Jeremy Osborn - Web Design Digital Classroom

Creating effective websites requires an understanding of design principles, as well as the underlying technology that is used to deliver and display content to your audience. The Web Design with HTML and CSS Digital Classroom provides the information you need to design, develop, publish, and maintain websites. Whether you are just starting out in the field of web design, or are experienced with design tools like Dreamweaver or Expression Web, youll find this book helpful at explaining the underlying concepts for organizing, creating, and delivering web content effectively using best practices.

The Web Design with HTML and CSS Digital Classroom helps you to get up-and-running quickly. Although you can work through the lessons in this book in any sequence, we recommend that you start in at the first lesson and progress through the book in the sequence in which they are presented. Each lesson includes detailed, step-by-step instructions, background information, companion video tutorials, and lesson files.

The Web Design with HTML and CSS Digital Classroom is like having your own expert instructor guiding you through each lesson while you work at your own pace. This book includes 12 self-paced lessons that let you discover essential skills, explore web design, and learn HTML, CSS and image editing techniques that will save you time and allow you to more easily create effective websites. Youll become productive right away with real-world exercises and simple explanations. Each lesson includes step-by-step instructions and lesson files available on the Digital Classroom website at www.digitalclassroombooks.com/webdesign . The Web Design with HTML and CSS Digital Classroom lessons are developed by the same team of instructors and experts who have created many of the official training titles for companies such as Adobe Systems and Microsoft. Now you can benefit from the expert instructors and clear, detailed instructions provided by the American Graphics Institute team.

Before you start the Web Design with HTML and CSS Digital Classroom lessons, you should have a working knowledge of your computer and its operating system. You should know how to use the directory system of your computer so that you can navigate through folders. You also need to understand how to locate, save, and open files, and you should also know how to use your mouse to access menus and commands. If you are just starting out with using a computer, you should become familiar with its operation first, using resources such as the Windows 7 Digital Classroom or Mac OS X Digital Classroom .

We recommend that you install a text editor to use when working with the HTML and CSS code. The specific editor is not important, but you should choose and install a text editor so that you can easily open and work with the lesson files presented in this book. If you arent sure which to use, you can wait until you get to Lesson Three where we discuss working with code and using text editors. However, if youre comfortable installing a text editor, weve listed some options below.

Some Mac OS text editors include BBedit and TextWrangler, both of which are available at http://www.barebones.com . Or you can use TextMate which is available for download at http://macromates.com . Another Mac OS text editor is Coda which can be found at http://www.panic.com/coda/ .

If you work on a Windows computer you may wish to use E Text Editor which is available at http://www.e-texteditor.com or Microsoft Visual Web Developer Express which can be found at http://www.microsoft.com/express/Web/.

If you already have a visual web design tool like Adobe Dreamweaver or Microsoft Expression Web installed on your computer, you can use the coding tools integrated with these software packages instead of installing a dedicated text editor. Although both Adobe and Microsoft offer free trial versions of these software tools, if you dont have either one installed, we recommend skipping them for now and instead using any one of the text editors listed above while working with this book. By using a text editor, you can focus on the design and underlying code rather than learning the user interface and functions of a specific software package.

Before starting the lessons in the Web Design with HTML and CSS Digital Classroom , make sure that your computer is equipped for creating and managing websites. Because you will be using a variety of software tools, there is no formal minimum requirement for your computer, however we suggest that your computer meet or exceed the following guidelines:

Windows OS

Intel Pentium 4, AMD Athlon 64, or Multicore Intel processor; Microsoft Windows XP with Service Pack 2; Windows Vista Home Premium, Business, Ultimate, or Enterprise with Service Pack 1; or Windows 7

1GB recommended RAM 1GB of available hard-disk space for working with files

1280 800 display with 16-bit video card

Broadband Internet connection

Macintosh OS

Multicore Intel processor

Mac OS X v10.4 or greater

1 GB of RAM 1 GB of available hard-disk space for working with lesson files.

1280 800 display with 16-bit video card

Broadband Internet connection

Menus and commands within the software tools discussed in this book are identified by using the greater-than symbol (>). For example, the command to print a document might appear as File > Print, representing that you click the File menu, then choose the Print command.

Many of the step-by-step instructions in the book involve typing one line (or more) of HTML or CSS code to a previously existing block of code. In these cases, the new code for you to add is highlighted in red to help you quickly identify the text to be added to your lesson file.

For example, this code represents a line already present in your lesson file:

The code highlighted here in red is what you would need to add:

The Web Design with HTML and CSS Digital Classroom uses files for the exercises with each of the lessons. These files are available for download at www.DigitalClassroomBooks.com/webdesign . You may download all the lessons at one time or you may choose to download and work with specific lessons.

For each lesson in the book, the files are referenced by the file name of each file. The exact location of each file on your computer is not used, as you may have placed the files in a unique location on your hard drive. We suggest placing the lesson files in the My Documents folder or on the Desktop so you can easily access them.

1 Using your web browser, navigate to www.DigitalClassroomBooks.com/webdesign . Follow the instructions on the web page to download the lesson files to your computer.

2 On your computer, navigate to the location where you downloaded the files and right-click (Windows) the .zip file you downloaded, then choose Extract All or double click on the .zip file (Mac OS).

3 If using a Windows computer, the Extract Compressed (Zipped) Folders window appears. In this window, specify the location where you want to save the files, and click Show Extracted Files When Complete. Mac OS users will find the files extracted to the same location as the original .zip file.