Dreamweaver or Frontpage

Confession time.

Back in 2000 when I was starting my computer consulting business, I took the time to learn enough FP to teach it. I was sold on the idea, that normal Java and HTML/DB solutions were nice when doing your own work, or working day to day, but any M$ solution was guaranteed repeat work. I learned to work with ASP/SQL Server solutions, but that's not the power of M$. I could help small clients get up and running quickly with a M$/Access solutions, which was very, very cheap so they would do it and pay me. Quickly they would grow beyond that, and need to upgraded and more money for me, pay me twice I like it.

But here is the shady part, I showed them how FP could be used for minor text changes. Many companies wanting to do work in house, wouldn't want to call me for constant work, so they put some computer know it all, or secretary in-charge of FP for site changes. Which would quickly get Fked-Up big time, because FP is ideal tool for that. They would have to call me, and I would charge emergency rates, or I would charge them the time to fix it back to normal, and they would pay me again to do the changes they wanted.

FP was my primary tool to allow the customer enough rope to hang themselves. So I like FP for them, but for my work I use DW. I hate page maintenance, and security flaws.

tom <== A very, very bad man.

 

Do you think that "computer know it all, or secretary" would have screwed things up any less of you had given them another editor to use?

The "problem" with FP isn't that it's a bad program. It's that certain people seem to believe that they don't need to know anything about web pages or HTML to build a web site.

Show me a Dreamweaver or GoLive user who doesn't know anything about HTML and I'll show you a mess. WYSIWYG editors do have their uses, for quick layout and such. But anyone who wants to build decent web pages is going to have to learn a little bit about what those pages are based on.

 

The power of FP is it 'empowers' the user to do more. Now not using any current FP versions, the one that came free was a mess back then. it put in extra code, and when you modified something, misc code was left in moving text around, etc. Because it was so 'simple', the client would overstep their bounds in customizing, and with each fix, it got more screwed up.

Tom

 

Versions back around FP98 were buggy, that's true. But there have been a few versions since then. Hell that was 7 years ago now... that's a lifetime in software years.

If you posted complaints about Windows 1 or 2 or 3 in a forum as a criticism of Windows XP, what sort of reaction do you think you'd get?

 

Not complaining, I think it has its purpose. FP has been very good for me.

BTW, my last large single client contract was with a large TelCo, well into the 21 century(2003), and most of the clients I took care of were using windows 95 and windows 98 OS machines. So don't suspect everyone is using today's software, many companies don't have deep pockets like some people, even myself got DW off an ebay deal. (picked up an old copy, and purchased an upgraded from MM, I don't like pirating software, but don't have lots of money A Karma Issue.).

tom

 

I've used various FP, I couldn't be bothered to remember them (although the first one was 98) as I think they were crap. They added all this extra meta-tag crap and tended to use excess code to get things done. And by butchering certain tags i mean that I'd import code from another source and it didn't seem to like certain tags (like the <hr>) so it tried to change them and just caused trouble. As such I simply couldn't care about FP anymore.

 

Dreamweaver. I would not take Front page even as a gift.

 

DW for code, FP for designing.

 

I use DW MX2004 and love it.

 

Agreed Used/have both and dreamweaver wins this battle.

 

Nothing too different that I would jump on board for. I'd wait until 2005 or something. I usually wait a few generations.

Brian

 

There really is no comparison.

Dreamweaver isn't the industry standard for nothing!

 

Dreamweaver, no question.

 

If you can't code by hand but want great sites, DREAMWEAVER, Frontpage is another one of MS failures.

 

Dreamweaver is for sure the way to go. It's better than frontpage in almost every respect

 

What are the parts of FP that are better then DW then?

 

I am not a fan of FP. I used golive for years just because of the Adobe integration, but finally tried Dreamweaver MX 2004 and instantly dropped GoLive. I didn't find the transition hard at all. With Adobe acquiring Macromedia/Dreamweaver, it can only get better.

 

FP used to be awful and yes I have used it many times. Its been a few years now since I touched it, because it did not produce very good code and did bloat and dreamweaver was much better. The nicest part (in golive too) - 'This page was generated by' meta - inserted automatically.

So, i will give it the benefit of the doubt as I still have no intention of using it..yet.

 

like DA, it's been a long time since I touched FP - but when I last used it, it was a bag of shite.
I've yet to come across a FP designed site that validates.
Minstrel, if your main site is www . psychlinks . ca then I'll take that as proof that FP still produces bad code. Looking at the page about yourself, the html layout isn't complicated so perhaps someone can explain why it doesn't validate.
Admittedly the code is a damn site cleaner than I remember being produced by FP, but it's still not good code.
Personally, I wouldn't touch FP with a barge pole - but more from previous reputation than anything the software is currently capable of.

 

I've used frontpage, netobject fusions and dreamweaver.

Netobject is the easiest and the fastest way to create good looking pages.
Dreamweaver is harder to learn but is very powerful.
Frontpage? nothing significant to say about it.

My verdict?: Dreamwever for the long run but netobjects for something fast