Dreamweaver or Frontpage

I'm going to be putting my websites together. What are the groups thoughts on which is the best authoring program, Dreamweaver or Frontpage? I not a newbie with no experience/understanding on a computer but at this point cannot create html code (as of yet). My sites will sell e-books and hardcopy products, have some graphics, need a shopping cart, have a forum, newsletters, etc. Mentioning that to give you more of my background if it's needed.

I want to get this site up fast and will obviously do revisions on a daily basis.

thanks for your advice

 

Well I am sure people will have different views, if your starting out obvioulsy Frontpage is very user friendly however if you are editing scripts I would suggest using Araneae its a nice free program for edting scripts where you need line numbers etc that you dont get with Frontpage.

 

Frontpage is definitely the easy way out, but Dreamweaver is the way to go by far, especially starting out because it will end up being easier in the long run. Take this from someone who has recently converted to Dreamweaver. Now I have an additional learning curve that is slowing me down as I get used to a different program.

Dreamweaver is great even if you don't know code, because the split screen view and colored code will help you learn much faster than if you were using Frontpage.

Also, from an SEO perspective, Frontpage adds a bunch of crap code that makes you pages larger than necessary.

A word of advice, don't be intimidated by Dreamweaver's interface. I tried it a few years ago and gave up before even putting an hour of my time into exploring it. Get a quick learn book and have it take you through a few simple processes.

Long story short...DREAMWEAVER ALL THE WAY!

-Brian Renner
entrepreneur7

 

I, too, am a former Frontpage user. Start out with Dreamweaver, you won't regret it. Wider support, more features, cleaner code, and I happen to like the GUI. To me, while neither's WYSIWIG is truly accurate, I like DW's representation a bit more.

DW will also force you to use cleaner code, which can only help you.

VG

 

I also made the switch from FP to Dreamweaver and wish I had done it sooner. There is a reason why expensive software keeps selling even if it seems overpriced at the start.

 

I love Dreamweaver. It takes a bit of work to learn to use it well, but it's well worth the trouble.

 

I have DW MX. How is that different from DW MX2004? Any major differences that would make me get 2004?

 

IMHO, there is nothing better than a hand-coded site. This being said, between DW and FP, go with DW.

If this is your 1st HTML site ever and you want to have many nice features like you list above and want to have it up fast, I would not use FP or DW. Use a good and simple Content Management System (CMS). There are many free ones, with templates and (almost) foolproof administration interface. Check out the Content management forum here to learn more about CMS and to find a good one for you.

Forget about the code for now; content and site management will keep you busy for a while.

Good luck and have fun!

 

DW over FP any day!

I bought FP once and told some friends, they had me return it to OfficeMax before I even opened up the package. They were very aggresive about me not opening FP, and now I am glad for it!

 

I have only ever personaly used dreamweaver, but for most people the beginners like frontpage, but for more serious designs i would recommend dreamweaver.

 

Dreamweaver wins in the log run for me would never use anything else ever again

 

The crap HTML that front page generates is enough to keep you away. I use Dreamweaver MX 2004, and it is not much different than the previous version of DW MX. I really wish they would improve their PHP code support, but its decent.

The best part for me is that I manage 10-20 web sites, so with a click on a pulldown menu I can jump from editing one site's file, to another's and it stores all the password and FTP connection information so the changes can be made and uploaded in seconds.

 

I haven't had much experience with Dreamweaver so I can't make a firm recommendation to use it. However, I can warn you about FrontPage. FrontPage, at least back in FP 2000, produced some of the worst code that I have ever seen. The code never seemed to display properly in any browser other than IE. Maybe if I spent more time with it I could have done better.

But then as stated before:

 

FP2003 also has the split screen view (or full code view or design view - your choice)

Nonsense. I get so tired of reading this. What was the last FP version you used?

 

If you never even opened the box, how would you know if you are glad or not?

 

Another review from soneone who has never used FP? What "crap HTML" are you talking about exactly?

FWIW, I own FP, DW, and GoLive.

Which one do I use? FrontPage. Admittedly, often in codeview but I also use design view.

 

DW wins hands down.

Frontpage bloats your code and old versions butchered certain tags. I find DW to be far more user-friendly and efficient. Funnily enough i started using FP then I switched to notepad because FP pissed me off. Then I found DW and haven't looked back. I would rather have my intestines removed with a blunt spoon than use FP.

 

Bullshit. What version was that? FrontPage Express? FP98?

 

I'm just going through my main site, previously done with GoLive, using FrontPage 2003 to recode it.

The new pages, coded in FP, are two-thirds the size of the pages created in GoLive.

So much for FP bloat.

 

I am sorry but I never said that I have never used FP. In fact, I used it for about a solid year. If all you ever use is FP, its fine.

But if a friend, consultant, or anyone else ever needs to edit your code, wish them good luck for me.