Front Page versus Dreamweaver

I have been using Front Page 2000 for some time and before that I used Front Page Express which was bundled with W98. My graphics editors are PSP8 or Photoshop Elements depending on what I want to do. OS is XP Home but am upgrading to XP Pro soon.

I want to take my hobby web designing experience a step further and try new things but don't know whether to stick with FP2000, upgrade to the latest version or move over to Dreamweaver? I am told Dreamweaver is the best but hard to learn. Can I teach it to myself after so many years using Front Page? Most of my websites are graphics intensive and on three I have used the Front Page auto thumbnailer and with one I have used Photoshop Elements thumbnailer.

my portal is at www.g0hga.org.uk

If you are planning to graduate to using flash or shockwave enabled websites, it would be good to learn dreamweaver..it's much more able for those apps..you might want to take a look at one of the tutorials out there..like this one: http://www.iboost.com/build/software...torial/786.htm before making the decision. for the sites you have so far though..and if you are continuing in that vein..fronpage 2003 would be much easier for you and just as functional IMHO

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Originally Posted by geoscomp

If you are planning to graduate to using flash or shockwave enabled websites, it would be good to learn dreamweaver..it's much more able for those apps..you might want to take a look at one of the tutorials out there..like this one: http://www.iboost.com/build/software...torial/786.htm before making the decision. for the sites you have so far though..and if you are continuing in that vein..fronpage 2003 would be much easier for you and just as functional IMHO

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Thank you. I did not realise Dreamweaver was that different and I certainly do not plan to use flash or anything like that on my sites so I will take your advice and stick to Front Page.

Dreamweaver:
I just recently upgraded from DW4 to DWMX 2004. I looooove Dreamweaver and would never use anything else. Best software ever made. And I think it's very easy to learn. It's all mainly GUI interface, and has a code window if you want to edit your html. You can do PHP and ASP with MX version if you want. The thing I like about Dreamweaver is that it doesn't put all the extra excess code in it like FP does.

Frontpage:
It's good. I use FP 2000. I think it has tons of "built in" features you can add to your web page. This is good if you don't want to fuss with the html aspect of it. Also, it's very proprietary so it doesn't work as well with Flash. But either way you can't go wrong.

Anyway,.. those are some real general thoughts on each. I think it's good to have both, but if I had to choose, then definitely Dreamweaver. If you have any specific questions about each, be sure to post. I might be able to answer and if not, then there's some other web page designers here too.

And here's a screenshot of my DWMX2K4 if ur interested to see what it looks like. I switch back and forth between GUI and Code views. You can see here is a section of CSS bullets I created. I can easily go in there and change it within the code if I want to. It's that easy! :)

Screenshot here

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Originally Posted by WebHead

The thing I like about Dreamweaver is that it doesn't put all the extra excess code in it like FP does.

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Lol, Dreamweaver is actually worse at adding unecessary markup to pages than Frontpage. They are both terrible and a hindrance to really learning webdesign. Dreamweaver and Frontpage are geared towards Internet Explorer and are not very friendly towards other browsers too.

I used to use Dreamweaver and Frontpage years ago, and have found they were actually hindering my progress with coding. They do not teach you the core basics necessary for every designer.

Morselady,

Consider learning HTML and you will never need another WYSIWYG code editor again :)

A great site to learn HTML from is http://www.lissaexplains.com/ , that site might look like it's for kids but teaches you all the basics in a simple to learn format. No "tech talk" and stuff.

Also a little bit of CSS will take you a long way. Great tutorials can be found at http://www.w3schools.com/css/default.asp

Maybe I am biased, maybe not, but that's my 20 cents.

Having used both I would definately go with Dreamweaver. Would have to disagree with the above point about extra code, I have found Frontpage so annoying when it does this, with Dreamweaver it handles the code slightly differently but does not add stuff in unless you tell it to, unlike FP.

Bottom line (and I'll agree with the above now) learn HTML, essential if you ever want to design websites professionally. DW and FP are just tools to help you design that page, theres no substitute for raw coding (just takes a little longer to learn ;) ).

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Originally Posted by buksida

learn HTML, essential if you ever want to design websites professionally. DW and FP are just tools to help you design that page, theres no substitute for raw coding (just takes a little longer to learn ;) ).

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Thanks for your comments everyone. I do actually use HTML for editing and know a bit but I prefer GUI because I have problems typing as I am slightly dyslextic and spend ages editing posts, emails and letters befroe I am happy. Even the special password we have to type in the MCP lab at College to get into our Administrator setup gives me problems. I am educated and was top in spelling at school but it's just that with old age and some past traumas I have developed this problem.

I agree that it is good to learn how to code first just to understand the concept of HTML, but once you get that down, you graduate to GUI. DW is great because it lay's down all the code and you can then go in and fine tune it as needed. Heck,.. if you are that loyal to hand typing your code, you can do that in DW too. Nothing stopping anyone from handcoding in DW. Personally, if I want to add a quick link to my page, I'll be damned if I'm going to sit there typing in a whole set of anchor, font, etc. tags just for that. What a waste of time that is.

As far as DW adding extra code to pages. Eh? I'm not sure which DW ur using, but the one I use (MX and before that ver. 3, 4) don't do that. MX does adds like a meta tag or something at the top, but it's no biggie. FP adds literally hundreds of additional lines of proprietary FP "extensions" crapola which is completely ridiculous. I'll take DW anyday. I will use FP if I have too, I'll use notepad if it's all I have, but when I want to get creative,.. I use DWMX all the way.

10-4 to the last poster! DW can make your coding go very fast and it indents too. If you want to brag a little bit then yo can remove all references to DW in the META tags and nobody would ever know that you used DW. Notepad is good and it comes free from Micro$oft. Frontpage uses too much proprietary code that only IE knows. Other browsers are on the scene such as Firefox or Opera besides the AOL/Netscape that should be included in your audience reach. Frontpage just goes its own way and IE follows. There is another world out there and I think that Dreamweaver captures that crowd as well as IE. I think DW is easy and is really good at cleaning up messes with MS Word. There's a few more HTML editors out there such as Textpad, HTML-kit and etc. that help you with your HTML coding if you want to go that route. I have tried FrontPage and it works as a WYSIWUG just like DW but if Flash or any other type of Multi-Media is needed then DW makes the process of working with Flash seamless. Sorry for the ramble, but...
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Another software package worth a look is Adobe GoLive.

In "my opinion" better than FP & DWXP.

BTW, have copies of all 3. GoLive is the best fit for me and the things I do.
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