Best way to approach template design?

[navjeet]

I want to design a web template for a friend and wanted to get your opinion on the best way to approach template design? Which programs should I use? I know quite a bit but still am not knowledgeable enough to use notepad not yet atleast so, I am search website is related to free templates for website design for free from this website. what do you think I should use?

[suzkaw]

I would recommend visiting something like w3schools to learn the html.
http://www.w3schools.com/html/

[Nickb]

Most people would swear by Dreamweaver, it is quite expensive, but I am sure you could find a copy of Dreamweaver MX cheap.

The issues you may find with script templates over standard html are:
You can not just preview your would, you need to set up a local host server or upload you templates to a working site to check as you go.

There are a number for files that need to be edited to get templates working well. There is quite a lot of CSS work to be done. The use of styles with the templates will result in errors, so font sizes, background colours etc need to be done via the CSS file.

You have one main template file which is the grounding for all pages and then there are a number of other pages that are called into the main page. You need to make sure that you retain the code that makes this all work.

[Lhotch]

Personally I found it more work to learn a complicated app like dreamweaver than to just learn html and css.

Typically what I will do when modifying an existing template is use fire fox and the "Web Developer" and "Firebug" add ins which allo me to see exactly where on the page an html and css eliment is and then I can change it and see the change live. Once I have it where I want it I then manually edit the template file.