With all the What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get HTML Coding Programs available, who needs to learn how to code HTML? I do and I want to.

There’s always the easy way out of everything but the only reward for it is the fact that IT IS easy. Actually, building your website via hand-coding HTML isn’t really that hard. All the tags that you need to learn is in English and its literal translation is as is. The only thing that it requires of you (badly) is your patience in getting it done.

I had my first website built seven years ago with the help of Dreamweaver. It wasn’t only a single website; actually there were several of them. I used to dedicate websites to Anime characters, pairs or to the show itself. It wasn’t only a year later when I started hand-coding HTML for my websites, and eventually created my first personal website. I learned how to code HTML through online help-sites but primarily from Funky-Chickens.

   

My personal website contained a lot of photos of my family and friends and of course, photos and fan-art of the Animes that I love watching. I would upload lyrics of my favorite songs and reviews of movies I’ve watched. It had my blog, of course, but mostly rants about the people in my high school. The website contained random stuff—I think I could’ve also uploaded pictures of my cousin’s dog.

The thing is, I easily grew tired of its appearance and eventually would create different versions of it. My first two versions, obviously, were simple and made out of tables. TABLES! I really don’t like using tables in coding my website but it actually arranges stuff in a manner that I wanted it to be arranged with. That was the first thing that amazed me—how tables seem so complicated but their end result would always look as if it was done as fast as you could say “GO”.

   

After much frenzy with tables, I learned how to manipulate IFrames, and thus, websites with IFrames! It appealed to me because you need not scroll down the entire page to get a look at the whole website. You just need to scroll down through the frame and choose from the menu to change the content. The appearance of the website was also more aesthetically pleasing than that of my previous one but my later websites were better because I learned to experiment with pictures in Adobe Photoshop.

I began using brushes (downloaded for free over the internet) and applying filters in random pictures. I actually use Paint Shop Pro and Adobe Photoshop simultaneously and I can sit down for ten hours straight in front of the computer doing my “experimenting” with pictures.

   

   

That new found habit of attempting graphics design gave way to new attempts in web development. I found myself learning coding CSS and Javascript-ing with the help of online websites. My later websites contained drop-down menus, fading images when mouse-over(ed), sliced images that would load faster, pop-up stuff in the site, overlayed frames, etc.

     

I stopped creating new layouts for my website two years ago, and instead maintained a blog on blogger. There’s always multiply for my photos and other stuff.

HTML-Coding was something I enjoyed doing because of the new things that I learned. For me, it was always a matter of trial and error. You type in a code, save it and view it. If it doesn’t appeal to you, rewrite it. It’s not that easy but it’s really not that hard either. It depends on the coder himself and the type of website he wants.

I think I stopped doing layouts because I found another “thing” to experiment on: Macromedia Flash. Although I haven’t done any website using Flash, I think someday I’ll find time or overcome laziness to create one. I may not have all the knowledge but I sure can whip up something simple at least.