Either Frontpage or Dreamweaver - I've used both. Some people have strong opinions about one or the other. But when it comes down to it, both are fully capable of doing the job. You will be required to do some learning either way. Make sure you get a good introductory book and read everything you can about designing a photography website. There are lots of good threads here in the NPN archives.
I do much of my design coding by hand in html, javascript and PHP, but I work inside Frontpage and use it's graphical interface for simple editing.
I'm a Dreamweaver user. A feature I particularly like about it is that it will help prevent you from developing code for your web site that is browser incompatible. FrontPage likes to insert all kinds of things that are very Microsoft and IE centric. Dreamweaver is much more browser neutral and will tell you when there are things that are browser specific or that are incompatible with certain browsers.
both of those are not the most "user friendly" of choices... and while dreamweaver is very robust and the obvious industry leader, it still has a fairly large learning curve....
depending on what OS you run, there are several good "novice" web design apps... i'm on a mac, and both rapidweaver & freeway or easy to understand and use...
i also use apples iWeb for my son's website, and its very easy to use as well.
I have been a FrontPage user since the first version. I suggest that if you decide to go with FrontPage, obtain FrontPage 2003. It is actually easier to use than earlier versions and the help files (both installed and on the web) are excellent.
FrontPage does insert the MS-centric code, but it is used with XML, and unless one is using XML-coded pages, browsers (including IE) will just skip over it. Some of the "<body>" code is IE-centric so that pages display better in IE, if a browser cannot parse it, which is rare these days; the browser will parse the next closest HTML tag, My site was developed using FrontPage and I can detect no difference in the appearance or performance of my pages in either Opera or FireFox. So, in my opinion, the FP 'extraneous code' issue is overblown.
One caveat with FP: Your web host must install the FrontPage Extensions on the server. If you use some of the built-in 'behaviors' such as "mouse-over", they will not work without them.
FP really is a nice program. One of its nice features is a split window that will show your page in WYSIWYG in the lowerr portion and the associated code in the upper window. I find this invaluable when I am debugging html or a script.
There is a huge amount of info regarding FP on the web, including the MS Office website. There are many nicely done tutorials and more technical articles. It is a good place to start.
I also designed my site with FP and find it very user friendly and feature rich.
The benefits are that if you're familiar with other MS Office programs, the learning curve on FP is pretty small and no coding is required. It's easy - in the later versions - to add dynamic effects (mouse-overs, image swaps, etc.) without having to code anything at all. If you do want to add specific code, scripts, etc., you can go into an html-editing mode that lets you code html directly. In short, it makes it very easy for the beginner and still offers access to the html for the more experienced web designer.
I haven't yet come across anything that FP won't let me do. Some people lament that it is not the "cleanest" program when it comes to unnecessary code in the html, but when creating pages with a 200 kb photograph, an extra 2 kb of html is inconsequential.
As Preston stated, FP does require your host to be able to handle the FP extensions, but these days most hosts can do that.
For both Dreamweaver and FP, I believe you can download free trial versions. That's probably a good way to get a little experience with both and see which best meets your specific needs.
Posted by Fred Stearns on July 2, 2006 at 12:52 PM
I am one who started with HTML and shifted to Frontpage and then moved on to Dreamweaver. I found the FP was easier to use than DW, but with some serious reservations. As with other Microsoft products, I found that it was doing what some one had decided what I wanted to do and changed the coding to provide that. I believe that this was not FP2003 as that is about the time I made the change. However, that wasn't what I wanted to do. It also consistantly changed the addressing from being based at my webserver location for the opening page to my computer. That made it useless unless every visitor to my site had my web pages installed in their C:\ drive.
I do not have the latest version of Dreamweaver. I do find that it gives me the code that displays my pages well. Unfortunately, it did not remove all the FP additions to the HTML coding and I am still having to make blanket changes to my site pages. This may be a feature available on Dreamweaver that I haven't found yet. Dreamweaver will disply the page you are working on as HTML, or WYSIWYG display, or a split screen that you can alter the size ratio of to fit your needs. While the WYSIWYG display is good, for a look at the final product, I would advise using one or more browsers.
