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So I recently finished the HTML and CSS course at Codecademy, and I want to practice coding with html and css. My problem though, is that I don't know where to start. I've been searching around to try and find the information I need, but I can't find anything. I kind of feel like it's so obvious noone's ever needed to ask, but I don't know, so here I am, asking.
While searching for the answer to this question, I could only find sites that teach how to use html and css, like Codecademy, and sites that let you test html code like w3schools.com, but no sites that let you practice html and CSS.
Here's my question:
Are HTML and CSS created as .html and .css files on my computer?
You should ask new question for each of the questions you posted.
Where do I code html?
You can use any text editor. Try Sublime Text - download the app for your operating system and install.
Create a new file, saving it with the file exetension .html. Be sure you saved the file in an easy to find location - like you would with any word processing document or spreadsheet.
Open a browser (Safari, Chrome, Firefox).
Click and drag your new HTML file into the tab window.
Make some changes in your HTML file.
Refresh your browser tab.
You're now on your way to learning more about coding HTML in your local environment.
You can create HTML, CSS and JS files on your hard drive and simply open up the HTML file by double-clicking it (or opening it directly through the browser's file menu).
Typically these files are stored on an HTTP server that provides content when asked... but for your purposes to practice HTML and CSS, you can simply save the files on your hard-drive and open them from there.
Yes, they are (but CSS can be stored on a server as well, see 2.). You can then open the HTML file you're editing in any browser and see the output.
You can include CSS in your HTML file by using:
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="path-to-your.css">
The path to CSS file can also lead to an online server, if the CSS file is stored there:
<link rel="stylesheet" href="https://maxcdn.bootstrapcdn.com/bootstrap/3.3.5/css/bootstrap.min.css">
The simplest way I can think to answer is:
Are CSS and HTML coded in a file on one's computer?
Yes
If so, how is the CSS connected to the HTML, and how are these connected to a website?
In the HTML file you specify which CSS files will be used in your page (I'm assuming you know what CSS files are for). The web browsers like Internet Explorer, Firefox or Chrome, read the HTML code and produce the sites you see anywhere.
If you are only practicing basic HTML:
Open notepad (Windows+R, type "notepad", enter)
Write some code like the found here: http://www.w3schools.com/html/html_basic.asp
Save your file with .html extension
Open it in your web browser by just double clicking the file
EDIT. Check this other example to see how to reference the CSS files http://www.w3schools.com/html/html_css.asp.
You only need to put your HTML file and CSS file in a folder in your computer, you don't need go to any site to practice this because HTML and CSS code is interpreted directly by your web browser.
Are CSS and HTML coded in a file on one's computer?
yes and no.
Basically CSS can be anywhere; your computer, your server, someone else's server, etc.
Your Chrome blocks some local sources for security reasons, but Firefox handles them pretty well. If you have a static website (that does not involve with any database), you can just create a directory and make html, css, and javascript files and open with Firefox to test.
Otherwise, get hosting services like godaddy, or get a server like Amazon Web Services and put them in there.
If so, how is the CSS connected to the HTML, and how are these connected to a website?
Typically, this is how people do.
<html>
<head>
<link href="css/style.css" rel="stylesheet">
</head>
<body>
<!-- your body... -->
</body>
</html>
If not, where are HTML and CSS coded for use on the web?
This was answered above.
CSS and HTML are not things that need to be installed on your computer, you just need to create a file with the .html extension, put some code in it and open it with a browser. The browser interprets it automatically, the same goes for CSS. To create HTML pages for practice, all you need to install is an IDE to edit your code.
Ok - everyone has to start somewhere and I'm going to assume you are a novice so if any of this information is too basic, please excuse it.
There are tiers to consider here....First let's break down what the languages do - I'm going to talk about additional languages because I see people already talking about servers and scripting to so I'm going to try and tie this all together for you. I started self taught and learned a lot of hard lessons so hopefully this add's a little bit of an advantage to the learning curve.
SERVER Think of a server as a computer. It run's slightly different software but the principles are the same. It's only job is to store code, interpret it and present it when called. A very popular server software that you'll find is apache so let's focus on this for now. Windows is not a server and can't be used as a server. However, it's possible to edit a server with windows and it's possible to run server software on top of windows just like any other application. You'll hear references to WAMP, LAMP, XAMPP and a bunch of other acronyms but for now you just need to know why they exist and what they do. A server is not required to write and produce html and css documents
HTML The primary purpose of HTML is to tell a web browser what it's looking at. You'll see a lot of HTML4 vs HTML5 and a ton of other arguments that won't make a lot of sense up front. The important thing to remember about HTML is that it is the framework for everything website related. A lot of people will argue that other languages are more important for one reason or another but without html, none of the other languages matter at all. Whatever you know about this is fine for now. Start small and work your way up.
