dreamweaver or front page

hertz

What s best for amateur web designers, whats easiest to use??

Hayden

Well u could look at it this way do u want to eat Heinz beans r a tin from dunnes stores

hertz

So I take it that heinz beans is dreamweaver and that is better than front page??

Hayden

Got in one my car rental friend

b20uvkft6m5xwg

Frontpage generates bulky unecessary code that runs practically only in IE. While it has a better (more familiar) interface its a royal pain in the tits to rectify anything w/ if there are any probs.

DW is a lifesaver and if possible I would nominate it to bear my first child. (maybe v5 will have that feature built in- wouldn't suprise me come to think of it:))

Also w/ DW, the extension manager is brill and constantly updating itself so as to make the most laborious tasks a doddle.

dahamsta

Front Page is easier. Dreamweaver is better. Forget FP, it just leads to bad code and bad habits.

Can't stand the extension manager meself. Too many doodah. I'm kinda pissed at Macromedia "asserting their IP rights" at the moment though. I'm sick to death of hearing about IP rights.

What was the question? What did I say I said?

adam

PhilipMarlowe

Relative to the part of the question that said "...easiest to use?", then probably frontpage... because as 80p said, it will be more 'familiar' to you, assuming you know MS word etc...

Also it has wizards and stuff that will semi-automagically create a site for you... along themes and stuff...

If you are anyway interested in doing more than one or two sites, or if you want to be more in control of what you learn/do, then download a demo of dreamweaver (afaik there is a 30 day eval. on the macromedia site?) and see how you get on. It might seem weird at first but it is way superior.

If you already have a copy of frontpage thru MS office, then maybe try that out for a wee while first, but if its a straight choice between the two then choose dreamweaver.

Bard

FrontPage is not a choice, it's a cop-out. I can't recommend it enough... ... ...as a candidate for "first program to UNINSTALL from your hard drive".

If you want to create professional looking and well coded web sites which will be easy to maintain and easy for others to understand/edit, - go for Dreamweaver.

It's #1 for a reason.

ThreadKiller

Originally posted by Bard
If you want to create professional looking and well coded web sites which will be easy to maintain and easy for others to understand/edit, - go for Dreamweaver.

I disagree... If you want to create professional looking and well coded web sites which will be easy to maintain and easy for others to understand/edit do it by hand using notepad & comment & indent everything.

dahamsta

FrontPage ... as a candidate for "first program to UNINSTALL from your hard drive".

<Nelson Muntz>
Ha, Ha! Bard had Front Page on his hard drive. You ha-ave coo-ties...
</Nelson Muntz>

If you want to create professional looking and well coded web sites which will be easy to maintain and easy for others to understand/edit do it by hand using notepad & comment & indent everything.

Oh god, does it ever end...

adam

b20uvkft6m5xwg

Originally posted by ThreadKiller


I disagree... If you want to create professional looking and well coded web sites which will be easy to maintain and easy for others to understand/edit do it by hand using notepad & comment & indent everything.

Ok point taken, but I think (given the solutions available today) this would be akin to life before the wheel;)

beaver

Originally posted by ThreadKiller
I disagree... If you want to create professional looking and well coded web sites which will be easy to maintain and easy for others to understand/edit do it by hand using notepad & comment & indent everything.

Your heart might be in the right place, as it were, but that's not really true. You talk about professional sites - what about sites like amazon, cnet, etc. - do you suppose they were hand coded? I don't think so. The point is that sites do not have to be hand-coded to be professional. Personally I hand-code, but if someone isn't into that I wouldn't recommend that they don't use Dreamweaver - it's the best of the WYSIWYG editors out there.

Oh, and indenting HTML is for pussies

The Corinthian

Originally posted by beaver
Your heart might be in the right place, as it were, but that's not really true. You talk about professional sites - what about sites like amazon, cnet, etc. - do you suppose they were hand coded? I don't think so.

They were hand coded. The application business logic (the clever stuff) is server-side. You cant WYSIWYG that 'cos you never see it.

ObeyGiant

Stick to the freaking point, girls.

