resources
here be a list of various useful tools to help you create your own web page! this page is still a major wip!
website hosting
for a website to be accessed by others, it needs to be hosted somewhere!
- neocities - the current free host with the most for basic hobby hosting, with extra options for paid users. some caveats are file types are slightly limited, and no ftp support (even for paid accounts) - you must either use the on-site editor, or locally download your files to edit them and then reupload them. but these caveats are honestly minor in the grand scheme of hosts. there's also a social aspect, where you can follow your favorite sites, and other webmasters can follow yours to get a built-in updates timeline.
- you get 1gb server space, and 200gb bandwidth. (this can be upgraded to 50gb server space and 3,000gb bandwidth for paid users.)
- angelfire - still alive and kickin' after 20+ years! my own website from highschool is still currently up. cringe but based they're notorious for having ads on sites to pay for their server costs, but there are actually codes you can put on your pages to hide their ads, not to mention most folks use an adblocker nowadays. when the original geocities closed, angelfire stuck around, and still sits on geocities' ashes. it's tried and true. while i personally recommend neocities over them, i have to give them their dues as as solid free host for hobbyists. grandaddy mvp
- byet - a free host with more advanced features than neocities or angelfire. they offer ftp, php, databases, and 24/7 support. you get 1gb server space and 50gb of bandwidth. i highly recommend them as a free option for using php scripts
- skystra - a paid host with reasonable prices and great features for the cost. they're who i host my personal domain through. they actually do transfers of your files if you're migrating to their servers, and they offer everything byethost does, but are linkable with a domain with unlimited subdomains for no extra fee. their support staff is awesome too. i've been really pleased and highly recommend them
- blogspot - coming soon
- nekoweb - coming soon
blogs and diaries
technically, these are also hosts. their primary focus is for text, such as journal entries - but a lot also include features for image hosting and creating non-entry pages. a lot of webmasters use a service like these in addition to a basic host, usually for their intended purpose as a diary, but a lot of folks also utilize them as a means of easily including updates to their sites without having to manually edit pages. a large benefit to these kinds of hosts is their social aspect, with things built-in comments, likes, and/or reposting (such as tumblr's reblogging feature). oftentimes they also include rich text editors, which means if you'd prefer to get your content out there without much coding know-how, you can. (but many of these services are even more customizable if you do know how to code, so it's still recommended to learn!)
- bear blog - small, easy, and light-weight blogging platform. not too many customization options because the entire point is a focus on content over aesthetic, but because of that it may be ideal to some for updates or diary pages
- blogspot - coming soon
- cutenews - my page with a guide on how to use a php script so that you can easily make an updates page, or host your own diary with comments and custom emotes
- dreamwidth - coming soon
- fc2 - pretty neat. offering 10gb of storage space is incredible. there's also a ton of pre-made skins to use, and of course you can customize the coding yourself if you want to. because they also offer other services such as counters, you can easily integrate one. also offers comments on entries and allows tags (categories)
- tumblr - coming soon
general coding
to develop a website from scratch, you need to actually know how, and have access to tools to accomplish it
- w3schools - required reading if you want to learn how to make a web site from scratch. i recommmend starting with html and moving on to css at the least. this site also teaches about other programming languages such as java and php. my instructor in my web programming college course would frequently reference w3schools if that's any indication of how useful they are
- mdn web docs - more required reading if you want to learn how to make a web site. some info may be already covered in w3schools, but this is still an invaluable resource
- filezilla - a popular ftp client, for folks with ftp access. this isn't necessary for all web designers, but does become essential if you want to utilize some more advanced techniques, like utilizing php scripts
- notepad++ - an advanced text editor that can save documents as .html files (among other files types), allowing you to locally edit and preview your pages on your machine before uploading to your host
- text to html - a rich text editor that converts text to html. work smarter not hard as the saying goes lol. i don't recommend reliance on this; learn to code for yourself! however, this can reduce a lot of tedium by converting things like long lists to html and etc. work smarter, not harder... given you know how to work lol
- winrar - a compression software that allows you to "zip" and "unzip" files. many, many files are shared as .zip and .rar files, including resources for web designers, such as projects on github, php scripts, fonts, and more
graphics
not all websites need images, but they're definitely fun and often useful to display!
- blinkies.cafe - generates blinkies. offers a ton of templates and is frequently updated with more, and offers different font options
- glittergraphics - coming soon
- sharex - lets you take isolated screen shots. instead of hitting prtscr and having to manually crop the image, you can just cap a specific section of the screen. it requires a download and installation on your pc, but i find it absolutely worth it. this is incredibly useful if you want to create tutorials with images, share caps from games you play, etc.
- sozai repositories - coming soon
graphics editing
these are ways to edit images if you want them a certain way
- gimp - a free and open-source program for more advanced image editing. requires a download
- lunapic's auto crop - automatically crops images to the edges. i use this for transparent pngs to get rid of the extra space around images
- photopea - this is essentially an in-browser, feature-for-feature recreation of photoshop. absolutely amazing and bonkers
- remove.bg - automatically removes the backgrounds of whatever's uploaded to it, creating a transparent png. it doesn't always work flawlessly, but it's still incredibly helpful. i use this to remove the backgrounds of the bottles on my nail polish collection page
- trimmy - works similar to lunapic's auto crop
image hosting
perhaps you need more storage space for actual pages on your host, or you're trying to preserve bandwidth, or you want to link to your images anywhere and everywhere. that's where a dedicated image host may be useful!
- imgur - coming soon
- tumblr - coming soon
fonts
sometimes you might want to spruce things up by using different fonts on your site and/or in your graphics
- custom fonts on websites - my guide on using custom fonts on websites
- dafont - tons of fonts to download with various licenses
- font squirrel - tons of fonts for download, focusing on free-to-use commercial licenses
- everything fonts - tons of fonts to download with various licenses
- google fonts - offers pre-uploaded fonts to use on web pages, just copy and paste your format of choice and you should be good to go. they also allow you to download the fonts to your personal machine
- pixel fonts - my page with links to where to download pixel fonts specifically
- timelessthemes - pre-uploaded fonts to use on web pages
other file hosting
sometimes you may have different files you need hosted, such as .zip files, for visitors to download to their own machine permanently. or, perhaps your host doesn't allow you to upload certain file types. maybe you want to preserve space on your own server again. additional file storage may be beneficial!
- dropbox - coming soon
- catbox.moe - allows files with the exception of .exe, .scr, .cpl, .doc*, and .jar
- mediafire - coming soon
- google drive - coming soon
advanced coding
following these tutorials require a familiarity with at least html and css, often dipping into php and javascript
- easy image gallery - this tutorial goes over using vue.js to easily create an image gallery with hundreds of images. it's written with people not familiar with javascript in mind
statuses and microblogging
- status.cafe - coming soon
- surfing backlog - coming soon
- imood - coming soon
guestbooks
communication
- cbox - coming soon
- shoutbox - coming soon
counters
- fc2 - offers a lot of options for counter displays
- graphicookie - my page with a guide on how to use a php counter script so that you can utilize custom graphics
music players
please be aware autoplay music is kind of rude, and if you're going to include music on your site it's necessary to give visitors an option to turn it off and control the volume. the most ideal music player is one that allows the visitor to click play to begin with, so my recs come with these guidelines in mind
- webamp - a clone of winamp, but for the browser! allows you to even set custom skins. adding tracks is easy. i recommend it for a playlist page