What's the first steps to learn Webdesign ?

i’d say basic html. best done in notepad so you can get a feel for the code and what it does.

Learn HTML. It is pretty easy.
Learn CSS. That isn’t so easy.

I would really suggest buying a book on them. I suggest this book. I have read it and it is great if you are just starting out.

html: find a page you like and copy-paste its code (right-click on the page, select “view code” and then copy that onto a notepad page). Now tweak various parameters and see what happens (on you pc of course, not the original page).

A good place to get advice is webmonkey

I’d suggest using Notepad++ because of syntax highlighting.

Using firefox and the firebug and webdeveloper add on’s really helps. it lets you see how the page is broken down.

Firebug rules

Firebug is addictive.

It is one of the things that keeps me on Firefox. I don’t really want to switch browsers for different stuff. Unless I am checking if a site works.

I switched to Firefox because of it.

First, learning the basics is a must, HTML isnothing but the skeleton of it all.. Then once you master that, you’ll want to add some CDs, JS, php, flash… If you don’t feel like reading a book, I suggest googling “HTML for beginners”. There you will find good hits that will help you. Applications for web design? I use the adobe creative suite, dreamweaver is great.

Good luck!

wrap your head around HTML and CSS to start, stay away from tables and inline styles.

I would suggest using Dreamweaver to begin but once you start getting comfortable with code switch to a better code editor like Textmate if you have a Mac. 3 reasons i say that is because:

1. Dreamweaver is trash.
2. Dreamweaver gives you all the answers to what your writing, which may sound nice, but you wont remember anything, which is bad.
3. Dreamweaver has “design view” which is horrid, stay away. And i see so many people in it and they are utterly lost for answers when the webpage to made in “design view” fails completely online. stay away from design view.

so switching to a code editor like Textmate you actually have to know what your doing and not rely on Dreamweavers cheat funcitons.

In your question you said you want to learn “web designing”. That’s a tricky phrase, lol.

If you simply want to build your own site, then use tools like Joomla, Frontpage, Sitebuilder, Homestead, Dreamweaver, or a hundred others. These are cut-and-paste programs that do all the programming for you. Search Google for site building software, there’s lots of it for free (and some offer cheap monthly hosting). Just drag & drop your way to a cool site.

But if you want to actually learn and understand coding, start with videos about HTML and move up from there. Go to YouTube and search for “learn html”, “learning html”, and every similar phrase you can think of. There’s nothing better than a real person showing you.

After a week or two of playing around you’ll be able to move on to more interesting things. HTML is the foundation that holds all the other elements together. Before you learn javascript, php, css, and other things, you have to understand how a page of code flows from top to bottom, and have an idea of what’s going on that’s causing things to appear on screen. HTML will give you that broad overview of how programming works, in the simplest and fastest way possible. And it’s easy to learn additional things once you have the basics. (The new HTML 5 will change the way some things are currently being done anyway, so worry about that other stuff later. HTML will always be the foundation.)

You need nothing more than Nopepad (or equivalent on Mac). Like @wenn said, typing the real code manually will make you learn faster, and give you better understanding and retention of the material. Not to mention complete control of your site.

(Firebug won’t do anything except leave poor a_emad90 staring at things like <span> and <div> and class= without the slightest clue what any of it means. Yikes!)

@SecondGlance – VERY GOOD POINT!!!!

I should have said it was an invaluable tool in the process of learning, testing and examining your web designs, as well as those of others.

It is not a web design tool as is Dreamweaver.

HTML

Of course that should read “Notepad” rather than “Nopepad”. Although that could be an interesting name for something.

The first step to web design is learning how to use resources. Such as looking at the many questions already asked here about how to learn web design, as they contain a great deal of information.

“Web design” is too broad of a field to just learn. Do you want to code websites? Do you want to design their visuals but not code them up? Do you want to master using a CMS such as Wordpress?

I do agree that learning HTML and CSS are a good place to start. You don’t need to invest one penny into learning it, you have all the tools already, use a simple text editor like Notepad and do a google search for “html tutorials” and “css tutorials” to find information. Then, simply follow along. You can get a book if you want to or you’re more of a book learner person, but pretty much all of my web design knowledge I got for free via looking and learning online.

My advice: Go to http://www.w3schools.com/

you can learn the basics easily there :)

if i am a beginner to html and css and coding but very highly motivated with plenty of free time… how long and difficult would it be to learn coding to the point that i could create a site with user profiles and interactive blogging??

i appreciate any advice. thanks.

@tmp1418 quite a while, and quite difficult unless you have an aptitude for programming and databases.

to make from scratch youll have to know a lot of programming to be able to have user profiles and such. Youll need to know things like PHP, mySQL, understand how databases work, understand the safety/security aspects of doing that.

there are some frameworks that make it easier to do what you want, but you still need to know how to use the programming used in those frameworks.

if you are have a spare couple years and dont need to do anything besides learn programming then you might be able to figure stuff out. its not easy stuff.

best of luck

thanks! i appreciate the honesty and i certainly don’t expect it to be an easy endeavor… do u suggest picking up books on the subject or can i be confident the web will provide up-to-date and accurate resources?? well i guess step one is learning HTML over again after 6th grade! :D is there an order to the rest of the coding components (CSS,CDs,JS,php,flash,mySQL,databases,security/safety) that will make transitioning from one to the next more smooth and productive??

thanks again!