Dreamweaver or Frontpage?
Discussion
Right folks,
I have been given the task of re-writing the company website.
I have never used any software to help aid me in making a website before, I normally use notepad to write any HTML,XML, XHTML, etc..
This time however I have been told that I need to create the website in Frontpage, the only problem I have with that is that I think its rubbish and I am finding it quite limited at the moment. I know very little about dreamweaver but perhaps this would be better to use?
I have been told that I can't use CSS, I can't use frames and I need to create a website similiar to this www.rhti.co.uk/antimicrobial_protection.htm in regards to the static menus which I assume has been written in javascript.
So, can anyone shed any light on frontpage or dreamweaver? As I said, I do find frontpage very limited at the moment but I havent used it before so I maybe completely over looking its functions!
Any help is greatly appreciated.
I have been given the task of re-writing the company website.
I have never used any software to help aid me in making a website before, I normally use notepad to write any HTML,XML, XHTML, etc..
This time however I have been told that I need to create the website in Frontpage, the only problem I have with that is that I think its rubbish and I am finding it quite limited at the moment. I know very little about dreamweaver but perhaps this would be better to use?
I have been told that I can't use CSS, I can't use frames and I need to create a website similiar to this www.rhti.co.uk/antimicrobial_protection.htm in regards to the static menus which I assume has been written in javascript.
So, can anyone shed any light on frontpage or dreamweaver? As I said, I do find frontpage very limited at the moment but I havent used it before so I maybe completely over looking its functions!
Any help is greatly appreciated.
okay, in a nutshell, Frontpage is a Microsoft Word Web Page editor.
Create a page with it, and look at the crap in the header information - insert a simple amount of information and check the code, it's huge.
Dont get me wrong, for newcomers, Frontpage is excellent, and allows anyone to edit the content (perhaps why they want it used).
Now, from the counterpoint, Dreamweaver is the opposite, unless your trying to do something truely epic (like multiple visable/invisable Divisions on top of each other in Javascript - dont ask!) the code it generates is quite elegant, plus it lets you work with Javascript etc (dont know about that for Frontpage).
though, Dreamweaver is a little harder to pick up, mainly because its GUi isn't as instinctive as Frontpage simply because if you've used word, you can use frontpage.
However, once you get the hang of it, its very easy - I used to give night classes on Dreamweaver and Flash at a College and most people after a few hours lessons could generate decent pages - the tutorial isnt that bad either if your doing it alone.
It comes down to personal preference though - I havent done it in years, but when I did, i'd start a page in DW, but always end up editing the HTML code myself to get exactly what I wanted - as i said, frontpage would allow anyone to modify the page, so it depends on what you want.
Create a page with it, and look at the crap in the header information - insert a simple amount of information and check the code, it's huge.
Dont get me wrong, for newcomers, Frontpage is excellent, and allows anyone to edit the content (perhaps why they want it used).
Now, from the counterpoint, Dreamweaver is the opposite, unless your trying to do something truely epic (like multiple visable/invisable Divisions on top of each other in Javascript - dont ask!) the code it generates is quite elegant, plus it lets you work with Javascript etc (dont know about that for Frontpage).
though, Dreamweaver is a little harder to pick up, mainly because its GUi isn't as instinctive as Frontpage simply because if you've used word, you can use frontpage.
However, once you get the hang of it, its very easy - I used to give night classes on Dreamweaver and Flash at a College and most people after a few hours lessons could generate decent pages - the tutorial isnt that bad either if your doing it alone.
It comes down to personal preference though - I havent done it in years, but when I did, i'd start a page in DW, but always end up editing the HTML code myself to get exactly what I wanted - as i said, frontpage would allow anyone to modify the page, so it depends on what you want.
Given the choice of those two, it's Dreamweaver all the way! It produces fairly clean code with no proprietary MS nonsense. Can integrate with many server-side languages with little exerience required (though the code it generates is bloated as it's so generic).
Curious as to why CSS is out
It's pretty much obligatory these days if you want to stand a chance of adhering to standards.
