Dreamweaver + Database Help!! Beginner

[devster27]

Hi folks,

An early seasons greetings to you all.

I'm after some advice if that's OK? Basically I've been tasked with creating a website where a user comes in, on the left they will see some links that takes them further, eventually coming to a point where they can download a file. Now, to someone who has never, and I mean never, created a website what would be the easiest, most simplest way to do this?
I'm guessing that a database would be needed to store the pesky files? Then an application (Dreamweaver, yay!) to design the front end and link the two in perfect harmony. So my question really is, what tools would be best for my task? The site doesn't need to be fancy 'click, click, download'...that's it!

Thanks in advance for your advice.

Best regards,

Dev

 

[vacunita]

If it doesn't need to be fancy I wouldn't use a DB unless you need some kind of user authentication, And even then I would never store the files in the DB itself, but rather just a path pointing to them in the file system.

With that said, I wouldn't use DW to start the web creation process, but rather start simple use a simple text editor to learn the basics of web development, before moving onto an app that will create it for you. As more often than not you won't be able to tell what the program is doing should you need to alter anything.

You'll additionally need to learn some type of server side language like PHP, ASP, Coldfusion etc.. , which again is better off learned manually, then relying on DW to spit out the code.

Again should you need to fix something you won't have the slightest idea of how to fix it unless you have a mild understanding of how the code is supposed to work.

With that said, before beginning you need to find out what technologies are available to use on the server that will be hosting such a website. Not all servers offer support for all languages.


So to sum up you'll need to:
1. Find out what server side language is supported on the web server.
2. Start looking at HTML and CSS tutorials to familiarize yourself with web development
3. If you really require a DB, find out what DB is available on the webserver.



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Phil AKA Vacunita
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