Superb job. Just what I needed to begin the process of editing our business website. We have spent many man-hours emailing concepts/directions only to find the end result bears only a mild resemblance to what we had hoped for (not to mention the misspellings). This was a great step-by-step intro for a complete novice.
Enjoyed your tutorial on setting up HTML-Kit. One thing surprised me though: there was nothing about setting up a preview window side by side with the editor window so you could view changes as you make them in the source code, as opposed to switching to a separate preview window. This was one of the main things I was looking for in an editor, and although HTML-Kit can be easily set up to do it, it took me some time to out how. I found it here: http://www.chami.com/html-kit/faq/pages/active_preview.html. Hope this will be as useful to others as it was to me.
Oh, man, your simplified explanations of font sizes is unbelievably helpful. I found you via Yahoo search. I’ve saved a link so I can come back and learn some more. Then my friends will think I’m smart. :)
Too often, guys who know html as as well as you will post technical folderol that’s way over my head. (I’m short, so most everything is over my head.) But I can understand your explanations! Thank you.
Thank you so much for the information on using NMS FormMail. Because of your clear instructions I downloaded it and just a few minutes ago successfully ran a submit form test.
I’ve also found your site very handy as a refresher for general html and css knowledge.
Hey there! I found your site via Google search and am GRATEFUL to have found this. I am probably one of the most technologically challenged people out there. While trying to construct and format my Facebook fan page, I was running into all sorts of trouble. I know NOTHING about HTML. However, after reviewing and referring back to your simple tutorials, I am in the process of creating a FANTASTIC page, which I am SUPER proud of.
I’ve used three of your basic webpage templates to create a website. I already knew some basics of HTML coding, but with your templates I’ve been able to quickly and easily create a three-level website that’s clean and spare in design yet shows much visual variation and appeal. Perhaps enough people have already told you how useful is your site, but I’ll add my voice to theirs. If I ever make any money at this, I’ll send some your way.
So, I kept finding on all these help sites where people would sniff “Never use tables solely for layout. They are for displaying tabular data only.” It didn’t make sense, because I saw so many nice sites using nested tables, and I had designed my own that way already. In fact, in the past when I tried to use DIV only, it would display vastly differently in different browsers (even IE 8 vs. IE 7!). So I googled “using html tables for layout” and your article came up first!
I loved it! Validation! Your story about how you looked at code from other sites was just like mine and I’m sure many others who visit this site. And you description of the problems with trying to use DIVs was very much like the problems I had and why I decided to continue using table. Thanks for the moral support.
I just want to tell you how much I love you and your site. I put on my resume that I had extensive background in computers, including creating a few of my own websites. [Of course I didn’t specify how many years ago this was or that my last website was made freshman year.] My boss can’t even right-click a photo to save it…. I could slack off all day and she’d never know the difference, she thinks a lot of me. So when she asked me to have a website up and running for her by the end of the week (i.e. two days away)
I kiiinda… sorta.. just a tiiiiiiiny bit freaked. *flash back of the head injury recieved smashing it into a wall repeatedly* Then I find your site, and I have the whole project finished that night.
It was a wonderful refresher, and it saved me from running to my ex for help (which he wanted and thoroughlhy expected of me) So you not only saved my career, you saved me from an overly clingy ex who would have used this little favor to wedge his way into my life and ultimatly bring about mass genocide by exploding bricks.
Thank you
Your site was incredibly helpful to me for the information on NMS Form Mail!! I’m going to go thru your site a little more after I’m done with the dang form.
Great stuff. Downloaded your ‘beginning html’ stuff, printed it out, am now ‘perfect binding’ it into a manual I can take anywhere for studying. By the way, strongly advise anyone downloading and printing any large amounts of instructions from the internet to spend a few minutes learning how to bind those pages into a compact book. Just takes a little white glue, 50# cover material, couple of cheap clamps. A hobby to pursue while you rest up from these great Iron Spider tutorials.
Your site rocks!! Your tutorials are so step by step I think anyone could make a really nice webpage regardless of their prior knowledge. I also like that your personality shows through, your touch of humor here and there makes the learning more enjoyable. Thank you for sharing your skills with all of us.
I love your site, and I will definitely be using it as a resource, because I am determined to learn HTML and how the whole world of the internet works. Your website is very professional and easy to read, but I just wanted to let you know that in your “Stuff You Need” section of your HTML tutorial you say that we may need a floppy drive to save our files. Since floppy drives haven’t been in use for the past 5 years or something, maybe you should update that to a USB-stick?
