I was just thinking about what programs are used to make a website, since any online information about the topic just says the programming languages needed or they tell you about the website hosts or the actual drop and click website creators. I wanted to know what kind of downloadable software can be used to create a website (for free, if that’s possible). I know you can make a small website with Microsoft Office Powerpoint, but I’d like a list of some others, as MOP isn’t really that good for making big websites apparently.
So please, anything you know, any programs, etc. please tell me.
In my opinion, if you don’t want to learn, html, php and a bit of javascript, you should drop the idea of making a website at all. Just use wordpress or whatever, it’s free, looks good, easy configurable and you will not be able to make better anyway.
The only program I’ve used recently that was nice was an html5 animation software called Sencha(it’s free) which is really good for keyframe style drag/drop/rotate animations.
Yeah I’ve been doing some research and found out exactly what you guys have said. @Proandrius- I am indeed willing to learn the languages required, I was just interested as most information online about it doesn’t directly mention that text editors are used. I’m really interested in game development at the same time, just having a play around with making a social media website in Microsoft Word 2007, at the moment, it’d help if their was a way to integrate MySQL. So as a continuation to my question, what are some of the best text editors for a fairly big social media website?
For free? I would check out the Adobe Edge suite. Edge Code is for, well, coding. Edge reflow is for layout without interactivity. It generates the HTML and CSS for you. Edge animate is for interactive and animated HTML5 and CSS. It uses jquery and also generates the HTML and CSS. This is all free to download and use commercially, as they are still just previews and not yet ready for sale.
Now, making a fairly “big social media website” is the same thing as asking how to make a mmo alone. It is not impossible but one must be fairly advanced coder and designer. And then you say “just having a play around with making a social media website in Microsoft Word 2007” which disqualify you from that category.
Don’t take me wrong, but I will advise you as proandrius already say to use Wordpress. You might be able to find some widgets and modules that do exactly what you want even for free. You can also get themes for free.
But if you really insist in making a website by yourself:
Notepad++ as editor (you can use the notepad but it doesn’t have syntax highlight);
a LAMP or WAMP for server (Linux Apache Mysql Php or Windows Apache Mysql Php) which are pre-pachaged kits to install the above mentioned servers
a MVC framework which will save you a lot of time, MVC stands for Model View Controller, I will recommend Codeigniter because of its simplicity of installation and use;
one or more books on SQL, because creating the right entities/relations to store the data is crucial to big websites;
an open page to jQuery website, because you are going to use it a lot (is better than plain js);
a webhost with mySql and Php (not necessarily if you do the developing on localhost, but is advisable to use it as early as possible because there are small differences in behaviour for servers between localhost and online server);
lots and lots of time to learn and start the project over and over again, because you are going to make stupid design decisions and continuing building the website on those decisions is going to complicate the code enormously.
I agree with you scarpelius but feel it’s far more doable than creating an mmo in unity lol. But other than that, yeah you need to understand normalization for designing dbs, sql to interact with it(for mysql)(i had to take a couple classes/certs in school before I ever really put it to use). But from there I found hacking up the highscore php script in unity made me interested in php for a few weeks, and it was nothing to setup a relatively complex db, compared to a highscores board. And bluehost which I use for hosting runs LAMP or even ruby. Or there’s even heroku for using js with node.js. So it’s more accessible for the individual who’s interested than it used to be.
Yeah, thanks for all the replies guys. Yes I realise it’s a big project Scarpelius, but It’s pretty interesting (why else would I do it?) and since I’m only 14 I’ve got heaps of time to learn this stuff and by the time I’m ready to go to Uni, I should be at a medium level of skill.
My vote goes towards using notepad++. HTML and CSS are both pretty damn easy, you can get a hold of the basics in a day, and well there’s just really not much to it.
Web stuff only really gets more complex once you start doing lots of javascript and php back end code.
Even then doing basic javascript and php isn’t that hard.
Also this method of development gives you the most control and in my opinion is much more rewarding because you actually understand how your own website works.
Also notepad++ is free and its all you need.
And this website can teach you nearly everything at a basic level: http://www.w3schools.com/
@Fishman92 - I don’t think my local library would have some, not really sure. They didn’t have anything to do with game development because they’re on a budget and it costs them a lot to order in these type of books (which they say are too advanced for them to have). I’ll just learn online for now (really though I’m actually going to do more with game development to start off with, just posted this out of interest.
I’d also find it interesting knowing what programs/text editors that developers like Mark Zuckerberg (facebook) and Jack Dorsey (twitter) used (haven’t found anything on the internet so far, stating what they used.
You must remember that the first version of Facebook looked very different than it does now. It’s a large corporation now with many developers to get the look it has now. Zuckerburg, when solo, could have used any text editor. They all achieve the same effect.
Use PHPStorm and if you are under a budget then use Netbeans (both do PHP, CSS, JS, HTML, etc…). At its worst use Eclipse, but I don’t recommend it (old at this point); if you want something like Eclipse but maintained well use Zend Studio (it costs though and ain’t cheap). You aren’t going to make any decent website for quite some time, it takes years of experience to learn proper UX design and various CSS tricks for cross browser compatibility as well as conflict states with JS (basically it’s the same as making games, there is a curve). You could also use a CMS like Joomla to jumpstart your websites design extremely quickly instead of designing from scratch and should have a very attractive and functional website with little to no web development experience. Alternative is to hire a professional to make it for you (probably best if site is to market your game).
I’ve been a professional web developer for 5+ years now. For the love of all things don’t use Notepad, Dreamweaver, or any of the other garbage software being suggested to you; please see my 2 suggestions above, I have literally tried -every- IDE.
I just make a new text file on bluehost and code it all right there, can test it live, doesn’t take much longer, and is far cleaner/faster.
I had just a wordpress site because it is easy but it’s so slow even without any plugins/widgets I made the main pages by hand and it’s way faster. Still eventually leads to a wordpress blog but the landing page and main pages are hand made and not hard to update at all…even the gallery I made with javascript and css3 and it’s great.