I did not use FP to upload my files but used an FTP program. I believe that is at least one of the major reasons for the FP extension requirement. Dreamweaver uploads using it's own FPT program built into it. Or at least that is what I believe based on the information that I have read and heard.
There are other programs out there that I am not familiar with. I am open to trying them if they offer an improvement. Meanwhile, I will be waiting to see what Adobe chooses to do with Dreamweaver.
While FrontPage does "hide" the extraneous IE-centric code so that most incompatible browsers skip over it, those browsers still have to download and parse it. I'm an kind of precision and performance engineer so I'm a little picky about bloated code and the like. If it isn't going to be used, the user should not be subjected to downloading and parsing it. It wastes time and bandwidth.
That's just me. I have see a lot of FrontPage sites that look excellent.
Thanks for all of the feedback. Based on what I am reading here and additional research I have done since posting this question I am going to go with FP. I really enjoyed looking through everyone's web sites as I read the comments and look forward to getting my own launched.
Posted by Richard Wong on July 2, 2006 at 11:02 PM
My website is a combination of Photoshop, Dreamweaver and HTML. I designed the shell of the website with Photoshop and used slices to create the rollover links, I use dreamweaver for my picture galleries because it's easy to take my basic template and make quick adjustments, then use my limited HTML skills to fine tune things that the software is too stubborn to handle. I'd recommend avoiding flash as the search engines tend to pass those sites over. Not to mention how irritating it is to wait a minute or more for a site to load. So many photography students I see with that type of site, I don't even bother to look if I don't see something resembling content within the first 5 seconds of loading.
thats too bad richard... your missing a lot of content... flash should be embraced not shunned... its a far better delivery system than html could ever hope to be... the things that are possible with flash simply surpass anything that html could do... now i agree that 'most' flash sites arent implemented correctly, but flash is still a superior platform in all facets.... now if only the w3 would get serious about it...
I'd recommend Visual Web Developer - I built my website with it. It's completely free from Microsoft and is extremely good and very powerful. You can download it here: http://www.asp.net/downloads/default.aspx?tabid=62
I just wanted to add a note or two regarding Visual Web Developer (VWD). So...
If you use VWD to build pure html pages, or html pages with java script they will display nicely and work as they are supposed to.
VWD is designed from the get-go to be a development platform for what are known as 'active server pages,. Such pages will have a 'asp' or 'aspx' suffix appended to them. These pages require several elements in order to work properly. Basically, the content of your site (except for the html) is stored in a database. The content is sent to the page when the viewer makes the requests it.
Asp pages require coding in visual basic (VB), C++ or C#, a SQL Server database (and it's associated SQL code) and the MS .Net Version 1.0 framework. The SQL server and .Net framework must reside on the server that hosts your site and the site must run on a Windows Server OS. Aspx pages also require coding as above, SQL server and .Net framework version 2.0.
If you are truly interested in learning to write programming code, SQL and html, this program will support it very nicely and is very user-friendly. In order to fully realize it's power you must also download and install SQL Server Express 2005 (free) SQL Server Express Management Studio and the .Net Framwork (version 2.0).
As Tristan indicates, VWD is a great program, it is free, and will remain so. The same goes for SQL Server Express and the .Net Framework. The program is very powerful and will allow you to grow into and learn web development beyond simple html.
I am in the learning phase with this program. Debugging can be frustrating, but it's all to a good end: One day I will have a site that is almost completely data-driven, and I will have built it myself.
Discussion
12 repliesI do much of my design coding by hand in html, javascript and PHP, but I work inside Frontpage and use it's graphical interface for simple editing.
Hope this helps.
depending on what OS you run, there are several good "novice" web design apps... i'm on a mac, and both rapidweaver & freeway or easy to understand and use...
i also use apples iWeb for my son's website, and its very easy to use as well.
I have been a FrontPage user since the first version. I suggest that if you decide to go with FrontPage, obtain FrontPage 2003. It is actually easier to use than earlier versions and the help files (both installed and on the web) are excellent.
