Dreamweaver vs FrontPage

[stever]

I am a newcomer to PowWeb and web site development and I hope this is the correct forum to ask this question. I am having trouble publishing out of FrontPage. A friend said he will sell me his copy of Dreamweaver MX 2004. Is this a good program to use with PowWeb and if so are there any special tricks I have to know to start?
thanks stever

[stevel]

Dreamweaver MX 2004 is excellent. It is one of the products of choice by professional web designers. It like it far better than FrontPage.

Dreamweaver has good tutorials - all you need to know regarding PowWeb is how to define the connection for your site. When you create the "Site" in Dreamweaver, there is a Connection page where you specify how files get transferred to the server. Specify FTP, give the FTP server name PowWeb assigns you, your FTP username and password, and a directory of "htdocs/".

We have a Dreamweaver section of the forum if you need DW-specific help.

[aladinliverpool]

My advice is. If you are new to web development. Stick with frontpage. It is aimed at the beginner and helps with basic web editing commands. Theres tons of tutorials out there and gives a helpfull front end with online help if you need it. frontpage server extentions are available within sitemanager on powweb. This might help with your publishing problems.. or it may just be your configuration in front page.

Dreamweaver is aimed at the professional web designer. Yes it has loads of tools in there but for a beginner, it will overwealm them so much they will create more problems than building a site.

Think about walking before you sprint. You will have a better understanding of web development when you think that frontpage cannot perform the tasks you need to do after you have spent time developing a site on it.

[stevel]

I disagree. The only way in which FrontPage is "easier" is that it has idiotic-looking templates that suck in the unwary newcomer into creating awful-looking sites. Dreamweaver has excellent tutorials which lead you through the process. Yes, there are lots of features, but you don't have to use them all.

[Kitchensink108]

Frontpage sucks. Dreamweaver's better at actually generating somewhat-compliant code.

[jonshu21]

Dreamweaver all the way. No contest

[maxwelld]

Answering your question depends on your background knowledge and on what you are trying to do. It also depends on how hard you are willing to study to learn more. Do you want to be a serious or a casual once-in a-while Web developer? If you are really a beginner, you ought to spend a little time just learning some basic HTML and CSS before using anything more complicated than a text editor. That will be enough software to get you acquainted with basics. It will give you enough knowledge to edit some of the innumerable templates that are available. That may be enough. However, If you are really serious and are willing to put in the effort and investment, Dreamweaver is a top product. But as has been noted by others, it is intended for professionals and has a steep learning curve. It's also not cheap. Personally, I think FrontPage is a kludgey piece of software that makes really ugly HTML code. But I know people who find it easier to use.

[Croc Hunter]

Go for Dreamweaver. The help files will get you going and we'll help if you get stuck. You won't look back.