talkmagic.co.uk

I enrolled myself at the beginning of the year on a web page design evening course at a local college. Going in as a complete novice I was not sure what it would actually entail.

It is in fact a course based around Microsoft Front Page and really all I am learning is how to use Front Page and a bit about design.

But thats OK, it gives me a start. However, I can't get my hands on a copy of Front Page, I understand that it has been superseded, (thank you Mr Gates), and I don't know if this is a good package or not.

I know that there are many contributors to this forum who design their own websites and I would be very grateful for any advice you can give and any recommendations as to good web design packages.

Thanks

John

I have to use Frontpage at work - grrr....

Its not going to be supported after this last iteration...

But if the course was any good - it should of given you some basics of css/html/site structure...

i think most people like DreamWeaver...

Maybe this from Microsoft will help you.

The only web page programming (HTML, javascript and php) I have done has been using notepad.

I use Microsoft Expression Web, because I managed to get Expression Studio and Visual Studio 2008 ABSOLUTELY FREE AND LEGALLY from Microsoft themselves, because I am a student.

If any students want the details, PM me.

I also use Expression web although I had to pay for it.

Isn't Front Page being phased out by MS in favour of Expression Web?

is expression web difficult to use?

I use Dreamweaver.

FrontPage is terrible, really. It's OK for people who just want a WYSIWYG interface and a bunch of over-padded code spat out the other end, but you won't find a professional webdesigner using it.

There used to be no substitute for actual knowledge of raw coding itself, but with all the snazzy new "Web 2.0" innovations these days it's much less of a headache to let something like Dreamweaver do it for you.

I also dabble in Flash here and there, but I've very rarely used it in web design except for something as simple as a banner, or some animated buttons

For my work - I use the Adobe Design Suite - Web Premium Edition. the programs I use on a daily basis for design and web design work are:

Photoshop
Illustrator
Dreamweaver
Flash

Really it all comes down to exactly what you want to do. Do you want to do this professionally, or is this a hobby? While I personally feel the Adobe products are the standard for professionals, it's an expensive investment, and not always a practical one (especially for hobbyists).

You can use less expensive graphics software instead of Photoshop, and still get great work. You need some kind of graphics software, but it all comes down to budget.

Personally, I hate Front Page, so the sooner you can get out of that program, I say the better. Dreamweaver is a great program, and it has a decent learning curve.

frontpage is agonising....blockquote tags appearing, paste special never working properly, you have to work pretty hard and manually to get anything decent out of it...

photoshop 5.5 is probably the furthest you wanna go back...cs2 is nice...

its a shame, we're a big company, but everything is done on the cheap..

What I normally do is just simply writing any code in a simple text editing program. As long as you know HTML you should be able to do that.
But one free WYSIWYG is Googlepages. Now technically it's not a WYSIWYG, but you can use it by using the regular thing and then just going to "Edit Code" and you'll see your HTML.
But that's not really professional.

Currently playing with 'WYSIWYG Web Builder' in light of Microsoft's dumping of Frontpage. Its better.

HenryHoudini wrote:What I normally do is just simply writing any code in a simple text editing program. As long as you know HTML you should be able to do that.

I'm glad I'm not the only one who does that! I don't like how the code WYSIWYG editors create the code, so I prefer to just do it myself. I try to use an IDE, though, such as Komodo, since it speeds things up with tools like auto-identing and tag completion (and I believe Dreamweaver's code view is pretty good, even though I've never used it)

kolm wrote:

HenryHoudini wrote:What I normally do is just simply writing any code in a simple text editing program. As long as you know HTML you should be able to do that.

I'm glad I'm not the only one who does that! I don't like how the code WYSIWYG editors create the code, so I prefer to just do it myself. I try to use an IDE, though, such as Komodo, since it speeds things up with tools like auto-identing and tag completion (and I believe Dreamweaver's code view is pretty good, even though I've never used it)

Out of interest how do you find Komodo? I use Zend Studio here for PHP stuff, is there a huge amount of difference?

My way of making websites is to do most of it handcoded, and I use Expression Web, as it was free for me, and it means I can easily navigate when I am putting images into my pages.

I also use Dreamweaver CS3 (although not on my personal computer). I have to say Dreamweaver is better, but I couldn't resist Expression Web when it cost nothing .

In case you hadn't worked it out yet, I am really happy about Microsoft giving £1000s worth of software away free .

I could not help but grin as I read through all this. Heck I can't even create an avatar for this forum, I can't imagine trying to create a web page.