CSS Is amazing. CSS3 is the current standard but there are still some things that are not cross browser compatible. That's a story for another day but the basics are the same everywhere. You define your classes, id's and elements then tell them how they're going to look. The more you get in to CSS the more you'll realize how amazing it really is. It's useful on a lot of levels and plays a big part in some scripting languages. The biggest thing to remember about CSS is that you should write as little as possible. The more rules you write, the more chance there is for overlapping and something you wrote 3 files ago on line 463 is going to dominate a new rule you just wrote. Try and write as much as possible in classes too so you can really make your code globally usable.
PHP/ASP These are just two of the more popular languages that are considered back end languages. When you're thinking of a website, break it down like this. Front end = Browser, Back end = server. Anything that PHP does is on the browser side. As an end user of a website, you'll rarely see it but it's a major component. This is relevant because as you grow, you'll wonder about trying your hand at a back end scripting language. That's great but that's when you're going to start getting in to servers and such so I'm sure you'll hear a lot about the benefits of it but for now, just stay focused on the basics until you're comfortable.
Javascript/jQuery Again, this is just two popular examples of the many scripting languages that are available on the client side(the browser). These languages can generally be viewed(and edited) by the end user. They are extremely useful for changing pages content without reloading the page and they can talk to the server languages as well. Again, get more comfortable first with your basics before branching out here but with the references you're bound to receive to these languages as you learn, it's helpful to know what they do and why.
Editor To edit html you can absolutely use any text editor. Word, notepad, notepad++, sublime-text, wordpad...literally anything that saves in a standard text format. As long as the extension is html, css, etc. The editors geared towards programming offer a lot of features and benefits as compared to the basic editors available in your windows/mac setup. Try your hand at a few different ones and see what suits your taste. You can write one file of html, download the programs and right click to open with each program to see the differences. Personally I recommend Notepad++ but to each his own.
Why is my answer so long? I know this is a majorly overkill answer to your question however I also know how hard it was for me to get started in this field without some very basic knowledge. This should be enough to get you off and running and hopefully help out when you encounter some unfamiliar territory. In the future, if you find yourself looking to get in to the server/scripting world, let me know and I'll pass along a write up I did on setting up xampp for windows.
Good luck!!
You need a text editor to practice your code I recommend downloading Sublime
Its free, in sublime under view you can change syntax which is the language you are programming in you can set it to html or css or any other language you desire.
The structure for "connecting" html and css is usually a simple folder like structure.
Create a folder called Website
In that folder you would have your html file(s) you can call it index.html
Also in that folder you would have sub folder(s) for your CSS and JS but since you are just working with CSS now create a folder named css. This is where you will save your css file that could be called something like style.css
Here is a more through guide on folder and directory structure.
Keep going with Codecademy and build your own projects in the browser.
I'd recommend taking a look at a good example. HTML5 Boilerplate is a good starting point and has some good practices for a project (in my opinoin). This may be a good reference for you to get a feeling of how the javascript and css files can be arranged and linked to. The website is static so you can open the index.html file with a browser to preview it. You can also make changes to the css and javascript files to see how this changes the index.html page.
https://html5boilerplate.com/
You're asking a very broad set of questions but hopefully there's quite a few good answers in here to point you in the right direction. Good luck!
It is technically possible to have both HTML and CSS in one file using the style tags:
<html>
<head>
<title>Title</title>
<style>
h1 {
color: blue;
}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1>Test Text</h1>
</body>
</html>
However it is considered proper practice to use Cascading Style Sheets, which is probably what Code Academy used.
Checkout setting up a WAMP, LAMP, MAMP server depending on your platform (W) Windows, (M) Mac, (L) Linux.
http://www.wampserver.com/en/
https://www.linux.com/learn/tutorials/288158-easy-lamp-server-installation
https://www.mamp.info/en/
Then in your respective directory (html_public, Sites, wherever) you will have a local server environment where you can develop locally.
I use the Sites/ setup on a mac
css and javascript are usually linked in the head section of an html document.
You will need a editor - I recommend looking at Sublime Text or Atom.io
If you just want to play around for a while before attempting your own projects, you can build on sandboxes like http://codepen.io
Are CSS and HTML coded in a file on one's computer?
A: depends either you can create both css and html in one file or in different files. If you using lots of css code then everyone will suggest you to write them in different files and you can code them in someone's computer or on server.
If so, how is the CSS connected to the HTML, and how are these connected to a website?
A: you said that you have done html and course and you don't know who to add a css file to a html file. (Use Google sometimes) use this link you Wil get you answer. After coding you can test them using your web development tool if you are developing in a tool. Else use your web browser to test.
I suggest you to visit websites as much as you can an use chrome tool to see how that website is done (you can only find front end parts.)
