WEB CREATION TOOLS

Once you’ve registered a domain name and associated it with a hosting package, you’re ready to start building a website. You will achieve the best results if you build your site by hand. It makes sense to consider the options on offer from your hosting provider, as well as any tools you may already have or can download.

When you surf the internet, you use your web browser — and the power of your computer — to download and convert HTML files into the visual, aural and textual content you see on the screen. At its simplest, HTML is plain-English programming code that contains the textual content, page structure and instructions that determine how your browser should display the web page, as well as links to other pages.

If you click the View menu option in Internet Explorer or Mozilla Firefox and select Source, you can see the code for the web page you’re viewing. You don’t need to know how HTML works or how to write your own because the site-builder tools here and the web-design software will enable you to create complex sites without ever seeing HTML code.

However, HTML is easy to understand, and if you take the time to learn it, you will be better equipped for the ongoing development of your site (see Chapter 3). At the very least, it will help you to appreciate the underlying structure of web pages.

HTML Code

HTML code can be written in an application as basic as Windows Notepad. Breifly however a HTML editor highlights the tags (the elements that defines how content appears) in different colors, numbers each line and can insert tags for you, making each line and can insert tags for you making the the HTML easier to read and create.

A free. lightweight editor that includes syntax highlighting for a number of programming languages, including HTML separates your content from the instruction tabs that tell browsers what to do. When you create a new HTML file, the basic structure is already in place and you simply add the content, while formatting and structure tags are just a click away.

Word-processing applications such as Microsoft Word and OpenOffice are also potential HTML editors. Both allow you to save a document as a web page, so they can create an HTML file and a folder that contains all the images on your page. You can combine the table function with inserted images and formatting to create quite complex HTML pages

Freedom Rules

Almost all web hosts offer some form of site-building tools to help you get your website off the drawing board and on to the internet. Even many free hosting accounts provide limited access to site-building tools. At their most basic, these provide templates that give you varying degrees of freedom over the final look of the page. This template approach means you can quickly get a presentable website up and running.

Yahoo!’s free GeoCities web hosting provides more freedom while still adhering to the template formula, allowing you to rearrange page elements to fit your desired format. If you have a definite vision for your site, though, these tools are likely to be inadequate. Google Sites(http://sites.google.com) provides greater control, and the tools on offer are comparable to those of some commercial software packages. Sadly, the interface is a little clunky; and it isn’t always easy to achieve the desired results. Paid-for hosting services tend to provide more comprehensive site-building tools, and these sometimes include commercial web-design software.

Whether you opt for an HTML editor or  with a wizard-based design tool, such as XsitePro 2 it is possible to produce an very attractive and functional website. Text-based HTML editors can give an incredible level of control over the look of your pages and how they function, though it can be hard to focus on design when you’re deep in code. Site-builder tools make it easy to focus on the design, and give the freedom to produce the site you really want.