Learning to code..

[kdaze]

Hey guys

I've been designing web graphics and full layouts for nigh over 10 years now and I've never ventured into the world of coding before.

Mainly I'd like to learn how to code my Photoshop layouts (mainly complex gaming team layouts) and incorporate them with a CMS. I have a few questions and I hope you can help me.

Where shall I start with this endeavour? Is the learning curve steep?

Can you recommend any online resources that will assist me?

Thanks in advance guys.

 

[Phreaddee]

well I'd suggest that you wont like much of what I've got to say, not when you realise how much I despise working with PSDs! They are so rigid and unflexible, and more than often built by someone who, like yourself, doesnt code. Therefore there are always elements of PSD designs that really "should" be strictly code, however designers "over-design" and you end up with a heap of shitty little graphical elements that end up having to be thrown in to the mix, resulting, usually, in some form of incoherent semantic soup, or worse still the dreaded PSD>HTML "timesavers!"

If you want to go down that route, then my services are not needed.

question? If I was to paint a landscape on canvas from a photo what would I do?
a) duplicate it to the best of my ability, using the available mediums, namely paint, brushes, and/or ink. working closely to the picture, or
b) cut the picture into tiny little pieces and then stick them to the canvas?

I think you can see where I'm going to with this. PSDs have their place and can be incredibly invaluable. But they are a guide, a holder of assets, but above all they are not and can never be a website, and cutting them up into tiny pieces and sticking that in a HTML document is still not a website.

HTML you can learn the basics in hardly any time, assuming that you are dedicated and persistent, CSS will take a fair while longer to master.

the end goal? to use as little of the PSD as possible.

CSS is flexible in ways a PSD could only imagine. Kind of like vectors in a way which leads me to wonder why on this earth people still struggle with photoshop to make mock ups when they could do a far better effort in something like illustrator or indesign, or straight into the browser!

Anyways enough of my rantings on PSDs. Don't take offense, as its not personal on you.

Learn these guys
1. HTML
2. CSS
3. JS/jquery
4. PHP
5. CMS integration

references
http://w3.org
download all the specs, print them, read them, learn them.
Javascript (aka ECMA-262) found here
http://www.ecma-international.org/publications/files/ECMA-ST/ECMA-262.pdf
and http://jquery.com

as for CMS' start here.
http://cmsmatrix.org

have fun with those. You'll need a coffee, or a dozen...

 

[leroy30]

lol @ Phreaddee.

I kind of agree. But I think kdaze is making a good decision to learn to 'code' websites aswell. Being able to do both effectively will make you pretty invaluable. I know because I am a developer / designer. Right from the initial PSD concept through to the html, css, javascript and server-side programming me does it!

In my experience working from a PSD that a designer supplied is a nightmare because they are never happy until you match their design pixel for pixel. This would make sense except that this particular designer didn't understand the underlying principles of the web at all!

Likewise working with developers I've had experiences where the developer just shuts down and says "nah, we can't do it it's impossible" or "it's too hard" whereas I knew exactly what it would take to accomplish which is why I designed it so and was able to offer to code it myself. I think in the end it took me around 4 hours to achieve the 'impossible' lol.

Anyhow do a search for html tutorials and start there. And just make sure the tutorials are fairly recent! We don't want your goind back to the dark ages where the web was made of frames, tables and scrolling marquees!

Good Luck