Best Wysiwyg Website Design Software?

[pumper]

MS has declared Front Page dead with the new office .. & file format.

is HTML dead?

Adobe seems to be at a cross road with Go Live & Dream Weaver .. new Mac versions are being quietly released.

http://www.macworld.com/news/2007/06/08/golive/index.php

http://creativemac.digitalmedianet.com/art...e.jsp?id=139415

I've tried a variety of Adobe / Macromedia products since my visit to Phantip in '97 .. never been able to declare an Adobe product as my favorite ..

perhaps FP's Office like menus made it easier to learn.

'Pros' of all graphic genres are 'said' to be Mac users .. several posters here 'bouts come off as advanced software users ..

Any Mac designers here?

Favorite HTML WYSIWYG programs?

Is HTML fixin' to be left in the dust? ( MS seems to think so)

[A_Traveller]

MS have released Expression, which is their stand alone Wysiwyg web product.

Regards

/edit add Link //

Ms Expression

Edited June 9, 2007 by A_Traveller

[cdnvic]

I like Kompozer, which is basically the open source Nvu editor without all the <deleted> bugs.

http://kompozer.sourceforge.net/

[pumper]

I completely missed "expression" announcement.

$99 upgrade path for FP is in place for the basic product & apparently is now available from retail outlets ..

after spending some time on the MS site I have "determined" that web design software is same same as word processing software .. an established & mature product line .. without redefining the 'software's goal of designing a web site' no new software is necessary.

kinda like: what can you do with Word '07 you could not do with Word '97. additional functionality only useful for corporate group editing

I tried to figure out how the expression line fits any of my needs .. without success at this point.

seems to be new graphics, presentation, web design line .. that is simply a new name for established functionality.

"add graphics / data base to a web site!"

seems to want to make web design a group project for intra-corporate webs w/ ASP.NET 2. to transform your sites into dynamic, interactive Web applications.

example of features; Work together in a friction-free environment, sharing projects, code, and designs for better productivity and quality.

Quickly build stunning prototypes????

registration / activation apparently requires a high speed connection.

"Broadband connection, 128 kilobits per second (Kbps) or greater, for activation of products"

dopey MS experts have a demo video that does not display correctly at the most popular screen rez.. 1024x768

was impossible for me (2 views) to determine what the video was all about .. looked kool, in a microsoft sorta way!

how can a potential customer spend 30 minutes trying to figure out a product line without success.. Microsoft know how!

seems to be that many of it's features simply allow clients to purchase demonstrated functionality... templates are priced at over $60 each!

http://www.instantfx.net/protemps.asp

& all the kool stuff appears to require add ons .. on top of add ons...

http://www.microsoft.com/products/expressi...a/features.mspx

[mac.wheeler]

Dreamweaver, hands down the best general webste development tool on the market today and for many years previously.

If you are into database driven websites then it's either codecharge studio (simply amazing) or the newish Borland Delphi codegear.

[chingching]

Are any of these programs up to the new standards of separating all content from presentation? What is needed now is a program to automatically write css style sheets.

[mac.wheeler]

Are any of these programs up to the new standards of separating all content from presentation? What is needed now is a program to automatically write css style sheets.

AFAIK nothing, and to be honest, if you spend all your time worrying about complying with web standards (and let's not forget these are all community derived standards) then you won't get any work done. Web standards are for people who need to justify their salary to the fat corporation they are working for, they have very little impact in the real world (queue lively discussion).

Presentation is already split from content via the use of style sheets? Real simple, define content, apply style, keep style definition in style sheet.

Check out stylemaster for keeping control of your stylesheets.

Edited June 10, 2007 by mac.wheeler

[cdnvic]

AFAIK nothing, and to be honest, if you spend all your time worrying about complying with web standards (and let's not forget these are all community derived standards) then you won't get any work done. Web standards are for people who need to justify their salary to the fat corporation they are working for, they have very little impact in the real world

Web standards and search engine optimization are two of the biggest scams running. Yes, each has it's place but too many people worry about writing to Google and the few who care about following the letter of the standards, and not enough time worrying that it's useful and relevant to the people you want to attract.

[dsys]

Are any of these programs up to the new standards of separating all content from presentation? What is needed now is a program to automatically write css style sheets.

I have used frontpage, golive, dremweaver, visual studio and visual studio web basic.

I hated frontpage its ok for the home user but it writes terrible HTML. Golive is great for integration with photoshop and I found its workflow management the best. I swithced from Golive because the support for dynamic sites was removed on an upgrade. Dreamweaver is the defacto standard but it can be annoying for ASP sites ( i dont use anyother language so can't comment) for advanced web applications I tend to use dreamweaver for the visual stuff and start off the ASP then switch to visual studio for more control of the code.

