paulr

Want to learn to create web pages,maybe a mini-site.
Which do you recommend bearing in mind ease of creation is very high on my list.
Not commercial,just home use.

I have both btw.

Richard_P

I use dreamweaver but I do a fait bit of design work. I haven't used frontpage. I would say it's worth trying to learn dreamweaver. perhaps get a beginners book out the library and have a try at it, if you catch on quickly stick with it, if not then switch to frontpage.

Once you get used to the basics of dreamweaver simple web page creation is really easy.

How much do you undersatnd about web sites, do you know folder and file structuring etc? What kind of site do you want to create? text + graphics etc?

Rich

EvilKyote

I've been doing website design work for years, and work for an internet company.

DO NOT USE FRONTPAGE, it is ****!!!!!!! I speak from the experience of having to deal with so many bloody problems that are attributed to 1 thing and 1 thing alone, frontpage!!! bloody hate the thing. Most microsoft certified engineers wouldn't even recommend it!!!

Dreamweaver on the otherhand is amongst some of the best website design programs on the market today!!!

Iain Young

Best thing is to learn html properly. I use notepad myself

If you must use a desin program, Dreamweaver is streets ahead of frontpage...

paulr

What makes frontpage so bad?

SJ_Skyline

Start here - http://www.w3schools.com/ - tutorials on HTML, CSS and other web-enabled technologies.

Dreamweaver and Frontpage both generate code. Generated code is typically less tidy than hand written code but it is easier to develop and deploy and achieve reasonable results. Some people believe one is better than the other, having not used DW since Version 3 and Frontpage since the version that shipped with Office 2000 I can't really comment on how the latest versions behave.

FYI When developing I use neither - I use Microsoft Visual Studio.Net

Iain Young

Also, generated code (from dreamwaver / frontpage) can be a nightmare to maintain.

Btw, I was joking about notepad. When developing, I'm using a java ide (Intellij Idea) to write my html pages at the moment

mrfuzzyfelts

Im also a webdesigner..(well its my full time job)

TOTALLY AGREE with the above, Front page is rubish, nice and easy for bidders tho.. But to do a proper site and coding use Dreamweaver!!!

Personally people trying to use notepad to do a website are just trying to be clever..

I agree you need to understand the code, bt use Editplus not notepad for a start.. But there is NO point in trying to create a complete website in notepad etc!

messiah

I tried to learn dreamweaver a while ago (i need to get back into it) and the tutorials that came in the help system were pretty good - give those a try, you can download an run dw for 30 days from macromedia before you shell out your hard-earned.

Iain Young

Why not? That's how I taught myself dhtml /css / javascript etc, and I found it all very straightforward. I must admit there are better text editors out there, but notepad (or write) has the advantage of being free and part of the os.

If I wanted to be clever, I'd have suggested using vi

messiah

any reason for not use dw to learn coding? you can open up the html window and get instant feedback to see if you're doing it right...

mrfuzzyfelts

Ye but would u say doing a website in notepad is good for a bigginer????

Or would u say its better to use dreamweaver! ??

Fatman

Ignore Frontpage -- as all above have said, it's utter cack. DW is much better. Personally I use Visual Studio for web programming but occasionally switch to DW for layout tweaking.

Iain Young

Depends on how well you want to learn the inner workings of html etc.

IMO, It's much easier to write a simple html page in a text editor to work out how to use a feature than getting a design program to generate it and then try and debug the code to work out what it's trying to do. As I say, I learnt html etc using just a text editor, and had no problems at all.

The best way to learn how to code is to actually code, not get something to do it for you.... (All imo of course )

SJ_Skyline

Get back to your sandals unix boy!

Iain Young

SJ_Skyline

I learnt using notepad and vi (version 2 browsers anybody )

I would suggest you try creating the same webpage with dreamweaver and then try to do it again but with a book and notepad. You will learn a hell of a lot more about both code and layout when you compare.

mrfuzzyfelts

Sounds like the best idea

Dave_A

One of the best ways to learn how to structure compliant code is to write it by hand.

bigsigh

iTrader: (4)

I am almost finished my web design degree and we only ever used dreamweaver , although our course was all about the desigh aspect so we werent to worried about in depth knowledge of code ( we did a bit so we could debug but not a lot ) . In my understanding of the origional question deamweaver is your best option . Good luck and i would def be interested to see how you get on mate.

Iain Young

How can you possibly do a web design degree without learning how to properly debug code? Did you learn how to manipulate dhtml with javascript and write your own functions etc?

If you don't know this stuff, you'll only ever be able to use the tools that Dreamweaver give you, (which is somewhat limiting if you want to do stuff that does something a little different....)

kelvin

Just what I was thinking! How on earth do you do a degree in Web Design and barely touch code?

SJ_Skyline

Iain,

Maybe it is a course that is more along the lines of new-media design looking at the concepts of eye movement over the page, consistent form layout, use of white space etc etc.

I do agree with you though that one ought to have an understanding of the underlying code and how it ties in with other technologies.

mrfuzzyfelts

u dont need to understand the code for a website of ur own, but doing a degree without understanding the code :-S seams a bit wierd to me!!!!

Iain Young

Probably, but you have a much greater palette to draw from if you know how to code, and so you stand a much greater chance of being able to create those flowing designs.

I know that if I was employing a web designer, I wouldn't want one that didn't know how it all worked. Just seems strange to me to have a degree level course which doesn't teach this stuff as a major part of the course as I think the two (code and design) are two pieces of the same puzzle...

mrfuzzyfelts

here is a site i have just done using dreamweaver

http://www.undersiege-paintball.co.uk/

Id say its fine for what it is, and i never even looked at the code on notepad or similer!


and here is a site i done entirly using notepad/editplus

http://www.funny-free-jokes.co.uk/


To look at you wouldnt know which id done in which

Iain Young

Which means that you don't need Dreamweaver to create a good looking site. Not sure what point you are trying to make there mrfuzzyfelts?

mrfuzzyfelts

Doesnt matter wheather you use dreamweaver or notepad, the end result for the viewer is the same!

so for a newbie just do it the easiest way.

Which id say was dreamweaver cos it does 90% of the coding!

Iain Young

Maybe, but both of those examples were quite straightforward examples. If you want to do something a bit more advanced then you need to know the code, and it's better to learn that from the beginning rather than later on. Lay down good foundations of knowledge on which you can then build on. You might stand a chance of understanding the generated code then

mrfuzzyfelts

the funny-free-jokes.co.uk aint that simple, its 100% php database drivin, with a full back end bolted on so everything on the site can be updated on any pc with just an internet browser!

Ok it aint that complicated but a bit to advanced for a newbie!