The Basic Tools You Need
As I mentioned earlier, many of the tools you'll need to build your first web site are already on your computer. So, what tools do you need?
- The primary, and most basic, tool that you'll need is a text editor. You'll use this to write your web pages.
- Once you've written a web page, you can see how it looks in a web browser.
- Finally, when you're happy with your new web page, you can put it on the Internet using an FTP client. Using FTP can be a little complicated, but thankfully you won't need to do it too often. We'll discuss FTP clients in detail in Chapter 8, Getting your Web Site Online.
You've already got most of these programs on your computer, so let's go find them.
Windows Basic Tools
Your Text Editor: Notepad
The first tool we'll consider is the text editor. Windows comes with a very simple text editor called Notepad. Many professional web designers who use complicated software packages first started out many years ago using Notepad; indeed, many professionals who have expensive pieces of software that should be time-savers still resort to using Notepad for many tasks. Why? Well, because it's so simple, little can go wrong with it. Bells and whistles are definitely not on the menu here.
You can find Notepad in the Start menu: go to Start > All Programs > Accessories.
Note: Shortcut to Notepad
To save yourself navigating to this location each and every time you want to open Notepad, create a shortcut on your desktop. With the Start menu open to display Notepad's location, hold down the Ctrl key, click and hold down the mouse button, then drag the Notepad icon to your desktop. When you release the mouse button, a shortcut to the application will appear on your desktop, as in Figure 1.1.
Figure 1.1 Creating a shortcut to Notepad
Notepad is the simplest of simple applications. See Figure 1.2 for a depiction of its fancy interface (that was sarcasm, by the way).
Figure 1.2. Notepad: a contender for the world's ugliest program?
Your Web Browser: Internet Explorer
Once you've created a web page using Notepad, you'll need a way to view the results of your handiwork. You'll remember that, in the preface to this book, we mentioned Internet Explorer. Well, that's your viewer! As Figure 1.3, 'Internet Explorer: there's no hiding this baby away!' shows, Internet Explorer sits right there in the Programs folder, and also lurks on your desktop.
Figure 1.3. Internet Explorer: there's no hiding this baby away!
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