Creating custom menu & getting into web design help, First post sorry for so many questions, want to learn more... Options

[FTLOSM]

First off I use homestead.com, ok before you flame me for it, overall it is pretty good for me, fast easy to make a site, I custom toss in some html and a few custom photoshop and background images and within a short time I can usually make something decent, then i frame forward the site after buying a custom .com domain name.

So I can actually create a site that has a .com and looks "ok" vs the cookie cutter stuff homestead offers, I just use them cuz it is what I started with and I have alot of stuff stored on alot of pages there.

Ok now I am growing up here wanting to expand learn and create more, I have photoshop and am about to buy illustrator I think, I really want to get more into creating custom graphics and logos, I got an assignment to help build a site for a good friend who runs a non profit org, and this is gonna be the biggest site I have ever built with the most content I have ever included, the navigational menu is the starting point where I am stuck.

In the past I have always used the homestead navigation menus, but this site will require main navi buttons WITH sub button catagories, so instead of just home, about us, events, contact etc it will need sub catagory buttons like events then there are 8 different events so they want it to branch out into 8 sub menu choices vs putting those 8 things onto one page (each one having its own page).

So I am a bit stuck, to do this would be java right? I know I am going about this all in the backwards way, the way I learned html was one line at a time and tearing apart source codes to figure out how things work... and I have been leaning on homestead templates and some fancy photoshop work and frame forwarding to make sites appear decent, but I guess I am finding I need to learn more but am not sure where to start.

Is there any good reasonable priced software (or free) that will allow me to make a decent menu like this that doesn't look generic as heck? I did try one called CoffeeFreeDhtml off download.com and yeah it looks straight forward, but also looks pretty generic when completed...

I guess I am asking many more than one quesiton here so for that I aplogize, but my main focus at the moment is trying to get this navigation menu thing going so i can continue on and build this page for them. I really want to learn how to do flash intros too, but I will save that for the future.

When you guys and gals all started out where or how did you start, did you get books or go to school or ??
I really enjoy making webpages and even have a few people now coming to me to make them a site too, but I guess I am just not sure where to start to make "real" pages, what school book classes did you guys all take to get where you are today...

Thanks for any and all help on this,
Bill

[Corey Bryant]

Not Java, maybe you meant JavaScript but not even JavaScript. I would try CSS. For menus, take a look at listamatic on some different ways to create menuts.

There is also Suckerfish menus and Accessible Menus by Brothercake which will come in handy

[FTLOSM]

Corey,
Thanks for the links and replies, I will be looking into all this today, so it is css that I need to start learning or buy some program for it sounds like as a starting point.

Bill