I am trying both Dreamweaver:

www.macromedia.com

and Freeway Pro 3.5:

www.softpress.com

Though I'm kinda sorta starting to get the hang of Dreamweaver, I like that Freeway is really powerful and I can do either custom stuff (not sure if I can do HTML, but then again, I know VERY LITTLE of HTML) or use some nice templates.

Again, I am getting the hang of Dreamweaver, and it is technically more powerful than Freeway. I'm sure I could figure it out after a while, but what would be better for me in the long run?

Thanks,

Heath

I use Dreamweaver for work. If you learn Dreamweaver, maybe you can also pick up web development as well. If you are just making one site, your own, then use whatever doesn't put roadblocks in front of you.

I've never heard of the other program.

Check it out if you can. It's for Macs only, though (for once).

www.softpress.com

heath

Our website building company is using Dreamweaver as well (among a host of
other tools, of course). I don't since I mainly do the backend integration with
content management systems and backend data systems etc.

I've never heard of Freeway, but I know that Dreamweaver is very powerful. Another Web site creation tool in the same league as Dreamweaver that you could check out would be Adobe GoLive. (The only thing I would point out is that GoLive lacks a dynamic content module that would simplify connections to databases, but that's a feature you may never use for your own small sites.)

GoLive Web page: http://www.adobe.com/products/golive/main.html

GoLive trial version: (Mac) http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/product.jsp?product=26&platform=Macintosh
(Windows) http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/product.jsp?product=26&platform=Windows

And if you want to go the free route give Nvu a spin: http://www.nvu.com/

honestly Heath,

the best HTML software is a text editor of any kind and a working knowledge of html (or any of the markup languages). dreamweaver adds a lot of unneccessary lines of codes which adds up and can make clients download more lines of html, which will slow down the website. i know you can turn the code generation off, but in that case, you don't need dreamweaver. just download a free open source text editor that colorizes lines of code.

honestly Heath,

the best HTML software is a text editor of any kind and a working knowledge of html (or any of the markup languages). dreamweaver adds a lot of unneccessary lines of codes which adds up and can make clients download more lines of html, which will slow down the website. i know you can turn the code generation off, but in that case, you don't need dreamweaver. just download a free open source text editor that colorizes lines of code.

Sometimes it's good to use a combination of both. Let the software generate the code and then go in and prune it down for efficiency. I used to do this with the VBA code generated by MS EXCEL while recording macros.

=gb=

Unless you use Dreamweaver to design from scratch Dreamweaver actually has pretty clean code. As in it doesn't add in things. This is how I use it:

1. Design in Photoshop and Illustrator
2. Convert design to slices or individual graphics
3. Bring up Dreamweaver and begin coding raw.
4. Use Dreamweaver for usual linking, .css, and site management.

The real criminal programs are Word (avoid avoid avoid!) and FrontPage.

I hate dealing with clients who use FrontPage. Inevitably the first question they ask is: "what's FTP?" And then I take a deep breath...

Adobe GoLive is okay but since I began with Dreamweaver I could never get into GoLive's interface.

honestly Heath,

the best HTML software is a text editor of any kind and a working knowledge of html (or any of the markup languages).
It depends on the kind of site you want to develop. If you want to keep design consistency across pages, have links managed, etc., then the site management tools in software such as Dreamweaver and GoLive are valuable and useful. Plus, I think the visual layout tools are probably just faster, especially with more complex layouts, than hand coding would be.

NOTEPAD!


..ok ok..
Seriously now: Jext - www.jext.org


excelent free code editor.

- Mikko

"dreamweaver adds a lot of unneccessary lines of codes which adds up and can make clients download more lines of html, which will slow down the website."

I like Dreamweaver, and have noticed that it can sometimes add code that I.E. doesn't like. Same thing with Front Page Express adding code that Mozilla bowsers don't like. It really helps to understand the code, and polish up with the text editor. There is a setting in Dreamweaver, which turns off the non IE codes, and won't insert them.

check this out (don't click on it if you are easily offended, genmay is the antithesis of DVI):
http://genmay.com/showthread.php?t=551465
i'm JediFonger on that.

It depends on the kind of site you want to develop. If you want to keep design consistency across pages, have links managed, etc., then the site management tools in software such as Dreamweaver and GoLive are valuable and useful. Plus, I think the visual layout tools are probably just faster, especially with more complex layouts, than hand coding would be.