modifying web sites.. ?

[dugless]

I have been given the task at work to modify/update there website,I have little experience particular to web site building,but I have made one myself using dreamweaver.

After I access there website via there passwords etc,can I download/import ' any ' webpage into dreamweaver even if it hasn't been made by this program and edit the website ? , also,is dreamweaver easy or hard to use and is there an easier program I could get for editing web stuff.

Thanks very much for any help..

[rico]

Dreamweaver is a piece of cake to use. FrontPage is easier too if you use Windows.

Fire up your FTP and download any of the webpages you're editing.

Open up in dreamweaver... edit and update again.

Lots of dreamweaver FAQs and guidebooks online... google

[miniman]

You are much better off with Dreamweaver than Frontpage as Frontpage (along with most Microsoft stuff) fills the pages up with shitloads of unnecessary HTML.

You need to download the entire site to a local folder for editing, and set it up as a site in Dreamweaver (there is a wizard to do this IIRC)

My tip of the day (learnt the hard way...) is to take a copy of the existing site onto CD so that if the worst comes to the worst, you can restore the original site.

[JonRB]

Frontpage 2003 has a lot of the features that makes Dreamweaver so useful, and it is easier to use for the novice user too.

I'll agree that Dreamweaver is vastly superior to versions of Frontpage prior to 2003 though.

Edit: What was the site you have been asked to edit written with originally? It might be best to use that.

>> Edited by JonRB on Friday 7th January 10:02

[BliarOut]

DW is straightforward and has some nice templates. FP produces bloated slow MS biased pages. IMHO, you will become much better at writing/understanding pages if you stick with DW. Any problems you can't solve, post em up

[miniman]

BliarOut said:

FP produces bloated slow MS biased pages. IMHO, you will become much better at writing/understanding pages if you stick with DW.

[JonRB]

The one thing that FrontPage seems to be good at is throwing up a simple site with navigation bars and a site map. Extremely quick & easy.

Perhaps I haven't looked hard enough, but I can't see anything similar (and as quick & easy) in Dreamweaver.

I'm not saying this to knock DW - I have no axe to grind on either product - just noting my own experiences.

Having said all of the above, I'm careful not to use any of the FrontPage extensions and tend to keep my web sites fairly simple, so that's probably why my experiences of FrontPage have been fairly positive.

>> Edited by JonRB on Friday 7th January 11:33

[BliarOut]

DW Extensions. You can get any number of menus/nav bars. Just google for "dreamweaver extensions" A lot of the DW extensions/templates use style sheets instead of graphics so your pages load much quicker.