Resources
Web Hosting
General
- Neocities: A popular modern free host, 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.
- 1GB server space, 200GB bandwidth.
- Byet: A free host with more advanced features than Neocities. They offer FTP, PHP, unlimited databases, and 24/7 support. I highly recommend them as a free option for using PHP scripts.
- 5GB server space, unlimited bandwidth.
- 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 if you intend to get a custom domain!
- Nekoweb: Coming soon.
Blogs and Diaries
Technically, these are also hosts. Their primary focus is text, such as journal entries, but many 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 plenty of folks also use them as an easy way to include updates on their sites without manually editing pages. A major benefit to these kinds of hosts is their social aspect, with built-in comments, likes, and/or reposting (such as Tumblr's reblogging feature). Many also include rich text editors, which means if you'd prefer to get your content out there without much coding knowledge, 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 lightweight blogging platform. Not too many customization options because the entire point is a focus on content over aesthetics, but because of that it may be ideal for updates or diary pages.
- Blogspot: Coming soon.
CuteNews: My page with a guide on how to use a PHP script so you can easily make an updates page or host your own diary with comments and custom emotes. This may be reposted on request.- Dreamwidth: Coming soon
- FC2: Pretty neat. Offering 10GB of storage space is incredible. There are also tons 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. FC2 also offers comments on entries and supports tags (categories).
- Tumblr: Coming soon<./li>
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 a file will take up too much space on your own server? Whenever possaible, it's best to keep files with your primary host so things are less likely to break, but additiional file hosts can 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.
Web Development
Accessibility
Coding: General
- W3Schools — required reading if you want to learn how to make a website from scratch. I recommend starting with HTML and moving on to CSS at the very least. This site also teaches 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 it is.
- MDN Web Docs — more required reading if you want to learn how to make a website. Some info overlaps with W3Schools, but MDN is still an invaluable resource.
- FileZilla — a popular FTP client for folks with FTP access. This isn’t necessary for all web designers but becomes essential if you want to use more advanced techniques, like PHP scripts.
- Notepad++ — an advanced text editor that can save documents as .html files (among many other file 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 relying on this; learn to code for yourself! But it can cut down on tedium by converting things like long lists to HTML. Work smarter, not harder… assuming you know how to work lol.
- WinRAR — compression software that allows you to zip and unzip files. Many, many resources are shared as .zip or .rar files, including assets for web designers such as GitHub projects, PHP scripts, fonts, and more.
Coding: JavaScript
General
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File Paths: An explanation of relative vs absolute file paths, and how to use them.
Fonts
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 to download, specifically 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’re good to go. They also allow you to download the fonts to your personal machine.
- Pixel Fonts: My page with links to where you can download pixel fonts specifically.
- TimelessThemes: Pre-uploaded fonts to use on web pages.
Graphics
- Blinkies.cafe: Generates blinkies. Offers a ton of templates, is frequently updated with more, and includes multiple font options.
- GlitterGraphics: Coming soon<./li>
- ShareX: Lets you take isolated screenshots. Instead of hitting PrtScr and manually cropping the image, you can grab a specific section of the screen immediately. It requires downloading and installing on your PC, but it’s absolutely worth it. Incredibly useful for creating tutorials, capturing game screenshots, and more.
- Sozai Repositories: Coming soon.
Editing
- 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: essentially an in-browser, feature-for-feature recreation of Photoshop. Absolutely amazing and kind of bonkers.
- remove.bg: automatically removes the backgrounds of uploaded images, 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 similarly to LunaPic's auto crop.
Borders
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Using and Making CSS Border Images: This goes over using any image as a border. I find it more thorough than W3's, with more examples and how handle certain challenges. It covers how quadrants work, setting backgrounds while having a border with transparent elements, more complex images, differing widths, and rainbow borders. It also includes repeating lace borders. Creating/converting graphics to be used as a border isn't touched on as much, so I recommend How to Use Fool Lovers Borders if you'd like more border options.
- How to Use Fool Lovers Borders: This specifically goes over how to use pixel lace border assets, traditionally utilized with set-width tables, specifically from Fool Lovers. (But the concept applies to any sozai borders!) It uses Befunky as an editor, with an explanation and images showing how to convert the graphics for use as a border. (I believe this can be translated to your graphics editor of choice if you know your way around the program, however!) The coding aspect isn't as thorough, so I recommend checking out Custom CSS Border Images if you need it.