It takes a lot of work to create a professional website, and if you are new to web development, I encourage you to start gradually. You won’t build another Facebook right away, but it’s not difficult to publish your own website online, so we’ll start from there.
By browsing the articles listed below, in order, you will start from scratch and get to publish your first web page online.
Installing the basic software
When talking about basic software installation, we will show you what tools you need for simple web development and how to install them properly.
1. A computer. It may sound obvious to some people, but some of you are reading this article on your cellphone or using a computer in a library. In order to develop a web page, it is better to invest in a desktop or laptop computer (Windows, Mac, or Linux).
2. A text editor for writing code. It can be a text editor (for example, Sublime, Brackets, Atom or Visual Studio Code), or a hybrid editor (for example, Dreamweaver or WebStorm). Office document editors are not suitable for this use because they are based on hidden elements that interfere with the playback engines used by web browsers.
3. Web browsers to test the code. Currently, the most used browsers are Firefox, Chrome, Opera, Safari, Internet Explorer and Microsoft Edge. You should also test how your site works on mobile devices and any older browsers that your target audience may still use.
4. A graphics editor, such as GIMP, Paint.NET, or Photoshop, to create images for your web pages.
5. A version control system, to manage files on servers, to collaborate on a project with a team, to share code and resources, and to avoid editing conflicts. Currently, Git is the most popular version control tool, and the GitHub code hosting service, based on Git, is also very popular.
6. An FTP program, used for older web hosting accounts to manage files on servers (for this purpose, Git is increasingly replacing FTP). There are a lot of FTP programs (S) available, including Cyberduck, Fetch, and FileZilla.
7. An automatic system, such as Grunt or Gulp, to perform repetitive tasks automatically, such as code mining and running tests.
8. Templates, libraries, and frameworks to speed up the writing of common functionalities.
9. More tools besides these!
A. Installing a text editor:
You probably already have a text editor installed on your computer. By default, Windows includes Notepad, and macOS comes with TextEdit. Linux distributions vary; Ubuntu comes with gedit by default.
For web development, you can do much better without Notepad or TextEdit. I recommend you start with Brackets, a free publisher that offers live previews and code suggestions.
B. Installing web browsers
For now, you’ll be installing a few desktop web browsers to test your code. Choose your operating system below and click on the relevant links to download the installers for your favorite browsers:
– Linux: Firefox, Chrome, Opera.
-Windows: Firefox, Chrome, Opera, Internet Explorer, Microsoft Edge (Windows 10 defaults with Edge; if you have Windows 7 or later, you can install Internet Explorer 11; otherwise you should install an alternate browser)
-Mac: Firefox, Chrome, Opera, Safari (Safari is installed by default on iOS and macOS)
Before you continue, you must install at least two of these browsers and have them ready for testing.