ETA: CSS also promotes better page construction, makes pages smaller and quicker to load, can aid search engine optimisation and makes it easy for sites to be re-skinned or styles overridden by user's with visual impairment (remember all commercial and public services sites have to take this into consideration now)
Curious as to why CSS is out
It's pretty much obligatory these days if you want to stand a chance of adhering to standards. ETA: CSS also promotes better page construction, makes pages smaller and quicker to load, can aid search engine optimisation and makes it easy for sites to be re-skinned or styles overridden by user's with visual impairment (remember all commercial and public services sites have to take this into consideration now)
Edited by judas on Tuesday 6th February 11:09
judas said:
Curious as to why CSS is out
It's pretty much obligatory these days if you want to stand a chance of adhering to standards.Yeah I agree with this, WC3 standards doesnt like embedded styles and likes external CSS files.
Apparently I need to keep CSS out of it as it may interfer with the google ranking system? I'm not the expert but I do need to produce what he is asking for.
Thanks for both the replies guys, they are both very informative and it gives me another reason to sway towards Dreamweaver as I have had past experience with webpages (well for 4 years at uni) so I have no problem with diving in to tackle some HTML issues.
Does the bloke know what he's talking about? If not, part of doing a good job is pointing this out to him in a nice way and making sure the basic design and working practices are as good as they reasonably can be. If someone says "don't use CSS and use Frontpage" it is perfectly reasonable to ask why, and if the explanation you get is unconvincing then suggest and explain a better way.
I would avoid Frontpage if at all possible. Dreamweaver is a much better application and doesn't add anywhere as much crap code to your documents.
Frontpage has now however been replaced by a new Microsoft product called Expression Web and it's actually pretty damn good - much more of a Dreamweaver rival than Frontpage ever was.
Doesn't add endless drivel to any pages you create and should be pretty easy to pick up if you have had experience of Frontpage and Dreamweaver.
[url]www.microsoft.com/products/expression/en/expression-web/default.mspx[/url]
Frontpage has now however been replaced by a new Microsoft product called Expression Web and it's actually pretty damn good - much more of a Dreamweaver rival than Frontpage ever was.
Doesn't add endless drivel to any pages you create and should be pretty easy to pick up if you have had experience of Frontpage and Dreamweaver.
[url]www.microsoft.com/products/expression/en/expression-web/default.mspx[/url]
ATG said:
Does the bloke know what he's talking about? If not, part of doing a good job is pointing this out to him in a nice way and making sure the basic design and working practices are as good as they reasonably can be. If someone says "don't use CSS and use Frontpage" it is perfectly reasonable to ask why, and if the explanation you get is unconvincing then suggest and explain a better way.
Well I am inclined to agree with you but I must stress, the guy is shit hot with creating webpages and easily getting them to the top of google without having to pay a penny towards advertising.
So as much as I disagree and it going against my grain, I am putting faith in him as he seems to know what he is doing. (Although, I will be ringing him to talk about dropping frontpage!!).
Plotloss said:
BTW that menu on that RHT1 website is a CSS menu
D'oh! That was a concern of mine, but a possible way around it is to create a similiar menu in javascript.
Sure, theres loads of options when it comes to menus.
I'd be interested to know how he gets top organic rankings in Google though.
You can code for Google optimisation but without loads of high quality contextual links (unless hes got a link farm somewhere) Google is nigh on impossible to frig.
I'd be interested to know how he gets top organic rankings in Google though.
You can code for Google optimisation but without loads of high quality contextual links (unless hes got a link farm somewhere) Google is nigh on impossible to frig.
In my experience clean standards compliant code using CSS will always get higher rankings.
He's probably using several techniques such as googlebombing to get his top listings, the CSS thing is irrelevant. It works perfectly well (I've stooped to such levels in the past) but if your entire business is built around search engine traffic it's very very risky, as you could lose it all overnight.
edit to add: do a google search for the term you want to achieve high rankings for. See how many of the top 5 are written in dreamweaver and don't use css....
