New to web development - Seeking opinions on the best tools for the job

[BruceG]

I am new to web site development, although I have had some workshops in the basics of HTML, VBScript, and ASP. All of it was using "raw" code in Notepad; I did not train in any front-end tools like FrontPage or InterDev. InterDev is what I would like to get into.

Let me describe the type of site I want to build, and then if you would, let me know what tools and approach you would use to do this.

As a part-time programming instructor for several years (teaching VB and other languages), I wrote up a lot of tutorials, all of which are in Word 97 format. What I would like to do is create a VB Reference web-site that worked like an on-line book.

The main page would have a frame on the left containing a tree-like control for the contents or index, and when the user selected an item from the tree, have the relevant tutorial content would be displayed in a frame on the right.

I would also like to offer the user a download of the tutorial document (or at least allow them to print it in a "printer-friendly" format) as well as a download of a WinZip file containing the project files. (Here's a question - what's the best way to switch back and forth between Word and HTML format if I update a particular tutorial; also, should I continue to use Word for future tutorials?)

Other ideas for this site:
(1) Seek contributions from other authors who have tutorials on topics I haven't covered (submit via an e-mail link, or is there a better option?)
(2) The site will be free, but I would want users to log-in (like vb-world); what database would be best to store the user info (would SQL Server be best, or could Access 2000 do the job?)
(3) What about ads/sponsorship? How does that work?

Ah, so many questions! Like I said, I'm fishing for opinions on how to set this up; anything you can offer on any or all of these issues would be much appreciated.

[Ianpbaker]

Hi bruce

Nice idead although it's been done quite a lot.

first question - tools

my personal chocie for tools is dreamweaver 3 and interdev 6

normally I would design all my pages in dw as it is one of the best design packages around and then use interdev for any asp that is needed. interdev is by far the best package for asp as it is just like writting in vb with all the usefull tricks.

as for the word/html issue it's alway nice to have both so they user can view on the page and have a hard copy if they want it

for login in, yes access would be quite sufficent just for handling that as long as you are not getting **** loads of hit all the time, then yes migrating to something like SQL would be the better option

One other thing to take in consideration, if you are going the asp route, you will need an IIS web server or a hosting site that supports ASP

hope this helps

Ian

[BruceG]

Thanks, Ian. I appreciate your input. Thanks to a friend of mine, I've got the "infrastructure" set up (IIS on a Win 2000 Server networked to my laptop). Fortunately for me, he understands all that networking and internet stuff. Now all I have to do is come up with the actual content!

[Ianpbaker]

good luck, it's a good feeling when you see your finished product lokking good and people viewing it. try to learn off your fiend anout the web server stuff as it isn't too hard and is very handy to have. On a side note you say your using a win2000 server, that means you will be using IIS5 which only supports asp3 (unlike iis4 on nt which uses 2.5) which has a few fundemental differences to 2.5

Ian

[BruceG]

Thanks again for the extra info; I'll need all I can get. :)