Print to Web - know all

[karthik681]

Hi,
I'm Designer working in Newspaper industry for past 7 years. I usually work with tools like QuarkXpress, InDesign, Corel, Illustrator and Photoshop.

Its high time for me to learn some thing of the web.

I read many articles on the web about web designing or web development, I'm not clear of it.

Please tell me for a person like me with this(print) background what is need to learn in the field of web.

Can you please briefly explain the structure and its parts that make a web or what part should i focus on.

Thanks

[Dante]

Oh wow this is a huge question. I think I know what you are asking.

For someone with a strong background using Illustrator and Photoshop it would be easier for you to design the page(s) completely in either of those programs then cut them up into separate images and use the code to put them back together like you wanted.
For me, I prefer to set up the code the way I want the page to look then I go ahead and design all the elements using sketches I may have made. I find it easier to plan interactivity this way.
It is up to you how you go about doing it.

For the actual coding you need to learn HTML and CSS as a complete minimum. You will be able to make basic web pages with images, text and whatever else but if you want to have pages with any more functions then you will need to learn PHP and some Javascript (you can get away with just using jQuery instead of Java though).
HTML is used to create the content that will go on the page and set up the information needed to make the layout and CSS is used to take this information and put all the elements where you want them.

I would suggest heading to w3schools (http://www.w3schools.com) to learn the HTML and CSS basics.
Once you have the basics down it is really helpful to visit various sites that you like the look of, right click then view source. That way you are able to take a look at what they have done and try to recreate it yourself. I would recommend not stealing source and using it for a commercial website though, very taboo.

Anyway, it won't take you long to be able to make basic websites. I found that after 6 months I could make pretty much what I wanted until I needed the more difficult PHP and Java functions. Knowing the HTML and CSS made it pretty easy to get PHP figured out and I am still learning Java.

Have Fun