Website Tools and Tutorials

So, you've signed up with Cymru 1 and now have your very own email and Web space. What do you do next? Well, the first step is often building your own personal Web page. To do this you'll need something called an HTML editor. HTML is the special language used to build Web pages) You'll find plenty of these listed below in the HTML EDITORS section, including many FREE ones, complete with links to the sites where you can find out more about them.

Users of our professional hosting service who already have an HTML editor should go directly to the SCRIPTS section. Here you'll find links to sites offering ready to use PHP and Perl scripts that you can use on your sites. The scripts available range from simple things like hit counters all the way to fully fledged portal systems, BBS-type forums and e-commerce shopping baskets.

And for those who want to learn more about anything from HTML itself to PHP, Perl and ASP, our TUTORIALS links section is the place to go.

Website Design Tools

Shareware and freeware

CoffeCup HTML Editor: An excellent, full-featured HTML editor full of easy to use features. Includes a built in FTP utility, Flash support and much more. Highly recommended. This program is shareware - certain functions are limited until you register (about $49). Click here

Cool Page: This WYSIWYG (graphical) HTML editor makes it easy to create good-looking web pages very quickly indeed. It comes complete with various graphics and multimedia files and templates for you to use in your projects. Good for beginners. This program is freeware but contains nag screens and one or two other annoyances designed to encouraging you to buy the full version. Click here

Actual Drawing: We cannot recommend this extremely powerful WYSIWYG HTML editor highly enough. If you want a program that makes it easy to create professional-looking web sites without compromising too much on power and flexibility, this is the one to choose. This program is shareware. Registration costs around $59. Click here

1st Page 2000: This is a professional-style editor aimed at advanced users, with no WYSIWYG features. It makes up for this by making it easy to do your coding by hand, and is well worth a look once you start to feel the limitations imposed by most WYSIWYG-type editors. This program is freeware.Click here

Commercial

Adobe (Macromedia) Dreamweaver: This is the product we tend to use most when starting the design process for our sites and those we create for our customers. It boasts almost every feature under the sun and provides both WYSIWYG and direct source editing. It is very easy to use, but the supplied manual is rather disappointing, so we'd recommend buying one of the many tutorial-type books on the market that take you through, step by step, the process of getting familiar with the program. This program costs around £300 + VAT. An ideal companion product for Dreamweaver is Adobe Photoshop, the professional's choice for photo editing and Web graphics design (around £400+ VAT). Click here

Microsoft FrontPage: If you are an absolute beginner, or a professional needing to create a good-looking Web site quickly, Microsoft's FrontPage is hard to beat. Be aware that it can sometimes to create slightly inelegant, and occasionally non-standard code that non Microsoft browsers might have problems with. Please note that to unleash the full power of FrontPage, you need a FrontPage-enabled Web site. Currently this feature is only available to Gold and Silver customers. Connect customers can still make use of many the features provided by this program, however.Click here

More options

The programs we've listed above are just a small selection of the HTML editors available. You'll find hundreds more, mostly shareware and freeware but also some commercial ones, not to mention many other types of Web authoring and programming tools at CNET's Download.com web site. Click here

Still can't find what you are looking for? Search with Google:

Tutorials

Don't know where to start when it comes to building your first Web page, or creating your own PHP or Perl script? There are thousands of books on the subject, most of which you can order online via www.amazon.co.uk, but there are plenty of free online tutorials and backgrounders too.

Stickysource.co.uk tutorials section. PHP, HTML, Java and ASP ....and more. Click here

Netstrider.com tutorials section. Mainly HTML, but some information on scripting languages (e.g. PHP) too. Click here

Developers Network. PHP tutorials and much more, including an introduction to PHP. Click here

More options

The sites we've listed below are just a small selection of those available containing good tutorials. Have a look at Yahoo.com's programming language listings for more options. Click here

 

Still can't find what you are looking for? Search with Google: