I want to learn web design using HTML and CSS but don't know how to start. What is the best way to learn those myself? Any recommended good tutorial sites that are easy to understand or with video tutorials? Actually, where do you guys first learn about web design?? Thanks, any suggestions or replies would be appreciated!
First, I'll warn you about w3schools.com. About 50 people will answer recommending them for learning HTML. While you can familiarise yourself with tags and the such there, know that -they have nothing to do with the W3C (who write the specs) -the site is old and has not been updated to keep up with the standards -beware any site that teaches you how to use the font tag : ) Also, knowing a tag doesn't teach you when to use what tag, either. I got started by listening to the Crusty Old Guys Who Know Stuff here, and one of them recommended a book, which I will recommend to you (and it's old enough that you can get it at your public library if they stock computer books) called Build Your Own Web Site the Right Way Using HTML and CSS by Ian Lloyd. Ian Lloyd runs the website Accessify.com and he's one of this group of Web Guys who are busy dealing with modern HTML and CSS issues, along with all these other guru dudes like Roger Johanssen (456bereastreet.com) and Eric Meyer (meyerweb.com) and Molly Holzschlag (I always butcher her name sorry... molly.com) and Dave Shea (mezzoblue.com) and Jim Thatcher (jimthatcher.com I think) and Paul O'Brien (css guru, pmob.co.uk though he keeps plannig to update that site : ) and Mike Cherim (http://green-beast.com/blog/) etc etc etc... Anyway, you learn by building but having a book at your side telling you what you're doing and why and how you can do it differently and why and how NOT to do it and why... that's pretty important. If you just hate book learning there's HTMLdog's tutorial, though I could never learn to build a web page with just an HTML tutorial... there's knowing what tags do and then there's using them together properly. It's best to use a simple text editor (not a Word processing program cause they add their own tags, but something like Notepad or something improved like Notepad++, EditPlus, Crimson Editor, gEdit/Kate, etc will be more than enough. Use semantic HTML tags (meaning, if the text is a paragraph, use a paragraph tag and if it's a header use a header (h1, h2...) tag and if it's a list of links (a menu is a list of links) use a ul or ol... and don't think of how it will look when you're writing it. Let CSS do as much of the styling and positioning work as possible. Let the Document Flow also do as much work for you as posisble. That's the way things go on a page without CSS applied. There's a Natural Order. I got CSS positioning under my feet with HTML Utopia: Designing Without Tables Using HTML and CSS by Rachel Andrew and Dan Shafer. I never designed in tables, but it got the positioning stuff straighter in my head. Start building sites, as you learn more the more you do, read forums (the ones with Crusties), and try not to learn any bad habits. If someone says something is a bad idea, find out why, and try to avoid doing it (like, using DreamWeaver when you're actually trying to learn to code yourself-- dreamweaver is for people who don't want to learn but want a website). Assume it will take you a good year to really feel like you can do anything (depending on how fast or slow you are with learning computer stuff). -poes
Also here is an example learning path: http://phpnoob.net/?p=146 After a couple of tutorials, best would be if you start practicing and discovering things one by one..
I started off with this tutorial and created my first website with it : http://www.subcide.com/tutorials/csslayout/ Explains basics of CSS layout and gives a good navigation structure too, really a good tutorial. Then, once you create your first website, start reading http://alistapart.com/ and generally hang around forums and read posts, subscribe to http://www.css-discuss.org/ , it's the best CSS list out there. All that read every day, learn every day and you'll get good.
Another great tutorial site that will help you link your HTML to your CSS is www.htmldog.com This is the site I used to learn CSS.
A good resource i often recommend is WebMonkey. Set up a server on your machine with wamp or xampp or opt for free hosting - build and learn should be the approach. Cheers
I'll second A List Apart, though their older stuff doesn't get updated, and sometimes they (gasp) post stuff and some big chunk of accessibility gets forgotten (and they're all into that stuff). But it's got great articles written by various gurus.
i like w3schools there are many websites which offer tutorials on html and css you can allways start with w3school and they are very simple to read also step by step with example Regards Alex
To learn XHTML CSS an excelent book is a Sitepoint one that I saw in the bookshop, have a look, white cover nice design probably we can se it going to their site.