FrontPage does insert the MS-centric code, but it is used with XML, and unless one is using XML-coded pages, browsers (including IE) will just skip over it. Some of the "<body>" code is IE-centric so that pages display better in IE, if a browser cannot parse it, which is rare these days; the browser will parse the next closest HTML tag, My site was developed using FrontPage and I can detect no difference in the appearance or performance of my pages in either Opera or FireFox. So, in my opinion, the FP 'extraneous code' issue is overblown.
One caveat with FP: Your web host must install the FrontPage Extensions on the server. If you use some of the built-in 'behaviors' such as "mouse-over", they will not work without them.
FP really is a nice program. One of its nice features is a split window that will show your page in WYSIWYG in the lowerr portion and the associated code in the upper window. I find this invaluable when I am debugging html or a script.
There is a huge amount of info regarding FP on the web, including the MS Office website. There are many nicely done tutorials and more technical articles. It is a good place to start.
Best regards,
-PB
The benefits are that if you're familiar with other MS Office programs, the learning curve on FP is pretty small and no coding is required. It's easy - in the later versions - to add dynamic effects (mouse-overs, image swaps, etc.) without having to code anything at all. If you do want to add specific code, scripts, etc., you can go into an html-editing mode that lets you code html directly. In short, it makes it very easy for the beginner and still offers access to the html for the more experienced web designer.
I haven't yet come across anything that FP won't let me do. Some people lament that it is not the "cleanest" program when it comes to unnecessary code in the html, but when creating pages with a 200 kb photograph, an extra 2 kb of html is inconsequential.
As Preston stated, FP does require your host to be able to handle the FP extensions, but these days most hosts can do that.
For both Dreamweaver and FP, I believe you can download free trial versions. That's probably a good way to get a little experience with both and see which best meets your specific needs.
I do not have the latest version of Dreamweaver. I do find that it gives me the code that displays my pages well. Unfortunately, it did not remove all the FP additions to the HTML coding and I am still having to make blanket changes to my site pages. This may be a feature available on Dreamweaver that I haven't found yet. Dreamweaver will disply the page you are working on as HTML, or WYSIWYG display, or a split screen that you can alter the size ratio of to fit your needs. While the WYSIWYG display is good, for a look at the final product, I would advise using one or more browsers.
I did not use FP to upload my files but used an FTP program. I believe that is at least one of the major reasons for the FP extension requirement. Dreamweaver uploads using it's own FPT program built into it. Or at least that is what I believe based on the information that I have read and heard.
There are other programs out there that I am not familiar with. I am open to trying them if they offer an improvement. Meanwhile, I will be waiting to see what Adobe chooses to do with Dreamweaver.
That's just me. I have see a lot of FrontPage sites that look excellent.
I just wanted to add a note or two regarding Visual Web Developer (VWD). So...
If you use VWD to build pure html pages, or html pages with java script they will display nicely and work as they are supposed to.
VWD is designed from the get-go to be a development platform for what are known as 'active server pages,. Such pages will have a 'asp' or 'aspx' suffix appended to them. These pages require several elements in order to work properly. Basically, the content of your site (except for the html) is stored in a database. The content is sent to the page when the viewer makes the requests it.
Asp pages require coding in visual basic (VB), C++ or C#, a SQL Server database (and it's associated SQL code) and the MS .Net Version 1.0 framework. The SQL server and .Net framework must reside on the server that hosts your site and the site must run on a Windows Server OS. Aspx pages also require coding as above, SQL server and .Net framework version 2.0.
If you are truly interested in learning to write programming code, SQL and html, this program will support it very nicely and is very user-friendly. In order to fully realize it's power you must also download and install SQL Server Express 2005 (free) SQL Server Express Management Studio and the .Net Framwork (version 2.0).
I strongly encourage you to view and study the information available here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/express/vwd/ .
As Tristan indicates, VWD is a great program, it is free, and will remain so. The same goes for SQL Server Express and the .Net Framework. The program is very powerful and will allow you to grow into and learn web development beyond simple html.
I am in the learning phase with this program. Debugging can be frustrating, but it's all to a good end: One day I will have a site that is almost completely data-driven, and I will have built it myself.
-PB