I have a course work for which I have to make a (as advanced as possible) WYSIWYG web page editor in VB.NET (2010). It should have a visual editor with drag-drop support for several elements such as anchors, images, tables etc., and it should generate HTML based on that structure.
I don't know where to begin though.. I have some experience with vb.net, I made a tabbed notepad vaguely following a tutorial, but I don't know how to make this drag-drop thingy in a richtextbox.
I've searched for a tutorial, but most of them are just too simple - a text editor with browser control rendering the HTML.. I found one really nice and advanced, but it's in german :-|
So, if anyone knows any resources / tutorials I could use to start things I'll appreciate it.
I won't start with a richtextbox. Do you want to realize it in WPF or Forms (I would recommend WPF)?
In WPF there is relative simple a Drag-And-Drop behavior for elements (see http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-en/library/ms742859.aspx).
I would start with some simple elements (e.g. TextBoxes) and drag-drop them from some sort of toolbox onto a grid with fixed columns and rows (and later use a canvas). And then generate the HTML-Code from that.
In general, most of the WYSIWYG browser based editors are written in Javascript using an editable DIV.
A good example is tinymce:
http://www.tinymce.com/
Download, including full source code, is available here:
http://www.tinymce.com/download/download.php
You can use CKEditor. Its one of the best WYSIWYG editor i have worked with. Its highly customizable and opensource.
Given below is the URL for the website:
http://ckeditor.com/
Disclaimer: This question is not about fixing visual studio
So, I've used VSS for so long to edit HTML source that I actuall completely forgot there was a design view button. So for fun I clicked it. When I clicked it here is what I got.
Now, I fully expected it to look like crap since my styles are defined in separate css files. This got me wondering. Has there ever been a WYSIWYG editor that will render a page while editing using all stylesheets even external ones?
I think that WebPutty would help. You embed a WebPutty script on your site and it allows you to edit your CSS real-time and publish to your site as well right from WebPutty. It's not as powerful as Coda but does the trick if all you're concerned about is adjusting your CSS.
Dreamweaver. *cough
The design view is usually pretty close, but sometimes chokes for no apparent reason.
I would check out Coda and Espresso - both of these editors render external stylesheets in the design view when editing html. They also have beautiful interfaces and embedded ftp clients : )
A prospective client has a site with pages done in Dreamweaver(tm). I don't have Dreamweaver(tm), never use it, and have in the past have seen some spaghetti (html) code on pages created with it. As a result, I'm wondering: if I create clean sections of semantic html, will Dreamweaver continue to be able to edit it when the client wishes to modify the code that I have created by hand (assuming that I create clean and validating code). This is more of an experience based question than a research based question. I'm sure that Dreamweaver(tm)'s documentation would tell me that it's compatible with clean, semantic html, but it's hard to take that advice from the horse's mouth.
So, based on your experience, is Dreamweaver happy with clean semantic html created externally, or does the visual mode display badly when it's dealing with manually, externally-created semantic html?
Short answer: it is compatible.
It depends on how your clients want to modify the code. Dreamweaver is a good editing tool, and it supports and "understands" semantic (x)html/css. However, if your clients still use html for styling (such as table-based layouts etc.), then proper clean css-styling can be frustrating for them to deal with later. But it is another problem and it has nothing to do with the editor.
Editing HTML in the “code” mode of Dreamweaver leaves it alone. Not sure about the visual mode though.
I am building advanced HTML tables with lots of CSS in them, what are the best tools out there for building advanced HTML CSS tables that could include dynamic elements like AJAX driven features (jQuery). I use Dreamweaver and Eclipse but they just touch the surface of having a really great tool set to build with. If you use a great tool let me know about it:-)
Seriously, the closer to the metal you get, the better off you'll be. On the Mac, I use TextMate for doing the HTML and Javascript, and CSSEdit for editing the CSS.
Best tool ever, either Textpad or Notepad++.
Both support syntax highlighting for a variety of languages, tabbed interface, etc.
Stay away from frontpage / dreamweaver.
Also if I may ask, why as you making HTML tables, I am hoping not for a layout?
I'll second Notepad++. How about an Express edition of Visual Studio 200x? You get some great design tools, great syntax highlighting, and it's free.
If you want a good free Mac editor, I go with WordWrangler. But if you want something that will cover EVERYTHING for web design, go with Coda.
For PC, I use notepad++. Not as slick as the ones for Mac, but it does allow for editing straight from the server.
But as far as CSS for tables specifically, you are going to want to do as much of it on your own, as tables are the worst when it comes to accessibility and semantic mark up, and that can only be dealt with by hand. Things like scope, colgroups, etc are never going to be WYSIWYG, you have to fine tune it.
Here's a good starting point:
http://www.noupe.com/css/21-fresh-ajax-css-tables.html