if my thinking is out of wack or if you have a better suggestion on how to accomplish this i am all ears. Thanks
Sure you can. You can even parse an html page as php (run php on an html page) on most servers. Most of my sites are php pages where I just use the include function a lot so I only have to edit one header, footer, nav menu and one ad box. The main content is unique to each page. That is all a CMS does.