Dungeon Master Forum

atm, im working on something i always wanted to do (like planting a tree and growing a kid): i want to create my own website.
here are gathered some very good webmasters, so i decided to ask here a few things
first, some demos of my spare knowledge so far:
http://mitglied.lycos.de/bngamber/sucina/
and here a code-demo of the new one: http://mitglied.lycos.de/bngamber/page.rar
you see, its only html and very crude one, too.
the question is - how long would it take me to create that with php? would it be worth the effort to learn that from 0?
i don't want the page to be highly professional like gambits ones, it should rather be simple, but bugfree and easy to update.
i want to add a few texts, some comments about various stuff, a kind of weblog. maybe also some comics and stuff which i might create spontaneous. i also want to add some information about stuff i do and games i play, provided with some links and a screenshot each.
for the daily (weekly, ...) comment, it would of course be fine to have some newsscript rather than to fiddle around with html each time. i don't need a comment-system, i prefer a forum to this.
i also heard that framesets don't work too good with search-engines, which would be another reason for php.
next thing would be graphics of course, i'm not too talented in creating such things like icons etc.
so the questions are (so far):
would you advice to learn php? and if yes, how should i do that (i'm rather broke, please no books)? how long would it take (estimatedly), to have the base atm in clear php? and how long to include a newsscript? are there any ressources of basic stuff i can access?
do you know any graphic pools with free stuff?

Whew! Where to begin?

It's difficult for me to know which resources to point you to, as I've learnt this stuff slowly over a number of years -- both by reading and simply by *doing*. There are tons of free tutorials on the web, so you shouldn't need to pay for anything, though get ready for lots of reading!

One resources that other newbie developers seem to enjoy is W3 Schools:

http://www.w3schools.com/

You could also try this page which has thousands of links to everything you ever wanted to know about web design/development:

http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/support/Train ... webdesign/

It doesn't seem to me that you really need PHP for doing what you want -- it would be just as simple to stick with HTML. I have no experinec of RSS feeds, but I'm sure they can probably be integrated without PHP.

If you use a Wysiwyg editor such as Dreamweaver, it would make things very quick. Contact me privately if you want a copy...

As for free graphics, Cow might be the best one to ask, although I have used stuff from this site before:

http://tubes.ominix.com/art/index.html

Gambit37 wrote: I've learnt this stuff slowly over a number of years

yes, i guessed so and already pointed out that i don't want to reach your quality, mainly because it's too much effort for only one page. i have seen bare templates to be sold for 30-50€,, but i don't think that's the way, i want the page to be editable and mainly i want it to be MINE.
atm, i'm working with a texteditor (which displays code in a different color) and the ie to have previews.
i decided to build the page completely with html first, later i will convert it maybe, if needed.
thx for your help so far

i started with the forum (a phpbb) and succesfully included the first boardhack
i think, starting with a forum is easier, because i can insert all graphics there simply and it's easier to create the page, when i already got some pics for it, rather than an empty skeleton.
i changed mind and decided to go for php, an index.php with something which accords to a html with a frameset should not be too hard and i don't need too much tricks after that.
that sounds maybe a bit confused, but that reflects my working-style perfectly^^

ok, i'm getting better, but i still produce lots of errors and it takes ages for the simplest things. but you can see efforts here: www.sucinum.de
current task: margins.
after that, it's ready to add content. i hope

Well Sucinum, as "Php-Nuke Evangelist" its my duty to tell you to try install PHP-Nuke; once installed will be very easy to update it, add features, etc. If you have more questiosn about this, just shoot =)

whatever it is - i don't use php next to one command: require
do i still need it?

Looks like you're making good progress! It can be slow to begin with, but stick with it -- you seem to have grasped the essentials, and that's so important -- from here on it should be plain sailing.

Using PHPNuke or similar is fine, but it won't teach you much about the underlying technology. If you want to understand what's going on 'under the hood', it's still better to learn from scratch.

PHP 'require' command loads an external file into the current page. Unlike the 'include' command, 'require' will fail completely if the file can't be found or doesn't load.

http://www.php.net/require

what's the difference between require and include?

edit: nevermind, i read 'like include' rather than 'unlike inlcude' so that's why i asked the question!

kicked the tables, now i use css. css rocks so much! also did some wording-stuff and i can now be googled by javazon, goldbarb, shandalar and sucinum (1st place each) - brought 129 visitors this month with google as redirector and 50 with yahoo.
http://www.sucinum.de/

a very nice css-demo:
http://www.csszengarden.com/

still to learn:
xhtml
more css
making graphics
maybe some php

maybe i'm not the fastest learner, but nice progress

yes that is a great CSS demo

I made a CSS Zen garden submission about a year ago and didn't get around to uploading it -- then promptly lost it after I deleted a bunch of folders by mistake and didn't have a backup!

Must do another one at some point to show off my skills...

I don't believe you you need to prove it !!!

i started a new project with an online-friend, which you can see here: www.d2chars.de
as you can see, making graphics is still on my todo, mainly a banner is missing. took me ages to create/edit the few graphics which are already there. was nice to have a partner who created mainly databases and php-stuff, making the site more interactive and usable. we have created a cms-like system which makes it easy to add further articles and content to the database, it even translates forumcode to html (some at least).
nice hobby, and still so much to learn...