Programming For The Designer
Programming For The Designer
By Adam Stitzer
There are basically two types of web designers. One is the Designer who can code, the other is the programmer who can design. I am sure you know which type you are and, honestly, I don’t think one is better than the other. They both have good points and weak points. This article is written to help those designers who can code to increase their coding skills. If you are a programmer looking for some design tips, please read my article on Design Tips.
With hundreds of programming languages out there, it is important to know which to use for each project. Only a handful of them are really useful for web design. Of course, you must get to know HTML, although with the software available today (such as Macromedia Dreamweaver), you could most likely get by without too much HTML knowledge. HTML is the foundation of all websites. Even if it is a Flash website, it is HTML that embeds the flash into the browser. WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) editors allow us to design websites without knowing HTML. You can simply click on a button to embed Flash, or even to make a simple contact form.
There are two other programming languages I want to discuss that are just as important to web design. They are PHP and Javascript. As a programmer, PHP is my favorite programming language. You can do just about anything with it in just a few lines of code. PHP is commonly used to make web templates for a website. If you think about it, most websites only change the content in the middle of the site. The top (the navigation and stuff) and the bottom, are usually the same on every page of a website. So why not use PHP to include a header, where the <HTML> tag starts, and a footer, where </HTML> ends. For example:
header.php:
footer.php:
index.php:
The advantage of setting up a template like this is that if you need to change something in the navigation for example, you only need to make a change in one file. This is by far not the only use for PHP. You can use it to connect to databases for a dynamic website. You could also write PHP functions to save you from rewriting the same code over and over. Its uses are endless. Learn it, you will thank me!
Now I want to discuss Javascript. The biggest difference between this and PHP, besides the syntax, is that Javascript can be executed client-side. This means that it can respond to user events such as mouse clicks, or form inputs. For example, you could have a Javascript function that verifies input into a text field of a contact form. It is another beautiful and incredibly useful programming languages.
If you know these three languages I have discussed, you can program just about anything you would like to. Learn them if you don’t know them. They are essential to every web designer.
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Tuesday, May 22, 2007
All Metals & Forge Website Created by Don Johnson Design Featured in Forging Magizine
Forging Magazine, the primary trade magazine for forging companies recently featured an article reviewing one of Don Johnson Design’s clients, All Metals & Forge, LLC, and their new web site.
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