Web design for beginners?

Carlimited

Is Dreamweaver a good program to use if you are new to creating and designing websites & web pages? I am fairly computer capable, and have always been interested in web design. My "research" so far indicates that this program is fairly good for beginners, and should be able to handle even complex designs in the future. I have been told that using a program like this will allow me to create useful websites (with practice of course), and will allow me to teach myself everything I need to know. True or false? :cool:

smcelhinney

True.

Dreamweaver is by far the "de-facto" web design tool. However, I would suggest you learn to at least understand markup before you go with a WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get).

This will help you in the long run, for troubleshooting, XHTML compliancy, multi device rendering etc, all very important in this day and age.

Good luck.

Carlimited

Thanks!!!

nellyshark

Without being smart if you are a beginner all you need is notepad and a browser. Might seem daunting first but like smcelhinney was saying in the long run you will learn far more this way. Also other than dreamweaver Google for an open source alternative rather than choosing a package that will cost you money while your just learning.

DonkeyStyle \o/

There's a fairly nasty-looking cliff at the start of the html/css learning curve that turns a lot of people off, but it's not nearly as big as it looks... and once you're over it, it's plain sailing. (At least until you hit the second hump of ironing out browser rendering issues with CSS and start trying to get your head around accessibility, but you'll hit this one with WYSIWYG software anyway IMO)

Regardless of what method you start off with, you'll be producing mostly crap for a good while... at least if you learn to get down and dirty with the markup, you'll be producing clean and readable crap that you know every inch of.
And there's the added advantage of being able to knock out some html/css where ever there's a computer, rather than being chained to where ever your copy of dreamweaver is installed. Freedom to practice/html-doodle where ever you find yourself.

Though I think there's a large chasm between assembling markup and actual design that's being ignored in this 'web design' discussion.
You could learn dreamweaver inside out and still churn out vile looking websites... it's just a fancy interface to html. (or at least it was last time I used it... maybe they've added a web design wizzard or something :rolleyes: )

DJB

Use split view in DW and you can see the WYSIWYG part and the code part at the same time. As you create something or add an element to a page, it will generate the code for you and you can see what it creates. Over time you learn how to hand code, which is more efficient in the long run. That's how I did anyway! I learnt xhtml, css, asp, vb, sql, etc. this way along with some good books and reference sites. Enjoy!

DJB

Donkey... for design, you need to be using a graphics program like photoshop or fireworks. Alternatively you could have an vision in your head and just go create it. I do it like that for applications a lot of the time but not on client sites.

DonkeyStyle \o/

DJB wrote: »

Donkey... for design, you need to be using a graphics program like photoshop or fireworks.

Exactly... so why are people wetting themselves over dreamweaver and dubbing it as some all-encompassing "web design tool"? .. this is my point.

I have a friend who's starting a web design course and is all excited about dreamweaver... I've been down this road far enough to see html/css isn't all there is to it.
I don't know where this notion of "If I learn dreamweaver I can be a web designer" came from, but I wish people would snap the fúck out of it.
They might as well start with photoshop and get the hard part over with first.