I’m an utter newbie. My old cut & paste technique no longer gave satisfactory results. HTML-Kit was necessary, but daunting. Your tutorial was spectacular. Thank you for sharing useful advice, laced with humor and encouragement. I think you have helped far more people than are listed here.
.
Just wanted to say a big Thank You for your tutorial on Form Mail. As supspectd the server had the wrong code for send mail posted on their website. I patiently went through all of the steps to remedy the problem, according to your instructions. It worked great!
I’m so glad I found this site. I’m in a XHTML/CSS class online and the resources the prof gave us for learning combining selectors were really unclear. Your descriptions were extremely helpful. The site is bookmarked and I’m sure I’ll be using it a lot…
I’ve created a few simple sites for myself and decided to create one for a client with the highly-lauded DreamWeaver. My own site — kept simple — went fine. The lady’s site, OMG!, got snarled! Nothing went as planned! I went to bed after a 10-hour bout and had TRAPPED dreams! Aarrggh! So I went back in using simple HTML and your tutorial. Within 4 hours I had caught up with my previous milepost. Still work to do, but at this point I am sooo glad I found your site and extremely thankful you put in all this work. “Iron Spider” is on my list of greats.
–> Thank you.
Thank you for making such an easy and understandable “how to” web page. I have started from scratch and am making a web page for the project I am working on for my phd in marine biology. My supervisor is impressed and who can ask for more? Not online yet, but is coming.
By far the most easy to understand information I’ve ever read about HTML. I have no coding background prior to this last year and everything I’ve learned has been pieced together from a number of sources. Always the missing piece has been understanding WHY this stuff works. It’s easy enough to find the code to get whatever it is done you need done. But to find someone to explain step by step what it is and why it works, well…that’s huge.
Great job and thank you for a fantastic resource. Truly…Jeb
I found your site looking for help with colspan (which works now thank you!). I found the pages on the different types of lists very interesting as I’d used ul and ol in the past in a very limited way but didn’t know they could be stacked etc. I have no immediate use for it but found it very interesting and hope to put the info to good use in the future. I like days where I learn something new!
Just wanna say a sincere thank you for all the brilliant stuff on the Iron Spider website. Very helpful tutorials and reference. Especially the really useful stuff on HTML Kit. Thanx a bundle.
I was asked to create a website for my new employer and hopped on the internet searching for web page templates, free download . . . and found Iron Spider (and your exceptional talent!).
Will let you know what the link is when I’m finished so YOU can see OUR handiwork
Great.. check that – Terrific site, Mr. Darrell! Lots of good info for a novice to web development, and probably more advanced users, too. Will recommend to my friends and family… Have some questions I will address to you elsewhere. (no spam-bot here!)
Hey just wanted to say great site, you have helped me *and a few of my instructors of my CST program* with quite a few explanations and easy to use guides for pretty much everything we have needed to find.
I plan on posting your up on our campus portal for anyone who just might need it
a great work of online art. helped me begin the process of building my site. a reliable source of information regarding html, css, ssi, and web hosting
Rob – your site is great. I’ve often needed clear and simple explanations and you’ve provided exactly what I’ve needed. Thanks for sharing this information.
oh wow. this site is sooo useful. lyke, i luk erywhere for plain colorful layouts && i found it ALL here…idk if theres anotha site out here dis easy && NO SPAM!! yayyy.
thank youu sooo much 2 who eva creates && posts these layouts; im in love wit yuh!
lol
I saw the SSI explanation you provided which is what first directed me here. I am looking for the best alternative to frames so that I can design apps that use the current, popular methods.
My question is now this…If the include directives result in sending the HTML of the unchanged header, footer, and navigation portions how can any of that be cached to avoid transmission and processing in the first place? The server-side fetches, transmission to user host, and scanning by user’s virus s/w still occur whether or not the user’s PC decides to repaint those graphics…correct? So the effects of caching are minimal in regard to that respect, I believe.
To move into present design methods do I have to accept that the optimization (speed) offered by frames is just lost?
Many portions of a web page do not need to be reloaded again because they’re cached by the client’s browser (e.g., images, CSS files, etc.). As for alternatives, not sure why you’re asking if you still love frames but SSI is a good alternative. I have a page on SSI in the HTML Frames section of this site.
Regarding frames…I still use them. Love ’em. I know the arguments against them, but I still enjoy the speed at which frame-based web sites operate. When developers starting ditching frames it was obvious. The web pages had to load the same data again and again with each click when it was needless. In short, users saw slower loading pages especially when graphics were in the header or navigation panes. Firewall and virus scan software review the same data again and again when it was already scanned and had not changed.
