Web Design Resources

If you are a student or instructor seeking a crash course in the fundamentals of web design, this is a good place to start. This annotated page of links will take you to some of the best tutorials and informational resources available on the web. The page begins with pointers to basic resources and progresses to more advanced topics.

Webmonkey: Intro to HTML - An overview of HTML and how it works.

Webmonkey: Teaching Tool - A great tool for practicing your tags, this page introduces tags one by one and then gives you a chance to put them to use.

WYSIWYG Editors: Macromedia Dreamweaver - A wonderful editor available at an academic price of $99.

WYSIWYG Editors: Adobe GoLive - A high quality editor that is popular with Mac users. Academic price is around $135.

Text Editors: Allaire Homesite - Makes coding by hand immeasurably more pleasant. Available for an academic price of around $80.

Text Editors: Arachnophilia - Not as nice as Homesite, but a good program for a great price (free!).

CuteFTP - A widely-used shareware program for PC users.

Fetch - The most popular program for Mac users.

WS-FTP LE - A popular, free program for PC users.

Computersmiths: WS-FTP Tutorial - Explains the program's key features.

Webmonkey: FTPing with CuteFTP - A useful how-to guide.

Webmonkey: FTPing with Fetch - Another useful guide.

Geocities - Free hosting up to 15 MB. A variety of premium services--including streaming media capabilities--are available for a fee.

Webjump - Free hosting up to 25 MB. Lets users register a sub domain for free and thus avoid lengthy URLs. CGI scripts permitted.

Xoom - Free hosting & unlimited web space. Does not permit CGI scripts.

Adobe Photoshop - The industry standard for image creation and editing.

Paint Shop Pro - A robust program that is a popular alternative to the more expensive applications.

Macromedia Fireworks - A fabulous program for optimizing, slicing, and editing images for the Web.

Lynda.com - A collection of graphics tips and web design resources from one of the best-known contemporary design gurus.

Using Adobe Photoshop 5.0 - A thorough introductory tutorial. A great place to start for users new to Photoshop.

Webmonkey: Photoshop Crash Course - While this tutorial might move a little too quickly for users just learning the ropes, it should be helpful to those who need a brief review or who want helpful introductions to some advanced techniques.

Webmonkey: Scanning 101 - An overview of scanning basics, including tips on adjusting resolution.

Image Map Authoring Guide and Tutorial Sites - Includes overviews of the image-mapping process and a helpful selection of tutorials.

i/us - A large site offering product reviews, tips, and resources for a wide variety of software programs.

The Photoshop Guru's Handbook - Includes tons of helpful tutorials. Many are geared towards intermediate and advanced users.

ScreamDesign: Creating Transparent GIFs - How to create transparent GIFs in three popular programs.

A Short MapEdit Tutorial - A step-by-step look at one of the most popular image-mapping shareware programs.

Webmonkey: Optimizing Your Images - Guidelines for optimization using either Adobe ImageReady or Macromedia Fireworks.

Webmonkey: Frames Are a Picnic - A great explanation of the concept behind frames and a step-by-step introduction to coding them.

Webmonkey: Linking in Framesets - How to make a link clicked in one frame open up in another.

Webmonkey: Don't Forget the Non-Frames Folks - Code your site so that users with early browsers won't be left behind.

Webmonkey: How to Steal JavaScript - Tips for how to modify someone else's script so that it works on your site.

Webmonkey: JavaScript Tutorial - An overview of how the JavaScript programming language is structured.

bratta.com's Dynamic HTML Scriptomania - A cutting-edge resource for JavaScripts and DHTML scripts.

Cut-N-Paste JavaScript - A well-stocked script library.

Website Abstraction Free JavaScripts - Another useful script library.

ZDNet Developer: Script Library - My favorite JavaScript resource, ZDNet's site includes demo versions of each script in its library--users can view the script in action before they cut and paste the code.

ZDNet JavaScript Survival Kit - This link will let you download an extremely helpful, well-documented set of useful scripts.

AudioGrabber - This free program lets you "grab" files from CDs, converting them to an editable format. It also converts .wav files to mp3 format.

SoundForge XP - This editing tool is designed specifically for users preparing audio files for the web. You can purchase a downloadable version for about $50.

Add Sound and Audio Files using EMBED - This web site discusses some of the pros and cons of different audio formats. It also provides examples of the HTML code used to embed sound clips on your site.

MSDN Sounds - A collection of sounds available for use on your web pages.