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Page 1 of 4 Underneath all the content you see in your web browser is a source code which tells the browser what to display and how to present it. You can always view this code by right clicking on a web page and selecting 'View source code' from the menu which appears. If you are not a very technical person then reading source code probably looks like some kind of visual static to you. It can be very off-putting and confusing to see a page of seemingly random words and symbols piled together like so much gibberish, with bits of your content poking it's head through as if pleading for help.
So what do you do if you don't know how to read code?
If you are one of these people then you must find it extremely frustrating at times. You are limited to set themes and templates, unable to alter layouts, add graphics, or just simply change a border color or font size. Not only that but when unexpected problems come up you have no options to solve them. A simple image can screw up an entire layout simply because it's five or ten pixels too big. Your only solutions then are to either ask for help or throw the whole thing away and start over.
Asking for help in a forum or a site such as this is a great way to get a solution. You will find many members who have had the same problems in the past and who are only too willing to help you out. But it takes time. You have probably spent a frustrating hour trying to solve the problem yourself. Then asked your question in a forum and waited an hour or two for a response. Then you try what's suggested and if it doesn't work you have to go back and ask again.
The point here is that five simple problems on a website or blog can take you ten hours to fix if you know absolutely nothing about code. Alternatively, you can spend five of those hours learning how to read it and solve those problems yourself in ten minutes flat. Next time around those ten hours will take you ten minutes and you won't be tempted to throw your computer out of a third storey window.
So where do we start? Well to get by in adult promotion you need to learn enough to answer the following questions:
- Why does it look like that?
- Why is it doing that?
- Why isn't that working?
- Am I being ripped off?
But first a word about syntax. By code I mean language. Every language, be it computer or otherwise, is built around a set of rules which together are called the syntax for that language. That syntax makes it possible for anybody, or machine, to interprete and make sense of that language by simply knowing those rules. The trick to removing the mystery of code is to understand that syntax.
Right let's look at those questions......
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