Yeah! a superb text editor. I used to utilise VIM for everythng but change to dreamwever for anything web-design related. But .. again VIM a wonderful editor ...I simply fall in love with it
Having purchased and used both FP and DW, it's DW by a mile. I haven't used FP since 2001, at that time FP did generate extraneous code which was the reason for my switch. DW was a bear to learn, but looking back so were all good software tools, otherwise they wouldn't have been 'good software tools'. I really wish they would improve their PHP code support, but its decent. I too would appreciate better PHP support, the 'View' mode is less than perfect, but hitting <F12> helps.
Having used both Dreamweaver and Frontpage, I feel that they don't really allow you to get into the nitty gritty of web development. Obviously you can edit the source if you want in both, but usually you try to use their tools to do things, which if done by hand, are probably quite a bit easier. Recently, I've switched to use the Eclipse IDE (http://www.eclipse.org). It has some very useful plugins (including ones for ftp, subversion, and PHP support). It's basically your notepad on steroids. It doesn't unfortunately feature syntax completion like it does for Java, but I guess we'll have to live with it. Best of all, it's free. Anyone serious about web dev should certainly check it out.
OK.....thanks to everyone for responding and with the overwhelming response for DW....I'll be using it. Now can anyone recommend any tutorials for DW? I would prefer videos or online tutorials versus reading material as patience isn't one of my strongpoints and I find it hard to sit down and read for a decent period of time. thanks again everyone.
I tried out FrontPage again maybe 4 or 5 months ago since I get a free copy as part of this Microsoft thing we have. Much better than it used to be, but still not worth it IMO. DWMX2K4 has better CSS support and a few interface changes that make it more logical. Studio 8 is supposed to increase on the CSS support side, but I've only run into a few css things that make DW choke, and of those it's perfectly reasonable. DW is also great with an out of the box php/mysql integration point that makes it easy for beginners. Still better to write your own code to see what's going on, but if you are trying to do something relatively simple, there's no use in re-inventing the wheel.
I have never used Front Page, or DW to design any of my sites. I only use NotePad, and the cPanel editor. It's all I need. I know how to code html, and php enough without it.
HTML software is useful these days ? 6 or 7 years ago when i designed websites I remember them all being so useless I gave them up for notepad and a good html help site. All they seemed to be was a $29.95 collection of outdated or obvious html tags and a cutesy logo. Ahh, I do remember the live update being useful, one can only edit through Cpanel for so long b4 getting sick of the constant saving and refreshing. I'm going to check out dreamweaver after reading this thread, see how far this software has evolved. Nice to see MS isn't dominating this area
If it's for CSS development, IMO you really can't beat a text editor... Much nicer code produced that way.
7 Years ago Yahoo looked like this: http://web.archive.org/web/19980705025730/http://www9.yahoo.com/ and google had just come about http://web.archive.org/web/19981202230410/http://www.google.com/ so I guess things have moved on
Please abadon Frontpage for the general goodness of web community. It is awful. Oh, wait, Frontpage's firect FTP management is pretty awesome. So I guess you design with Dreamweaver, and manage with Frontpage, then.
Emmm, I'm not too hyped about Flash 8. And if Dreamweaver 8 doesn't have a better typography management, then that's a no as well.
Flash 8 is going to be be exciting. The functionality is and has been there for a while now - now it's just a case of optimising how it works (Making is a more efficient platform).