To learn website design ... what you should and must learn ?

Sure thing ! It's not about a week HTML, a week CSS or something like that. I think if you are new in this you need a week to understand what HTML, CSS, PHP and JS is Don't try to start with HTML+CSS and PHP at the same time. As SilentCoder told you, PHP is pretty hard to learn!

 

# HTML
# CSS
# PHOTOSHOP

for only web design you need learn all this

the best practise (if you already know some HTML + CSS + PHOTOSHOP)
is to take a really good xhtml web template and see the code and rebuild it

 

Well for starting it up you should be well familiar wth HTML as its the basic language.. and then it will be a plus if you could learn CSS with some photoshop skills..

later we have PHP, ASP, .Net and other languages

 

learning HTML and Photoshop is must and being professional use you should also know the css which gives your website's consistency layouts with few time.

 

Yes i am fully satisfied with the suggession as all are essential to be good designer.

 

If your passionate about it you can learn anything, but beware PHP is really difficult

 

Great motivator ... THANK YOU SIR !!

Repu added.

 

This one is really significant advice -

 

I'm also curious about this.

I want to learn about web design as well, and I already know a little bit of CSS and HTML. It seems from the advice given here that I'm already off to a good start with my basic knowledge of those things.

So, should I write HTML and CSS by hand in a text editor? Or should I learn how to use programs like Frontpage and Dreamweaver in order to create pages visually, and then go back through with a text editor to check and correct the finished page? I've heard that web page creation software often generates sloppy code, but that was a long time ago and I'm wondering if they've improved since then.

 

When you say Photoshop, which one do I buy? There's Photoshop CS5, Photoshop elements, etc. Could you please be more specific in which feature of Photoshop should I start out with if learning to design websites?

Thank u!

 

well... wordpress template is built with PHP, so PHP is also included in the basics that you need to learn

This is the road to (just) edit a wordpress template
HTML > CSS > PHP

Yes, that's enough, but if you want to build a wordpress template from scratch, it will be a long road upon
HTML > Photoshop > CSS > PHP > Javascript > flash (the last two is just for some eye candy animation)

 

Regardless of what type of site you're making; HTML and Photoshop should make the foundation of your knowledge. Once you have the hang of it, you can implement CSS.

 

HTML & CSS are the basics.
Photoshop will help you to put your ideas on to screen.

Most modern websites use web2.0 stuff. So a bit of jQuery won't hurt as well.

 

You should also try to get some basic knowledge of PHP if you want to modify existing themes or plugins. And another optional tool will be jQuery as more and more designers are now using jQuery in themes & plugins.

You can see follow my blog for webdesign (in my signature) as I will be updating content in it related to wordpress, css, jquery & photoshop regulalry. I started this site last week so right now there is very few content but I will be updating it regulalry.

 

I would say, firstly HTML, CSS and photoshop are essentials for basic. PHP and javascripts are needed too for advanced designing.

 

HTML, CSS, Photoshop/Fireworks

 

Can any one tell me the function of php ?

 

oh my ... where does one start to answer that question?

I came into web design with a background of LaTeX and C programming (I'm showing my age there). Moving to HTML and PHP was trivial. Starting to learn programming from scratch, with PHP, in a web environment, is just asking for shonky code without an underlying understanding of ... well ... ANYTHING programming related.

Picking jaw up off floor now ...

 

PHP is a powerful tool for creating interactive and dynamic web pages. To get skilled in PHP, you should have a basic understanding of HTML/XHTML and JavaScript

 

While starting with learning you don't need that big list .
HTML or XHTML is good enough to create several eye catching websites which makes users feel good even. This is as true as we are now fighting to keep things simple in our designs. I have been designing web sites for years and have seen users to struggle with many "good looking" websites to get their requirements fulfilled. So its really true that if you want to be a good website designer, XHTML should be at your tip, nothing else is not that much necessary nowadays. You should know standards, validation and compatibility. Thats what we are denoting quality with.
Now if you want to create graphically good looking websites then you can go for CSS first, then Photoshop. And for some movements in the page you can go for Flash . Also then you can take up JavaScript which is now a very powerful option to improve the user experience of your users.
All other things are optional for a web designer.