For a final paper in one of my classes I possibly will have the option to create a website for my topic. Now for someone with basically no real knowledge of coding, how hard would it be to create a website? Also how much would it cost to have a website? Hosting, domain, etc?

 

Now if your wonder why would someone with no real knowledge of having a website want to take on this project, it is because I'm planning on writing about the "death of print journalism" and it would also be like a metaphor in it's self.

You can use a WYSIWYG editor, and it'll be fairly easy. Google and and you'll find plenty of free ones.

What exactly do you want to do with the website? I mean, do you just want it a blog style or is it just something being made purely for this one subject?

 

Domains and hosting are real cheap (https://www.nearlyfreespeech.net/). Coding isn't that difficult depending on what you want to actually do.

Something purely for my subject, I know what I want wouldn't be very demanding, like I could probably create a mock design in photoshop or illustrator because I know I would want a minimalist design. I think I could even host the site for free through my university so then all I would really need would be to buy a domain.

So, it would just a few webpages?

Yeah, most likely probably somewhere between 4-6 webpages. I couldn't imagine having any more then that.

And would there be information traveling between the pages? If not I think your best bet is a bit of html with css and maybe javascript, depending on what you want to do.

I don't know what you mean by traveling between pages, sorry ha. I've created a rough mock design though. So ideally I was thinking a design something like this. Maybe turn that smaller horizontal bar into a second navigation bar but basically have all my content within the "content" box and have that really be the only area that changes if you guys know what I mean.

 

You could try squarespace. According to the advertisement in every episode of Tekzilla/HD Nation (revision3) it is easy to use, even if you know nothing about building websites.

A program I've used before is WYSIWYG Web Builder. You can get the older versions for free on the internet (www.tucows.com), but the most recent one you'll need to pay to get. Domain names can be purchased at many different sites. GoDaddy.com charges, I think $10 a year, NetFirms.com charges about $8 a year (that's what I use for mine). If you can't host it on your Uni's server, you can try HostMonster.com for hosting, as it's around $4/month to host (I got 2 years of hosting for about $94).

 

 

Try using a package like this

http://drupal.org/

Hosting is cheap if you know where to look.

I get really nice package for less then £11 per year

If you really want to get into web design and extend your knowledge more than just a simple site. I would seriously concider learning a bit of HTML and CSS, there's lots of on-line tutorials such as W3schools.

 

WYSIWYG editors are never very good in my opinion, they never give you an accurate representation of what the page will finally look like when rendered in a browser. Also if you have a knowledge of HTML and CSS, you can quickly rectify problems and even use a simple text editor to write the pages in.

While completely true Clare I still like having a WYSIWYG editor on hand for fast tweaks and placement issues.

 

I've used Dreamweaver (version 8 I really need to update, but money is tight for the company I work for right now) for a while and I only use the actual design editor 5% of the time (if that), but its really nice to be able to select a piece the page and then switch to the code view. It highlights the relevant section of code for that item. Also helps a great deal if you want to mock up a few tables, copy data or want to quickly mock up a page design.

It saves a lot of time and without you have 2+ screens its lot quicker (you need 1 to code in, 1 to view the page in a browser and really another to check out other browsers).

Most of the time a WYSIWYG editor wouldn't work for me as the pages are generated via PHP on the fly. But I do agree sometimes it is nice to have a WYSIWYG view for quick references. I too use Dreamweaver (CS3 Version 9), but I use it mainly as it is scripting aware, has numbered lines which makes it easier for debugging, and because I don't need to have a separate FTP client to upload the pages as Dreamweaver has sites and updates pages as soon as you save them, for me this is a must.

 

In the end though, it's whatever you're comfortable with, and I think when you're starting out WYSIWYG is kinda helpful, but I think it teaches you bad habits.