What is the best alternative to move away from frames that avoids the needless tranmission and processing of portions of the page that have not changed?
Humble apologies, but I really have a strict policy of not making layouts from other people’s photos. Moreover, I don’t really do custom layout requests (not even for a fee). Once again, I’m sorry. Thanks again for the birthday greeting.
No problem. I’ll try to get a panoramic snap of the Thames and the Houses of Parliament this summer (I don’t want that classic “London grey skies” look). The view from the London Eye (that giant ferris wheel) is magic on a clear day. What resolution would the image need to be to be used across the top of a webpage? Then I’ll send it to you and you can use it whichever way you like, infinitely.
Regarding your request (Making a layout with a Photoshop-ed urban scape of the Thames): Humble apologies but that’s highly unlikely. Dealing with copyright issues on other people’s photos is a humongous hassle (even supposed the copyright-free stuff) so I gave up doing that a long time ago. Now all my layouts are made from photos that I actually took myself with my own camera. So unless I actually visit London… (you see where I’m going with this…?)
Your site is helped me immensely in adding a formmail to my website. Thank you!
Superb job. Just what I needed to begin the process of editing our business website. We have spent many man-hours emailing concepts/directions only to find the end result bears only a mild resemblance to what we had hoped for (not to mention the misspellings). This was a great step-by-step intro for a complete novice.
Thanks
Enjoyed your tutorial on setting up HTML-Kit. One thing surprised me though: there was nothing about setting up a preview window side by side with the editor window so you could view changes as you make them in the source code, as opposed to switching to a separate preview window. This was one of the main things I was looking for in an editor, and although HTML-Kit can be easily set up to do it, it took me some time to out how. I found it here: http://www.chami.com/html-kit/faq/pages/active_preview.html. Hope this will be as useful to others as it was to me.
Oh, man, your simplified explanations of font sizes is unbelievably helpful. I found you via Yahoo search. I’ve saved a link so I can come back and learn some more. Then my friends will think I’m smart. :)
Too often, guys who know html as as well as you will post technical folderol that’s way over my head. (I’m short, so most everything is over my head.) But I can understand your explanations! Thank you.
Z
Thank you so much for the information on using NMS FormMail. Because of your clear instructions I downloaded it and just a few minutes ago successfully ran a submit form test.
I’ve also found your site very handy as a refresher for general html and css knowledge.
Hey there! I found your site via Google search and am GRATEFUL to have found this. I am probably one of the most technologically challenged people out there. While trying to construct and format my Facebook fan page, I was running into all sorts of trouble. I know NOTHING about HTML. However, after reviewing and referring back to your simple tutorials, I am in the process of creating a FANTASTIC page, which I am SUPER proud of.
THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU!!! :o)
~ Debi ~
Iron Spider,
I’ve used three of your basic webpage templates to create a website. I already knew some basics of HTML coding, but with your templates I’ve been able to quickly and easily create a three-level website that’s clean and spare in design yet shows much visual variation and appeal. Perhaps enough people have already told you how useful is your site, but I’ll add my voice to theirs. If I ever make any money at this, I’ll send some your way.
Best,
Ken Baker
Will any of these programs function on Vista?
I’m a real newbee and I couldn’t tell.
Thanks
Marsha
This site is awesome. It helped me heaps. THANX a LOT.
I connected to this sight through my own website.
It will be called Galactic Armada Games.
So, I kept finding on all these help sites where people would sniff “Never use tables solely for layout. They are for displaying tabular data only.” It didn’t make sense, because I saw so many nice sites using nested tables, and I had designed my own that way already. In fact, in the past when I tried to use DIV only, it would display vastly differently in different browsers (even IE 8 vs. IE 7!). So I googled “using html tables for layout” and your article came up first!
I loved it! Validation! Your story about how you looked at code from other sites was just like mine and I’m sure many others who visit this site. And you description of the problems with trying to use DIVs was very much like the problems I had and why I decided to continue using table. Thanks for the moral support.
hi.. there………..
u got a damn good writing skill man……….
opppssssssss
u r male na……
actully it doesn;t matter to me….
but 1 thing is 4 sure…..
this website is fuckin COOOOOOOOL….
:-0
Again you have helped me TREMENDOUSLY!
Do you have a Donate button?
I just want to tell you how much I love you and your site. I put on my resume that I had extensive background in computers, including creating a few of my own websites. [Of course I didn’t specify how many years ago this was or that my last website was made freshman year.] My boss can’t even right-click a photo to save it…. I could slack off all day and she’d never know the difference, she thinks a lot of me. So when she asked me to have a website up and running for her by the end of the week (i.e. two days away)
I kiiinda… sorta.. just a tiiiiiiiny bit freaked. *flash back of the head injury recieved smashing it into a wall repeatedly* Then I find your site, and I have the whole project finished that night.
