User Group Bookshelf User Group BookshelfThis new book takes an overwhelming subject and makes it clear for beginners and those who may already have created a web site but sense there is room for improvement.
Back to INDEXUGN Home PageSubmit ReviewLearning Web Design a Beginner's Guide to HTML Graphics and Beyond takes an overwhelming subject and makes it clear for beginners and those who may already have created a web site but sense there is room for improvement.
Jennifer Niederst explains what you need to know, how the web works, and teaches you how to get your pages on the web. You learn why web design isn't like print design, and the web design process. And that is just Part I.
In part II you learn HTML and how to use it to create a simple page, format text wit HTML and to format text with style sheets. I thought Cascading Style Sheets was rather advanced for a beginner, but Jennifer Niederst explained it so well that I had no difficulty completing the exercises. The features she covered are safe to use with most browsers, and I plan to use them to improve the appearance and performance of our user group web site.
You also learn about adding graphics elements, adding links, tables, frames, and color in Part II.
Her chapter on links is an example of her clarity and completeness. She begins with the clearest description of the syntax of a link. She defines a directory as the more technical web term for a folder, and a folder as "just a directory with a cuter icon." After reading her instructions for using relative links you will be able to navigate up and down from any current location.
Learn how to create imagemaps - with links to several sites within one graphic, using Adobe ImageReady. If you don't have ImageReady, she advises Windows and Macintosh users to check MapEdit, a Classic program on the Mac. If you use Mac OS X, I can recommend HtmlMapMaker, $14.95 shareware. The instructions for Adobe ImageReady also work with HtmlMapMaker.
The companion CD that comes with the book contains material to use with the exercises so you can practice. It also contains trial versions of Macromedia Fireworks MX, and Macromedia HomeSite, time limited tryout versions of Adobe Photoshop 7 and ImageReady 7, and a demo BareBones' BBEdit 7 so that you can follow instructions for using these development tools as well as working in HTML. Working the exercises in Learning Web Design using the tools on this CD might be a good way to decide which, if any, of these development tools you should buy.
Jennifer Niederst writes that you will be much better off using web authoring tools to create tables rather than creating them by hand (although it is not all that difficult). She then shows you how to create tables with HTML or with these tools for for presenting organized information, data, for better text alignment, for overall page structure, and for holding together multipart images.
The exercises are so well done that I only had trouble with one, and that was my fault. I got desperate, checked the companion web site, and finally e-mailed for help -- and received a response the same day. I had created the web page correctly, but was clicking the wrong place when testing it. I wouldn't admit to this if I could think of any other way to tell you how happy I was with the support I received.
Part III is about creating web graphics.
It begins with practical instructions in creating GIFs and JPEGs that are suitable for the web, There is a chapter on creating animated GIFS, and when not to use them. Finally there are instructions for making slices and rollovers which I consider rather advanced web graphics.
I followed the instructions and did the exercises in my Adobe Photoshop Elements 2 instead of Photoshop.
The instructions in Learning Web Design also worked for Elements 2 in every case where Elements 2 had that feature. The major difference was that Elements 2 lets you compare two images, the original and the one you have created for the web, whereas Photoshop 7 lets you compare four images so you can directly see the difference between compressed images. There are, of course, some features in Photoshop that are not available in Elements 2, but Learning Web Design can help to improve your web graphics if you do work with Elements 2.
Tools for creating animated GIFs are available in Adobe ImageReady and Micromedia Fireworks. If you have a Macintosh, but not these programs, she tells you how to get other programs, such as free GIF Builder, which is a Mac OS 9 Classic program. But I was able to do the exercise using GIFfun, a free GIF animation program for Mac OS S X.
Now that you have learned all the basics and not so basic how to's, Part IV Form and Function covers what I think of when I hear "Web Design" and does it very well, There is aa chapter on interesting web design techniques, There are two chapters I want to use to review and improve the design of our Northern Vermont Macintosh User Group web site, Building Useable Web Sites and Web Design Does and Don'ts.
The final chapter, How'd They Do That provides an introduction to more advanced web features including forms, sound, movies and videos and new HTML standards.
I recommend Learning Web Design a Beginner's Guide to HTML, Graphics, and Beyond, and have ordered a copy for myself.
Learning Web Design
Jennifer Niederst; Publisher O'Reilly Digital Studio 455 pages & CD $39.95; 0405-10; Click above for more details or to purchase.
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