Hertz : If I was you, I'd go for dreamweaver. It's not as familiar as Frontpage, but if you spend a few minutes playing about with it and getting used to it, you'll soon be churning out webpages like there's no tomorrow.

Enygma

Oh god, does it ever end...

Not on my shift

<dont_try_this_at_home>
Use PowerPoint, it's easier in the long run.
</dont_try_this_at_home>

acidweb

While disscussing dreamweaver, just wondering what do you think is the most reliable and value for money web site to purchase macromedia products? I found a site selling the dreamweaver/fireworks studio for $179 which is a good deal considering amazon.co.uk are selling the same product for STG£355 !

Peter

beaver

Originally posted by The Corinthian
They were hand coded. The application business logic (the clever stuff) is server-side. You cant WYSIWYG that 'cos you never see it.

I'm talking about the front-end FFS. These sites have front-ends. You see them.

The Corinthian

Originally posted by beaver
I'm talking about the front-end FFS. These sites have front-ends. You see them.

But the content within the templates is back-end. I can't tell for certain, but (for example) amazon's setup may also be servlet based, not even scripts. Try that with a WYSIWYG

Attributing, the development of sites such as amazon and cnet to WYSIWYG's is misleading as it's unlikely that WYSIWYG's were used.

Bard

Originally posted by ThreadKiller


I disagree... If you want to create professional looking and well coded web sites which will be easy to maintain and easy for others to understand/edit do it by hand using notepad & comment & indent everything.

Gee... that's nice.

Have a look at the title of the thread again...

Ahhh! "Dreamweaver of FrontPage" !

--

The thread isn't about what the best way of coding is. It's about which is better between the two main WYSIWYG packages - Dreamweaver and FrontPage, and in my opinion, the clear winner is most definitely Dreamweaver.

I myself hand-code most of my web work - but that's not because I'm a "purist" - it's because I've been working with the web since 1996, wrote my first web page using vi and got into the habit of hand-coding - so much more that I'm just as fast and a little more confident in what I'm writing now, compared with using a WYSIWYG program.

Still, saying that, Dreamweaver 4 has a permanent place on my hard drive and still gets used regularly (mainly for "menial" tasks or for simple updates to simple sites - not for anything 'interactive' or for scripting such as ASP).

<Nelson Muntz>
Ha, Ha! Bard had Front Page on his hard drive. You ha-ave coo-ties...
</Nelson Muntz>

Nope, I don't. Deselected it when installing Office XP.

The Corinthian

Originally posted by Bard
Have a look at the title of the thread again...

Good point. Discussion has gone OT, somewhat (although I couldn't help it when someone came out with some obivious BS :rolleyes: ).

If you intend to rely upon a WYSIWYG and not progress into programming, then go for Dreamweaver. Don't touch FrontPage. It's evil. Otherwise, if you do want to go into programming later, I'd advise you hand code from day one.

beaver

The Corinthian,

You're proposing that it's obviously BS that some major sites' front-ends have been coded in Dreamweaver or another such editor? The front-ends now, mind?

DS

Beaver, the whole point is that the front-end is generated by the back-end, it's never strictly hand-coded or WYSIWYGed.

chernobyl

I was under the impression that if you are to use these programmes professionaly that Frontpage is for Intranets and Dreamweaver is for....what else is there.

beaver

With regard to the front-end thing: at some stage it was coded up statically. I'm just trying to point out that Dreamweaver appears to be the best WYSIWYG editor out there. Personally, I've never used it. I code by hand.

On the Frontpage note, in my book Frontpage is for nothing.

The Corinthian

Originally posted by beaver
You're proposing that it's obviously BS that some major sites' front-ends have been coded in Dreamweaver or another such editor? The front-ends now, mind?

I'll admit that a good long while ago, in my search for a text editor I actually used FrontPage to code up ASP scripts. It was a brief flirtation that I'm thoroughly ashamed of today, but even given that, I was just using it for it’s text highlighting. Honest

Dynamic pages are created on the fly using content, which is both conditional and variable. How do you WYSIWYG a while loop? The only time I’ve ever seen anything close to a WYSIWYG for this was Drumbeat 2000 (now Ultradev), and it’s limited not only in it’s functionality, but also to ASP last time I checked.

