Freakin' A!!!!!

likeglue

Argghh, getting this PHP stuff is becoming pretty freakin' discouraging. I'm an artistic, creative designer type, and I'm finding all this left brained programming pretty tedious. What can a person like me do to make database driven websites? I just want to make stuff look cool, not get bogged down with heavy programming. Does Dreamweaver help in this regard? What is PHP Nuke, what is it and would it be good for me? Am I barking up the wrong tree? If there's absolutely no way around it, I'll have to learn this stuff, but if there's an easier way I'd love to know about it. Can anybody recommend a good, simple, fun book that's easy to read and not stuffy?

We Are 138

thorpe

you could probably get away with using a good open source content management system. most of these systems use templates that seperate the design from the code. this way you can more or less just worry about the design.

you will need a little php knowledge to install some cms's, but it should be pretty easy. though of course, a little php knowledge would come in handy if you really want to customise the thing.

anyway, just an idea. php really isn't too hard to learn.

id10t

Hire a coder. Create a nice design, leave some comments in it for your dynamic data to go, and he/she should be able to whip out the dynamic part in just an hour or three....

(at least, thats what I do - the coding side. can't design pretty things worth a crap)

likeglue

Can someone explain to me what PHP Nuke is? I heard it's kind of like a WYSIWYG program for PHP, is that right? Also, does Dreamweaver have any features that will write PHP for you?

Like I said, I'm new to PHP so if these questions are completely off the mark, I apologize.

BTW, I can't/don't want to hire a coder, just can't afford it and would rather do it myself somehow.

Just asking, are coding and designing usually kept as separate endeavors by 2 different people? It seems like they are opposites, one being very artistic/creative the other being very tech/analytical. Are there designers out there that do both and do you have any advice for me? Thanks big time.

We Are 138

thorpe

phpnuke is a content management system like the ones i linked too in my above post.

did you check out that link? i really believe that if you find a good cms its your best bet. phpnuke is skinnable (meening you add your design), but every site ive seen made with phpnuke looks like any other phpnuke site. id'e suggest looking at the mysource cms, posted in my link above.

as for dreamweaver. it can write code for you, but it is usually fairly inificient and poorly coded.

as for design vs programming. personnally, i design my own stuff. but yeah, im more a coder than a designer. though i would say, that desgning for the web requires more technical background than desktop publishing. to design well for the web you need to know html and css. and no, html is NOT programming.

by the sounds of your needs, honestly, check out some of the content management systems posted in my above link. these things take care of all the backend stuff. you take care of the design and content.

other than that. php is a fairly easy language to learn, and once you know it, the posabilities are endless. if you REALLY want to do this yourself, you will need to learn php. there are no shortcuts.