It was a wonderful refresher, and it saved me from running to my ex for help (which he wanted and thoroughlhy expected of me) So you not only saved my career, you saved me from an overly clingy ex who would have used this little favor to wedge his way into my life and ultimatly bring about mass genocide by exploding bricks.
Thank you
Your site was incredibly helpful to me for the information on NMS Form Mail!! I’m going to go thru your site a little more after I’m done with the dang form.
Thank you SO much!
Great stuff. Downloaded your ‘beginning html’ stuff, printed it out, am now ‘perfect binding’ it into a manual I can take anywhere for studying. By the way, strongly advise anyone downloading and printing any large amounts of instructions from the internet to spend a few minutes learning how to bind those pages into a compact book. Just takes a little white glue, 50# cover material, couple of cheap clamps. A hobby to pursue while you rest up from these great Iron Spider tutorials.
thanks mucho
Your site rocks!! Your tutorials are so step by step I think anyone could make a really nice webpage regardless of their prior knowledge. I also like that your personality shows through, your touch of humor here and there makes the learning more enjoyable. Thank you for sharing your skills with all of us.
Very useful your link to atspace, it worked for me; had problems with javascript menu at 000webhost, and atspace did the work!
Thanks!!
Hi!
I love your site, and I will definitely be using it as a resource, because I am determined to learn HTML and how the whole world of the internet works. Your website is very professional and easy to read, but I just wanted to let you know that in your “Stuff You Need” section of your HTML tutorial you say that we may need a floppy drive to save our files. Since floppy drives haven’t been in use for the past 5 years or something, maybe you should update that to a USB-stick?
I’m an utter newbie. My old cut & paste technique no longer gave satisfactory results. HTML-Kit was necessary, but daunting. Your tutorial was spectacular. Thank you for sharing useful advice, laced with humor and encouragement. I think you have helped far more people than are listed here.
.
Your site was just what I needed to cure a nagging problem. Many thanks.
Very great site! Thank you for all that good work!
I specially appreciate your section on free web hosting… very well documented! (I hope that word is good… my english is not very good!) :)
Thank you very much… I will come back often for information!
Just wanted to say a big Thank You for your tutorial on Form Mail. As supspectd the server had the wrong code for send mail posted on their website. I patiently went through all of the steps to remedy the problem, according to your instructions. It worked great!
Paul
I’m so glad I found this site. I’m in a XHTML/CSS class online and the resources the prof gave us for learning combining selectors were really unclear. Your descriptions were extremely helpful. The site is bookmarked and I’m sure I’ll be using it a lot…
I’ve created a few simple sites for myself and decided to create one for a client with the highly-lauded DreamWeaver. My own site — kept simple — went fine. The lady’s site, OMG!, got snarled! Nothing went as planned! I went to bed after a 10-hour bout and had TRAPPED dreams! Aarrggh! So I went back in using simple HTML and your tutorial. Within 4 hours I had caught up with my previous milepost. Still work to do, but at this point I am sooo glad I found your site and extremely thankful you put in all this work. “Iron Spider” is on my list of greats.
–> Thank you.
This site is great! Many thanks. I will now be able to finish a personal art project that is important to me.
Thanks again.
Thank you for making such an easy and understandable “how to” web page. I have started from scratch and am making a web page for the project I am working on for my phd in marine biology. My supervisor is impressed and who can ask for more? Not online yet, but is coming.
Thank you! From Silje
By far the most easy to understand information I’ve ever read about HTML. I have no coding background prior to this last year and everything I’ve learned has been pieced together from a number of sources. Always the missing piece has been understanding WHY this stuff works. It’s easy enough to find the code to get whatever it is done you need done. But to find someone to explain step by step what it is and why it works, well…that’s huge.
Great job and thank you for a fantastic resource. Truly…Jeb
this is a rly great site!! i dont rly kno much bout HTML but this is easy to understand. but i want to kno a code for alternating colors…
Ok, you even have stuff on here in terms simple enough for me. I congratulate you on that.
I found your site looking for help with colspan (which works now thank you!). I found the pages on the different types of lists very interesting as I’d used ul and ol in the past in a very limited way but didn’t know they could be stacked etc. I have no immediate use for it but found it very interesting and hope to put the info to good use in the future. I like days where I learn something new!
Will you ever make these layouts for the 2.0. profile? Cause i love your work but they dont work on 2.0 and i cant go back to 1.0.