So yes; BS. Those sites were hand-coded to produce dynamic content. They probably never saw a WYSIWYG, but were designed in a package like PhotoShop and then the screens were cut up and coded by hand.

The firms that rely upon WYSIWYG’s don’t get the big jobs. Full stop.

beaver

Since you're not listening to what I'm saying I won't prolong the discussion any further.

The Corinthian

Originally posted by beaver
Since you're not listening to what I'm saying I won't prolong the discussion any further.

I am. I just completely disagree. What you mooted flies in the face of how enterprise level Web sites are built.

But still, please don't sulk

Anyhow, this thread has gone completely OT from the original query, though. Apols to all for having encouraged the OT.

dahamsta

That's a bit arrogant Coninthian, isn't it? Especially when you're wrong. For a start, not all enterprise level websites are designed in-house. Take Ryanair as an example, Ireland's most successful website, and arguably Europe's - that was developed by a few lads in a small firm, for £15,000. The whole thing. That's not to say /they/ used a WYSIWYG editor, but to suggest absolutely that they didn't is ludicrous unless you actually know that as fact. And that's just one website.

Just because a large dynamic website is generated on the server-side doesn't mean the developer didn't use simple, easy-to-use tools to create the original framework. Yes, some people fiercely stick to hand-coding exclusively, and that's neither a good thing nor a bad thing - some people are fiercely talented at hand-coding, and some people aren't. Using WYSIWYG isn't laziness, for some it's intelligent distribution of time - results can often be produced quicker with WYSIWYG, and production time is a vital part of web development.

I use Dreamweaver all the time, for both static and dynamic websites. Our designer, who also works for a charitable agency in the U.S., uses Adobe GoLive on his Mac. We use those tools to accelerate the design process, and then I invariably cut it down to bare bones HTML and put it all back together again, with neater and tidier HTML, and dynamically generated content. It would be a pain in the bum not to have those tools though. It would add to our lead time.

We're only a small firm, so you could argue that we don't count, and that's fair enough, but I doubt very much that there aren't copies of Dreamweaver or GoLive in the big design houses and the Enterprise firms. God help us, most of the irlgov.ie site is developed using Front Page...

adam

The Corinthian

not all enterprise level websites are designed in-house
I never said they were. In fact, I’d hazard a guess that the vast majority of enterprise level websites are outsourced.

that was developed by a few lads in a small firm, for £15,000. The whole thing.
Wrong. The back-end for CC transactions was redone about a year and a half ago or so by Hewlett Packard's Open Skies people, and for a lot more than your £15,000 figure. Also Ryanair, are quoted as saying that the original design cost them £10,000, not £15,000.

It could be viewed as a good example of a big firm trying to cut corners at the start and then having to shell out big money anyhow in the end.

Just because a large dynamic website is generated on the server-side doesn't mean the developer didn't use simple, easy-to-use tools to create the original framework.
While I’d agree with your assertion on development times, division of code and design at that level is highly important. WYSIWYG code will always be less efficient than good hand-crafted code. Some application logic is also impossible to insert into a WYSIWYG tool. In the end, it’s poor practice used by smaller firms without the technical resources, imho.

I doubt very much that there aren't copies of Dreamweaver or GoLive in the big design houses and the Enterprise firms.
In my experience, they would be present in the big development houses, but only as a throwback of when they were small design houses – they’re never used. As for Enterprise firms, yes, an in-house Webmaster using WYSIWYG tool would update some parts of their sites, but only because Webmasters are cheaper than programmers. Even big firms have budgets.

You’ll note I use development rather than design. That’s because at an enterprise level that’s what the client is buying, what the client wants – an application, not brochureware with a few gizmos. The emphasis is from the back-end out, not the front-end in.

God help us, most of the irlgov.ie site is developed using Front Page...
Please don’t say that irlgov.ie (the main part of which was, incidentally, redone recently, by hand, afaik) is an enterprise level site

I may be considered arrogant on this (and most other) matter(s), but this is how the big houses operate, this is what the big clients expect and the results, while more labour intensive, reflect this.