Is Dreamweaver the best ?

[OldHouseDesign]

ok, ok, I am one of the Tens-of-thousands of unemployed "print" designers out there chewing glass in order to find work and[font="Arial"][/font] I want to better learn Web design to make myself more marketable. I have designed (read, DESIGNED, not coded) a good number of corporate sites in the past and have even written some HTML for a hospital site many many moons ago.

Since Web software is kind of costly when you don't have an income, and since widening my employment potential is the whole mission here, I want to be sure to invest in the reasonably best software option I can.

I have experience with very, very old versions of Dreamweaver so I am naturally gravitating toward that. What do you all think ? I work, of course, on a Mac. Thanks for your insight.

[blueswan]

You might want to check out SiteGrinder 2 - a wysiwig program for building websites in Photoshop. I use it, excellent program and easy to learn. (I'm a print designer as well).

Cheers.

[chrisfig]

Ok, to start let's correct something in your thinking...we don't want you to learn a web design program, we want you to learn HTML. Really understanding how a site works and how to fix things without relying on a certain piece of software is critical to being able to design and code websites effectively, far too many people out there are simply software operators who are building sites in Dreamweaver with zero understanding of how they actually work. This results in totally non-standards compliant sites that don't work cross-browser, load slowly, etc. It sounds like you've got some basic HTML knowledge already, refresh yourself on that then start looking at how CSS works and you'll be well on your way to building usable websites.

On the plus side there's a few really nice reasonably priced web editors (under 100 bucks) for the Mac. Coda (from Panic, the guys that make Transmit) is a really nice one that I've used some, though my current choice is Espresso. Either gives you a lot of tools to work with as well as a live preview (one that accurately displays CSS, unlike Dreamweaver) and both are reasonably priced and offer free demos.

One tool you might also find really useful is CSSedit (from the guys who make Espresso), an app that lets your browse a site and see how the CSS is applied. You can even make changes to the CSS file (locally of course) and see how that effects the site, it's a fantastic tool for understanding how CSS actually works. There's also a free demo available and there's a discount on it if you buy it with Espresso.

Hope that helps, if you're got any q's ask away.

[OldHouseDesign]

Thanks !

I really appreciate the info and am checking out the software you both mention. I guess your comment about learning HTML, chrisfig, is the answer I was kind of expecting but hoping not to hear. Unfortunately, i get rather panicky around "coding" but looks like if I want to ever work again Ill need to break thru that (Maybe I can post that question on the Dr. Phil forum, ha ha).

I am trying to become more generalized in my Web training - rather than learning a particular software - but It seems all the positions I am interested in are pretty specific about software they expect you to be an expert in. Those are usually the worst companies to work for, though, don't you think ?

OK, so to recap - seems it really isn't the particular software that is used, its the ability to learn and understand the coding behind the pretty pictures . . . might be time to go back to school for another degree, this time in IT.

[chrisfig]

I can kinda of see it both ways as far as people wanting you to know a certain software package, they might have something that's very integrated into their workflow for whatever reason. But if you understand how everything really works that trumps everything, programs may handle the code a bit different but they're all doing more or less the same thing (and they should all have a code view mode where you can just skip the pretty buttons).

HTML is really far less complicated than people make it out to be, once you get the understanding of how things function and how CSS affects HTML it's really pretty straightforward. There used to be some great intro to HTML tutorials at Webmonkey but they're restructured and I can't find any of them now. w3schools is probably the best site I've found recently for learning HTML and CSS, their HTML tutorial seems pretty extensive. Feel free to drop me an e-mail if you've got any specific questions.

[keveenjones]

Through this software beginner developers work easily on web site designing and it is very helpful for advance level user. Simple and complex websites can be designed using a point and click method. this software includes templates for web pages to *** in the design process.Website designers can make changes to the design of a website simply by editing the Dream Weaver template files. There are many supportive tools to create a website through dream weaver.

[OldHouseDesign]

Thanks Everyone,

I made the big expenditure just yesterday for Dreamweaver. I really appreciate your comments chrisfig about HTML but for to get myself up and running as fast as possible, I decided the software is the way to go. I have a friend who does all his sites in a text editor as straight-up code so I know I have a resource for advancing my HTML knowledge beyond the code screen in Dreamweaver. Knowing how I learn, Ill need to see both sides, the preview pane and the code pane.

[Aibrean]

The best is knowing HTML/CSS well enough that you don't need to depend on any singular HTML editor. Dreamweaver works for me but since for the most part I'm hand-coding, I could easily switch without issue.

[Griggle]

I also have Dreamweaver but like the post above, I am to the point where I probably don't need it. I would probably suggest just start out using the TextEdit on your mac and look up tutorials on the web on basics of html and css. Try from there. If it gets hard, then purchase a program. Just a tip. Look at some sites you like, then pull down the source code and see how they are built. Also might help to do a little research on SEO.

[watson09]

Without any doubt dreamweaver is one of the best web design software. Even the navigation and ways to understand the software is quite easy.

Still its not that easy to put hands on it if you have never known anything about CSS. As you told that you have created some sites in past so i think you are eligible to use it