Building a new webpage

[medsed]

my faughter is an artist and we want to build a page for her to showcase her art and to get some clients. We need to put in a lot of graphics, of course. we know nothing about this and need some direction. Where to go what to do?

[PsychoticDude85]

It depends, you can hire someone to build something for you of course, or download a free script to run on some server space (you really should pay for server space, in general everything free sucks). Something like http://coppermine-gallery.net/index.php or somesuch may suffice.

If however you want to build it yourself, you'll need to get some learning done (in fact I would advise learning the basics even if you don't plan on doing any of the hard work yourself).

A basic list of things you'd need to learn to make an image gallery (though you can make a static page with only the first one, or the first two):

HTML
CSS
PHP
SQL


If you want to learn any of those above, I'd say have a look at http://w3schools.com/

Anyway, I hope that's what you wanted to know, your question was very vague, if you want more detail then ask. :)

[Terminator1138]

Alex is right, kinda need more info, are you a complete noob, some experience, need complete idea where to start?

You need domain name, hosting, template or design one yourself, some training to learn yourself how to edit stuff, a graphics program if you want to create graphics for the site. Want dynamic stuff like php mysql? many free scripts and cms's out there to help also.

[medsed]

Wow, I have a LOT to learn here. Basically we want to set up a few different categories of her artwork samples. We want to have a section where finished pieces are for sale or ones where you can see types and styles of work that you can hire her to do, we want to display pictures of murals she has done, sculptures and more. Yes I am a total NOOB!!!!!!!

[Terminator1138]

My advice is to learn xhtml and css from w3schools website and also perhaps get a few good basic books on design and coding. That will help.

I take it you want to do this yourself and you can build a basic site however in the long run, if you want people to buy from the site, you need a pro site.

IMO, if you have a substandard site selling pro quality, you give visitors or buyers an redesigned notion that your work may be substandard. However it will not take long to create a pro looking site if you stick with it and just take a little time.

Sounds like a static site would work nicely for what you want. You can always have functions like shopping carts etc added later to allow people to buy and order on your site. (just a future idea)

For the artwork, small thumbnail images with links to larger versions should work, typical business site of contacts, about us, maybe map of location, and ordering info would be needed. Just keep in mind, create good content and that will help if your site does not look all that great out of the starting gates so to speak.

If you are serious, find a great html editor that you feel comfy with. Free vs commercial does have it benefits and take a look at what you want vs what you can afford. Personally, I'm commercial and I use dreamweaver, perhaps the best all around editor. For free, html kit works great and has some extras you can download. Graphics, Paint shop pro from Corel might be a worth while investment and the cost is not that bad. You can do a lot with it.

Now for any specific questions?

[PsychoticDude85]

Something else which should be noted, if you don't think that making a site from scratch would be practical straight away you could get her a deviantART account, that has categories for different types of art, allows you to sell things as prints (if you pay for subscription) and has a thriving community to comment and critique her work.

As to editors, my personal opinion here is that there isn't any point whatsoever in paying for a text editor, for Windows notepad++ all the way, for Linux kate is king (personally the best editor I've used). Certainly I don't think it's worth paying for an editor when you're starting out, get to grips with the languages on free software, then if you find you want to get into web development more then think about trying the expensive alternatives.

Anothing thing which may be useful for you would be a WAMP (Windows Apache + MySQL + PHP) package, it will allow you to develop websites without paying for server space straight away. This means that if you can't make a site you're happy with then you haven't lost anything for it.

[epement]

Wow, I have a LOT to learn here. Basically we want to set up a few different categories of her artwork samples. We want to have a section where finished pieces are for sale or ones where you can see types and styles of work that you can hire her to do, we want to display pictures of murals she has done, sculptures and more. Yes I am a total NOOB!!!!!!!
I'm a full-time web developer, and here is what I recommend for people with little or no money. Start off by using a web hosting place that offers free webhosting. I prefer Netfirms:

http://www.netfirms.com/web-hosting-free

They will put up one banner advertising their company at the top of each web page, but there are no pop-ups and the ad is not that intrusive. When you're signed up, your website will be yoursitename.netfirms.com After you get more experience (a year or so), you can upgrade to have the advertising removed or else switch to a different web hosting company.

If you're in the U.S., you should not pay more than US$60 a year for web hosting for what you want. I often see newbies paying $50 a month for hosting, not knowing that they are paying way too much. To pay for your own domain name (like www.mykidsartwork.com) should cost you less than $10 a year. If you pay more, switch to http://www.godaddy.com

For your new site, draw out on a piece of paper exactly what you want your web site to look like. Yes, on paper first. Use a separate sheet for each page. Remember that the page-width will be fixed by the size of the user's monitor, and users have different sized monitors, but the page-length is more flexible. If there's too much to fit on one screen, your web browser will put scroll bars up to help you see all of it.

Then get a free HTML editor to help you create and post your pages. If you're really unsure of yourself, hire a high school kid to help you. Though I don't normally recommend this one, for total newbies, this editor might be exactly what you need. It's also free:

http://www.the-webwizard.co.uk

For more experienced web designers, these are good free choices (and they don't suffer from the screen delays of FirstPage 2006):
tsWebEditor - http://tswebeditor.atspace.org/
HTML Beauty - http://www.htmlbeauty.com
RJ TextEd - http://www.rjsoftware.se/TextEd/
PSPad - http://www.pspad.com
HTMLGate FREE - http://www.freewr.com/freeware.php?download=htmlgate-free&lid=89

Unfortunately, HTMLGate is no longer supported or offered by its author. If you want support or assistance, the most responsive authors are the ones distributing PSPad and RJ TextEd. The tsWebEditor is still active but not as responsive. Among this set of 5, I use RJ TextEd and PSPad the most.

At my job, I use an expensive commercial editor. But for Windows users on a budget, this is my professional opinion. Hope this helps.