Thanks heaps. I finally stumbled across your page after hours of searching for some decent layout code. Nice work.
Hi Rob
Just wanna say a sincere thank you for all the brilliant stuff on the Iron Spider website. Very helpful tutorials and reference. Especially the really useful stuff on HTML Kit. Thanx a bundle.
Jon
http://www.ziptheatre.co.uk
Rob – you WRITE like I LEARN ! !
Cudos to you!!
I was asked to create a website for my new employer and hopped on the internet searching for web page templates, free download . . . and found Iron Spider (and your exceptional talent!).
Will let you know what the link is when I’m finished so YOU can see OUR handiwork
Great.. check that – Terrific site, Mr. Darrell! Lots of good info for a novice to web development, and probably more advanced users, too. Will recommend to my friends and family… Have some questions I will address to you elsewhere. (no spam-bot here!)
Hey just wanted to say great site, you have helped me *and a few of my instructors of my CST program* with quite a few explanations and easy to use guides for pretty much everything we have needed to find.
I plan on posting your up on our campus portal for anyone who just might need it
Have a great day
a great work of online art. helped me begin the process of building my site. a reliable source of information regarding html, css, ssi, and web hosting
Unable to install RetroFind in FireFox 3.5.2. Error msg is:
Retro Find 2.2 could not be installed because it is not
compatible with Firefox 3.5.2.
IS their a 3.5.2 version available somewhere????
Just great! and an infinitely helpfull site, especially for the beginners among us: clear, concise, complete
congrats! a masterpiece!
Rob – your site is great. I’ve often needed clear and simple explanations and you’ve provided exactly what I’ve needed. Thanks for sharing this information.
oh wow. this site is sooo useful. lyke, i luk erywhere for plain colorful layouts && i found it ALL here…idk if theres anotha site out here dis easy && NO SPAM!! yayyy.
thank youu sooo much 2 who eva creates && posts these layouts; im in love wit yuh!
lol
Thank you very much. Your website has helped so much in designing a website for my class project.
Thank you.
Just used your site to set-up HTML-kit. What a huge help! Easy and fun to read. I’ll definitely be back for more help.
I saw the SSI explanation you provided which is what first directed me here. I am looking for the best alternative to frames so that I can design apps that use the current, popular methods.
My question is now this…If the include directives result in sending the HTML of the unchanged header, footer, and navigation portions how can any of that be cached to avoid transmission and processing in the first place? The server-side fetches, transmission to user host, and scanning by user’s virus s/w still occur whether or not the user’s PC decides to repaint those graphics…correct? So the effects of caching are minimal in regard to that respect, I believe.
To move into present design methods do I have to accept that the optimization (speed) offered by frames is just lost?
RPS,
Many portions of a web page do not need to be reloaded again because they’re cached by the client’s browser (e.g., images, CSS files, etc.). As for alternatives, not sure why you’re asking if you still love frames but SSI is a good alternative. I have a page on SSI in the HTML Frames section of this site.
Regarding frames…I still use them. Love ’em. I know the arguments against them, but I still enjoy the speed at which frame-based web sites operate. When developers starting ditching frames it was obvious. The web pages had to load the same data again and again with each click when it was needless. In short, users saw slower loading pages especially when graphics were in the header or navigation panes. Firewall and virus scan software review the same data again and again when it was already scanned and had not changed.
What is the best alternative to move away from frames that avoids the needless tranmission and processing of portions of the page that have not changed?
Gid Bless You.
You helped through designing and hosting my website.
Thanks
Gabrielle,
Humble apologies, but I really have a strict policy of not making layouts from other people’s photos. Moreover, I don’t really do custom layout requests (not even for a fee). Once again, I’m sorry. Thanks again for the birthday greeting.
Hello Rob.
No problem. I’ll try to get a panoramic snap of the Thames and the Houses of Parliament this summer (I don’t want that classic “London grey skies” look). The view from the London Eye (that giant ferris wheel) is magic on a clear day. What resolution would the image need to be to be used across the top of a webpage? Then I’ll send it to you and you can use it whichever way you like, infinitely.
Ciao,
Gabrielle
Gabrielle,
Thank you so much for the birthday greeting! :o)
Regarding your request (Making a layout with a Photoshop-ed urban scape of the Thames): Humble apologies but that’s highly unlikely. Dealing with copyright issues on other people’s photos is a humongous hassle (even supposed the copyright-free stuff) so I gave up doing that a long time ago. Now all my layouts are made from photos that I actually took myself with my own camera. So unless I actually visit London… (you see where I’m going with this…?)