He's probably using several techniques such as googlebombing to get his top listings, the CSS thing is irrelevant. It works perfectly well (I've stooped to such levels in the past) but if your entire business is built around search engine traffic it's very very risky, as you could lose it all overnight.
edit to add: do a google search for the term you want to achieve high rankings for. See how many of the top 5 are written in dreamweaver and don't use css....
Edited by _dobbo_ on Tuesday 6th February 14:26
If this guy is 'shit hot' at creating webpages, why on earth is he recommending using Frontpage? If he is as good as you say he is he wouldn't even dream of mentioning Frontpage to create a website!!
Just for the arguement, I don't use either applications, used to use Dreamweaver but it never seemed to work properly. I now use an open source application called Eclipse and handcode everything including CSS, its much cleaner and to be honest, friendlier and easier to work with.
James
Just for the arguement, I don't use either applications, used to use Dreamweaver but it never seemed to work properly. I now use an open source application called Eclipse and handcode everything including CSS, its much cleaner and to be honest, friendlier and easier to work with.
James
SlimJ said:
If this guy is 'shit hot' at creating webpages, why on earth is he recommending using Frontpage? If he is as good as you say he is he wouldn't even dream of mentioning Frontpage to create a website!!
Your guess is as good as mine! What I can tell you is that he makes alot of money from this and has many happy customers so he cant be that bad at it.
Anyhow, it won't take me long to create the website so if it doesnt go well than all is not lost.
Oh and I have used eclipse before now, it was pretty good in the sense that it would highlight an java code that I clearly got wrong that other programs wouldn't make clear. I havent used it for HTML coding however.
_dobbo_ said:
edit to add: do a google search for the term you want to achieve high rankings for. See how many of the top 5 are written in dreamweaver and don't use css....
I agree with you completely.
I will stick to my end of the agreement and see where it takes us. I will keep you guys posted as to how exactly he aims to achieve high rankings without CSS.
Is your company website the one listed in your profile ?.
CSS does not affect your google ranking at all.
It allows you to separate presentation and content.
So if your manager says he would like all headlines in green with a 16 pt font you can do it by editing one line.
Css implemented correctly means code is easier to read. Which in turn makes the googlebot happy!
He is spot on on saying not to use frames. Reminds me of terrible designs from 1996.
Most of my clients are on the first page of google. But it is getting tougher.
Why ?
Nearly everyone has a website. New websites have to gain in popularity to defeat the current champs.
Download and install the google toolbar and I'll show you a few tips.
http://toolbar.google.com
R
CSS does not affect your google ranking at all.
It allows you to separate presentation and content.
So if your manager says he would like all headlines in green with a 16 pt font you can do it by editing one line.
Css implemented correctly means code is easier to read. Which in turn makes the googlebot happy!
He is spot on on saying not to use frames. Reminds me of terrible designs from 1996.
Most of my clients are on the first page of google. But it is getting tougher.
Why ?
Nearly everyone has a website. New websites have to gain in popularity to defeat the current champs.
Download and install the google toolbar and I'll show you a few tips.
http://toolbar.google.com
R
Edited by rameshuk on Wednesday 7th February 05:21
SlimJ said:
If this guy is 'shit hot' at creating web pages, why on earth is he recommending using Frontpage? If he is as good as you say he is he wouldn't even dream of mentioning Frontpage to create a website!!
Maby he's just one of them guys that manages to get away with selling template websites that he brought using frontpage for web design tells a lot about a person.. the first thing is he most defiantly know jack shit about HTML coding and even more likely is that he knows nothing at all on programming in ASP/PHP or anything like that as if you venture in any of them you will realize frontpage is your nemesis!
I've used Dreamweaver right back to Dreamweaver 4 and Dreamweaver 4 ultra dev, use that for front end (my weakest side) and then use the code editor for any programming that needs to be done.
I like the code editor it has very good syntax highlighting and basicaly im just use to it
Liam
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