Hi Folks,

I really didn't find a forum category for this question so I dropped it into the lounge.

I'm thinking about getting a copy of Dream Weaver but I'm wondering if it is worth the expense.

Any suggestions about what other packages for web developemnt one might look at for a Windows XP PC?

Thanks,

Don Bryant

If you could borrow time on a friends Macintosh, Apple's iWeb 2.0 program is a dream for making easy web sites.

Adobe also has GoLive 9 for web design. Dream Weaver is an excellent design tool.

You don't really state specific requirements, but you could try Kompozer, which is available for most popular operating systems and is open source and free.

http://www.kompozer.net/

Lee

Don,
Dreamweaver is an amazing program, but it is deep. Like a lot of the Adobe products, once you know where you want to go, it is wonderful. But if you are just getting into the web business, the sheer number of options can be daunting.

I have been going through the same learning curve for about three years and am getting ready to start on version 3.0 of my website. I did the second one in Dreamweaver, and it worked pretty well overall. Since then, I ran across Coda (a mac application: www.panic.com) and it will do 99% of the simple things that I need to do. It is not a drag and drop visual editor, but its sheer simplicity is refreshing after using Dreamweaver.

I would get a good basic book like Jennifer Niederst Robbins' "Learning Web Design" (I highly recommend this book!) and start there. With a simple text editor and a browser, you can put together a pretty decent looking site.

Don,
Dreamweaver is an amazing program, but it is deep. Like a lot of the Adobe products, once you know where you want to go, it is wonderful. But if you are just getting into the web business, the sheer number of options can be daunting.

I have been going through the same learning curve for about three years and am getting ready to start on version 3.0 of my website. I did the second one in Dreamweaver, and it worked pretty well overall. Since then, I ran across Coda (a mac application: www.panic.com (http://www.panic.com)) and it will do 99% of the simple things that I need to do. It is not a drag and drop visual editor, but its sheer simplicity is refreshing after using Dreamweaver.

I would get a good basic book like Jennifer Niederst Robbins' "Learning Web Design" (I highly recommend this book!) and start there. With a simple text editor and a browser, you can put together a pretty decent looking site.
Clay,

Thanks for the reference about the book. My options for software are PC only now, perhaps next year I'll look into getting a Mac since I really hate Vista Ultimate which is on my new notebook.

Don

Dreamweaver is a professional tool. You need instruction to learn how to use it effectively. This instruction can come from your local technical college. There is also the advantage of being able to purchase the academic version of the software which is usually much less expensive than the street version. I started my web site with a six week course in web design.

Two other points worth noting. 1. Knowing what your web site is supposed to do, or "why do I need a website?" are the most important questions to answer before you even think about software. 2. You will spend more time preparing the content of your website than you will assembling the actual web pages.

Joe, these are very good points. Building a website is very similar to creating a photo project: Knowing what you want to do is infinitely harder and ultimately much more important than knowing how to do it.

And your point about content brings one more suggestion to mind. Learn how to create and use 'actions' in photoshop. Being able to batch process large numbers of images is an immense timesaver.


Dreamweaver is a professional tool. You need instruction to learn how to use it effectively. This instruction can come from your local technical college. There is also the advantage of being able to purchase the academic version of the software which is usually much less expensive than the street version. I started my web site with a six week course in web design.

Two other points worth noting. 1. Knowing what your web site is supposed to do, or "why do I need a website?" are the most important questions to answer before you even think about software. 2. You will spend more time preparing the content of your website than you will assembling the actual web pages.

1. Knowing what your web site is supposed to do, or "why do I need a website?" are the most important questions to answer before you even think about software.

So I can make millions selling my prints online of course!:D

Thanks Joe.

Don

I have a friend that made a great website using Firefox, the web-browser, with a few free plug-ins. No matter which route you go, learn how to write or use CSS, or Cascading Style Sheets. They will allow you to change the look of your entire site at any time with just a little bit of code change, and will let your site load faster at the user end. This function is built in to GoLive and Dreamweaver, but not Front Page, if I remember correctly. Adobe gives you a free 30 day trial of all their software.

I have a friend that made a great website using Firefox, the web-browser, with a few free plug-ins. No matter which route you go, learn how to write or use CSS, or Cascading Style Sheets. They will allow you to change the look of your entire site at any time with just a little bit of code change, and will let your site load faster at the user end. This function is built in to GoLive and Dreamweaver, but not Front Page, if I remember correctly. Adobe gives you a free 30 day trial of all their software.
Greg,

Good suggestion about CSS which I am familiar with. My primary exeprience building web pages is a bit arcane. I developed web based interfaces using Perl and modPerl running against an Apache web server housed on a Sun server.

The web instance was tied to a back end enterprise database server that would host SQL requests. Needless to say this kind of development tended to be laborious and isn't anything I'm interested in pursuing these days. I'd prefer to use more modern tools and avoid having to write much code if possible, something high level but something that allows didling if needed.

Don

Another web source I thought of is a good essay, "Your website sucks...from a photo editor." It outlines the mistakes you usually make. Here is the link.

http://www.avisualsociety.com/2007/10/30/your-website-sucksfrom-a-photo-editor/

I just re-did my website in April based on three things. The first being the link shown directly above and the second, is to get my site lined up with CSS. The CSS change over was much easier than I thought it would be. It seems that Dreamweaver automatically sets up each page for CSS, but a CSS that is effective only for that single page. All I had to do was break that link and then link to my new CSS and the change was made.

The third was finding someone who could make my automatic photo critique generator web site friendly. Now that I can share my pretentious photographic critiques with the whole web.

In that case Don, go with Dreamweaver or GoLive, since the CSS is more visually created with the code available for tweaking. I learned CSS the hard way since I added a WordPress blog to my page and used the Firefox CSS plugin to edit the blog's CSS to make the page match my site visually. Then I copied this CSS to my site via GoLive. Now I am looking into learning Dreamweaver since it replaced GoLive in Adobe's suites. Fortunatley, as faculty at an Art college, I can take a class in web design for free, so I will have training beyond "Dreamweaver for Dummies".

In that case Don, go with Dreamweaver or GoLive, since the CSS is more visually created with the code available for tweaking. I learned CSS the hard way since I added a WordPress blog to my page and used the Firefox CSS plugin to edit the blog's CSS to make the page match my site visually. Then I copied this CSS to my site via GoLive. Now I am looking into learning Dreamweaver since it replaced GoLive in Adobe's suites. Fortunatley, as faculty at an Art college, I can take a class in web design for free, so I will have training beyond "Dreamweaver for Dummies". Okay, thanks again for the tip.

Don

Another web source I thought of is a good essay, "Your website sucks...from a photo editor." It outlines the mistakes you usually make. Here is the link.

http://www.avisualsociety.com/2007/10/30/your-website-sucksfrom-a-photo-editor/

I just re-did my website in April based on three things. The first being the link shown directly above and the second, is to get my site lined up with CSS. The CSS change over was much easier than I thought it would be. It seems that Dreamweaver automatically sets up each page for CSS, but a CSS that is effective only for that single page. All I had to do was break that link and then link to my new CSS and the change was made.

The third was finding someone who could make my automatic photo critique generator web site friendly. Now that I can share my pretentious photographic critiques with the whole web.
Thanks for the link.

Don