We learnt about html, css and markdown which are used to create websites from scratch. A text editor is a program you can use to write these more quickly and efficiently. There are many free text editors online such as Atom and Sublime Text. Codepen is an online platform that I am using in another module to practice making websites, but I decided to install Sublime Text because that makes it more accessible (available on your desktop and offline), and it was highly reccomended by my lecturer. It has a fairly simple interface and is easy to learn how to use. I am using html instead of markdown as I want to try getting used to writing in html because it is required in my other modules. However, I am aware that markdown makes life easier because the elements are shorter and it is less tedious.
Creating a webpage can be done with a html file, which contains the content of the website. We are able to create tables, headers, lists and insert images, among many other elements, using html only. However, without CSS, your website will look plain and the layout will be messy. We can use a separate CSS file to style the website and contents, arranging and setting boundaries and containers. The CSS can be added by linking the stylesheet to the html file. After creating the files, we can drag and drop them from our desktop to a new tab and it will load the preview. A combination of pages can be used to form a full website, hosted online on a server such as Github.
Using Github to host your site is useful as it allows you to save different versions (have version control) so if you make a mistake want to revert to a previous version (or a period in history), you can revert any time and have the rest of the versions still saved. Many people can also access your site and work on the project at the same time. They can also see what and how you have made certain things by accessing the repository.
We made our own accounts and created our site on Github, using our own public repository and text documents made on text editors such as Sublime Text. We imported the html files and photos using folders to separate them, and linked the files to the main page. Each time a change is made and saved, that is a new version that we can go back to if needed. Everything will be saved on Github as a version.
Git can be downloaded onto our desktop for Mac and Windows. For big projects with multiple people working on them, Git can be used for each person to make changes and tests on their own before pushing it onto the site. After downloading and signing up using email, we can make changes to our files and commits, before pushing them onto the main site.
A branch can be created if you want to test out something and make changes to many areas, but do not want to affect the things other people are working on. The main branch that everyone uploads to is called the Master branch. If you do not want to make changes on it, you can create a branch and work on that, without changing or affecting the master branch.
Video tutorial: