[thelist] Dreamweaver versus Frontpage versus Notepad

Christian Heilmann codepo8 at gmail.com
Mon Apr 11 08:25:20 CDT 2005


> Dreamweaver is excellent. The advantage of this kind of Web editor is that
> virtually all tasks associated with the design of a Web page are automated.
> The HTML tags, for example, do not have to be typed in full. Just type the
> first few characters and the whole of the start tag and the end tag as well,
> if necessary, are inserted. You can choose between WYSIWYG editing and code
> editing. You can view the results as many times as you like in browsers
> before uploading the page to the Web. And so on.
> Another advantage of Dreamweaver is that it can be made to work in
> conjunction with great HTML editors, such as HomeSite, and CSS editors, such
> as TopStyle. You choose the editor you want to use. You can then easily move
> between Dreamweaver and the chosen editor and beck again, saving your work
> as you go along.

I just recently started with Dreamweaver, as we had to use Contribute
on a project, and I am very disappointed by it's text editor. I have
used Homesite since version 3.0 and Textpad before that.
You are right to point out that Dreamweaver is a good allround editor,
but IMHO the time for WYSIWYG is over. I am the lead of the
Interaction Architecture Faculty here, and in the last 3 years we
didn't do any "design a web site" work, but all included templating
for different CMS or backends, and this is where _any_ WYSIWYG fails.
Furthermore we don't hire WYSIWYG developers, but require at least a
basic understanding of XSLT and JS together with HTML skills.
If your job aspirations are to make 10 page web sites or microsites
that last a month for the rest of your career, then yes, WYSIWYG is
enough. If you want to be a web developer that can be used in bigger
projects (and get the higher rates / income) then please join us in
the year 2005 and realise that web design is not "painting with HTML"
but creating properly separated web documents
(structure,presentation,behaviour) that can be easily maintained and
restyled.
Later in the process some .NET developer will mess up your templates
with the design view of Visual Studio, no need to already start with
tagsoup.
 
> Furthermore, Dreamweaver also offers a built-in FTP program. This means that
> you do not need to leave the Dreamweaver application in order to upload or
> download files to and from the server you are using.

Using your live server as a test platform is not really recommended,
unless it is a hotfix you have to perform. Any computer these days can
run a localhost (or even does so out of the box) and even if you have
_no clue_ about setting it up, you can ( http://www.apachefriends.org
).
 
> So in my opinion Dreamweaver is the way to go. It seems a bit complicated in
> the beginning. But it certainly pays to find out how to use it.

It is the industry standard editor, I venture to say, but I strongly
advise against believing all macromedia wants to make us believe. No
editor can replace proper understanding of markup and code, and pure
HTML is not here to stay.

-- 
Chris Heilmann 
Blog: http://www.wait-till-i.com
Writing: http://icant.co.uk/  
Binaries: http://www.onlinetools.org/


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