Is it Possible to Build a Sophisticated Website from Scratch Using HTML Code?

[tenacity2986]

Ok so I am wondering is it possible to write html code from scratch to build a pretty sophisticated website? Like let's say I want a website containing flash, forums, and I want members to sign up given I have a site people want to visit. I plan on starting slow and getting familiar HOWEVER, i want to use my own server rather than renting one and just renting the domain name instead. Is this even possible? Shed some light please. Thankyou


Is an all flash website sound ridiculous?

 

[Disowned]

It is possible to code a website entirely from scratch by hand, however it is painfully slow. I would suggest using a WYSIWYG editor to do the HTML and CSS coding for you once you start building the site and plan to use that design.

As for building your site entirely out of flash, well its not like it hasn't been done before (plenty of commercial sites are 100% flash.) However making your site entirely out of flash tends to drain the RAM of whoever is viewing that site. Not only that but the site will run slower for most users (as a lot of people aren't on broadband [cable]) it will also won't be auto indexed into most search engines. That is because most web spiders can't crawl flash (as they look for HTML structures in web sites.)

Yes, coding in flash will give you more flexibility to be creativity but what you trade in for that flexibility is less visibility with search engines and bogging down your users with added loading time. Instead I suggest you mix the two (basically the extra stuff you can't do with HTML you add flash modules for.)

It's okay to code by hand if you are just learning the material, however if you plan on doing this as a freelancer you will have to learn and be adept at using programs like Dreamweaver.

 

[Tac-Tics]

An all flash website would be painful to use.

Generally speaking, web pages are not just HTML. Knowledge of HTML is critical to web programming, but it's not sufficient to make anything more complicated than an image gallery or an essays page or a fansite.

Every useful web page makes use of a programming language on the server side. Examples would be Ruby, Python, PHP, Perl, etc. You use either CGI (oldschool) or a language-specific web-framework (ruby on rails, django) to access data coming from your users (through POST and GET variables). Then, your program takes that data, usually makes a few trips to the database (MySQL, Oracle), and spits out a response in the form of HTML code.

For things like wikis, message boards, or blog engines, you can download packages (often written in PHP). You just drop them into a folder, follow the set up instructions, and bam, you have a blog or whatever.

Web programming is a messy ordeal and you have to be at least a little familiar with all sorts of technologies, but try starting out with a static HTML pages or PHP scripts and see what you can make =-)

 

[tenacity2986]

Ok, i have made my own flash .swf files and i have also created webpages with links to other pages from my homepage with pictures, music in the background, etc , but they don't give me the wow factor and seem pretty low quality. I've heard of dreamweaver, is it pretty much just layying out buttons, links, etc and it writes the html for you? thanks in advance for my nOOb questions

 

[Disowned]

Ok, i have made my own flash .swf files and i have also created webpages with links to other pages from my homepage with pictures, music in the background, etc , but they don't give me the wow factor and seem pretty low quality. I've heard of dreamweaver, is it pretty much just layying out buttons, links, etc and it writes the html for you? thanks in advance for my nOOb questions

Yes, that's what dreamweaver pretty much does. It let's you focus on the actual design aspect of web design while doing the HMTL and CSS coding for you.

 

[tenacity2986]

sweeeeet. so when people say they are webdesigners, they are really juss good at assembling a neat website in dreamweaver i guess than huh? I imagine i could import .swf files into dreamweaver and place them onto the homepage layout however I wanted, is this correct? Yah I am trying to torrent the hell outta photoshop and now dreamweaver of course because I am a cheap jew with serial crackers. lol wish me luck

 

[Disowned]

sweeeeet. so when people say they are webdesigners, they are really juss good at assembling a neat website in dreamweaver i guess than huh? I imagine i could import .swf files into dreamweaver and place them onto the homepage layout however I wanted, is this correct? Yah I am trying to torrent the hell outta photoshop and now dreamweaver of course because I am a cheap jew with serial crackers. lol wish me luck

Yes, a web designer focuses on the look of the site. They also focus on the page weight of the web site, that is how much code is needed to make the page work and load as fast as possible. With the new suite it is possible to import flash files into dreamweaver.

Side Note: What the other poster was talking about earlier in this topic is more akin to being a web developer. They are more like software engineers for the web, that is building new platforms to make the page dynamic. It's amazing what these people can do and because the web is entering a second era per say things like AJAX and Ruby on Rails have been developed because of web developers. It's partly the reason why I decided to study Computer Science. Now only if I can survive this without going insane.

 

[michinobu]

Yes, a web designer focuses on the look of the site. They also focus on the page weight of the web site, that is how much code is needed to make the page work and load as fast as possible. With the new suite it is possible to import flash files into dreamweaver.

Side Note: What the other poster was talking about earlier in this topic is more akin to being a web developer. They are more like software engineers for the web, that is building new platforms to make the page dynamic. It's amazing what these people can do and because the web is entering a second era per say things like AJAX and Ruby on Rails have been developed because of web developers. It's partly the reason why I decided to study Computer Science. Now only if I can survive this without going insane.

Yeah, I hear ya. Computer science is pretty hard.

 

[pantaz]

Is an all flash website sound ridiculous?

That is a big no-no in my book. Even for a site dedicated to graphic design, you must provide "[URL]http://www.w3.org/WAI/intro/accessibility.php"[/URL] for non-graphic users/devices.

A great source for learning from the mistakes of others is "http://www.webpagesthatsuck.com/"".