Tools you Need to Build a Website

• A browser (run google-chrome, or firefox_stable on the department machines)
• A text editor (Microsoft Word, Open Office, and Text Edit won’t work!)

Text Editor Recommendations:

Mac:

• Free & simple: textwrangler, Xcode
• Paid: coda, textmate, sublimetext2, and many others

PC:

• Free: notepad++
• Paid: sublimetext2

Linux

• kate, or gedit

Writing an HTML File

• Open your text editor, write some HTML.
• Save your file as index.html, and then open this file using your browser (File > Open File, or similar).

For writing other kinds of files, make sure you use the correct extension, e.g. .css, .js.

If your css file is in the same directory, it will be included as you expect, even though you are viewing a file that is hosted locally (on your own computer) and not by a webserver.

Now that you’ve done this, take a look at the web inspector miniguide for tips on how to debug your page.