CSS & CMS
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- thejudders
Im trying to get into the world of CSS and Open source Contanet Management Systems rather than using flash to build sites.
What Book should I buy on css to enable me to get the most out of it and learn it, to enable me to produce nice layouts (ive got almost 0 programming skills) i shall be using Dreamweaver.
If there are other online resources for content management systems I should be looking at with tutorials or help apart from http://www.opensourcecms.com/
I need to get out of the dark ages in webdesign and produce a nice portfolio site with intergraded Blog and being able to add to it from where ever i am. thats a brief outline of my plans.
- ********0
If you've been using flash maybe you should start with learning some XHTML. CSS is for layout.
After that - PHP.
- IanHalliday0
thats good adivce, once you understand how to produce semantically correct xhtml, and style it with css, you can move onto php. I am only really getting into understanding php and mysql (using cms systems) at the moment, if you search through the pvn there have been some posts recently on css. xhtml is pretty easy to pick up, have a look at www.csszengarden.com and see how the various pages have been made there. (the xhtml is the same for all those pages, only the css differs)
For a grounding in CMS, i recommend this tutorial on MM Dreamweaver dev center, it allows you to build your own blog system, thus gaining a quick insight to the workings of a php powered cms. http://www.macromedia.com/devnet…
- IanHalliday0
As for books, I can't recommend any really, I find the best way to learn for me is to pull apart sites, look at source etc and try and figure out whats going on!
- ********0
Get an XHTML & CSS book.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obi…Then I recommend this:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obi…This is of course unless you want to go the ASP route, in which case life will get very hard very quick.
- ********0
I would also expect the new DW will have ample tools to build CMS.
- monoboy0
I'm in a similar position, after getting to grips (relatively) with pure CSS layouts I'd like to try and figure out CMS stuff.
To get me going on the CSS, I found Eric Meyer's book to be a real help.
- thejudders0
These posts have been of good use to me, ive alreeady got a better understanding of css.. the zengarden site has proved useful also in getting a better understanding of what is possible.
other web links would be great....
- IanHalliday0
To see what can be done with CMS, start looking examples, there are a quite a few blogs powered by Wordpress that have been modified quite heavily. In any case all you need to do is get to grips with the output of the cms, and start building your own pages using the php generated by the cms, or even simpler, edit the default cms css files.
By cms it really depends how complex you want to go. Shaun Inman's site is a good example of what can be done. http://www.shauninman.com
- thejudders0
Any ideas which CMS is responsible for http://www.shauninman.com/ ? Mambo ? CMS Made Simple ?
Would either of these be more suited to replicating a site like that (thats not my plans, but he seems to have a lot of similar content i have in mind)
- IanHalliday0
if you read through the site you will find it is MovableType, quite a common choice, they claim it is the best cms of its kind around. its not open sources tho so get ya credit card out.
- bent0
determinedmoth, why would you say ASP is real hard? I'm just curious, cause I picked it up pretty quick. I imagine PHP and ASP are equally hard. MySQL seems more difficult than SQLServer though.
- ********0
determinedmoth, why would you say ASP is real hard?
bent
(Aug 26 05, 08:43)That's not what I meant. I mean if you go open source you've got access to a huge community of users you can draw upon - like here for example. You'll find plenty of support.
In my experience of ASP and non-opensource technologies you've generally got to pay for the help you need - not to mention the software and hardware. I can safely presume learning ASP will be a longer, harder task.
Then there's the moral standpoint. I'd rather support OS. It's free ;)