Dreamweaver is quite good at CSS and will allow you to do basic browser checking. Still best to run pages through an online checker though. Haven;t come accross a situation where there has been a formatting tag placed in the HTML. Frontpage is terrible at it, Golive is passable.

As far as web standards go I follow them religiously - not because I wish to charge extra fees or appear superior but because it works. Here are some of my arguments for standards.

1. Anybody in their right mind will want to serve up their pages in standards mode not quirks mode, layout cannot be controlled correctly irrespective of which browser you use.

2. There are too many variables on the web that cannot be controlled. Using standards allows for these to be narrowed.

3. Testing is easier. I now only need to test for three operating systems and 5 browser in each opsys. Before webstandards there were hundreds of variables to test for. Of course I know many designers that design in IE with XP as the opsys and never try any other versions of IE never mind browsers or opsys's.

4. Firefox is coded tughtly to the standards thats why it works so well and thats why most designers use it for first look testing. That would not be the csae without standards.

I have moved past the days of tag soup and am glad for it. Coding is easier with standards applied. Ok CSS are not perfect and its still a bit of a black art but if it provides faster loading pages with a more consistent look accroos more browsers then I'll go for that rather than " this site is best viewed in NS5 at 800x600dpi" any day of the week.

As far as the writing for search engines go, each to their own but I agree content is king. If there is more than one king though, better optimise the site.

[ozymandious]

Can anybody comment on this product?

http://www.wysiwygwebbuilder.com/

I've down loaded it but I haven't installed it yet.

think it will work or is it a piece of junk? anyone ever used it before?

Is there anything about it I should know?

[mac.wheeler]

4. Firefox is coded tughtly to the standards thats why it works so well and thats why most designers use it for first look testing. That would not be the csae without standards.

I have moved past the days of tag soup and am glad for it. Coding is easier with standards applied. Ok CSS are not perfect and its still a bit of a black art but if it provides faster loading pages with a more consistent look accroos more browsers then I'll go for that rather than " this site is best viewed in NS5 at 800x600dpi" any day of the week.

Point 4 is not strictly true, it's only recently that firefox has been able to pass the well known smiley face acid test and this was achieved by a fairly large chunk of development specifically aimed at making it pass the test, AFAIK the current stable release available to the public still fails (although not as badly as IE7 does) and it is only the nightly builds that pass the test.

I'm not saying web standards are a bad thing, and yes moving away from 'tag soup' is good for everyone overall, but then again how many times have you had to modify terribly written CSS? It's more of a nightmare than HTML ever was if it's done scrappily.

But there are people out there who spend huge percentages of their development time making sure that every part of a website adheres 100% to every standard, standards that currently cannot be displayed perfectly in either of the major browsers out there, surely this is a bit of a waste of time?

I agree with your comments on Dreamwaever, it's a design tool, I do the same as you do but with PHP, framework in Dreamweaver, development in codecharge. But the OP asked about web 'design' software, not web development software. As you rightly point out, Dreamweaver generates extremely good code, especially when compared to the likes of frontpage.

[Guest Reimar]

The question is easy and difficult to answer: On one hand, the best software is the one you know the best to use! On the other hand, you need to know your real requirements and that's something which may not found in one prog but spillted in several progs!

If someone ask me about the best software (for what ever) I'll answer: "FOR ME the best is this or that or whatever!"

For Webdesign I use a lot different progs and your question is really very difficult to answer! The best way is to listen to others and than check out the different progs to find what you looking for but keep in mind that you may need to use several different progs at the time for get the result you want!

[techie]

Favorite HTML WYSIWYG programs?

For me Dreamweaver. Reimar is right thought, much depends on your requirements.

I learnt to code html in Notepad and still use this for most stuff.

I believe its a case of trying a few programmes and sticking with the one you like the feel and working of.

Most people i know pic up dw very easily.

[cdnvic]

Like any Adobe/Macromedia product, Dreamweaver is still horribly expensive though.

[mac.wheeler]

Like any Adobe/Macromedia product, Dreamweaver is still horribly expensive though.

Too expensive really, this time around I only updated Dreamweaver, I run older versions of Photoshop, Flash and Illustrator, I just don't need 90% of the features to do what I do.

And then codecharge sting me for a few hundred dollars a year for a non-perpetual licence, although I'm slowly switching over to Delphi and that expense should disapear next year.

[pumper]

I knew there were some real web designers here 'bouts.

I was unable to understand several of the posts due to my lack of knowledge. (common for me)

googled "CSS" & now have a meager understanding of the goal (?) of CSS .. it's like a high end template / universal site format.. ??

mozilla 'themes' apparently are CSS 'like' .. I'm so simplistic (= old?) I use the default FF theme.

I'm going through several of the 'expert' posts & googling terms I do not understand / have never seen before.

simplistic understanding of terms & being a web designer are obviously not same same.

concepts like content vs presentation ..

one of the googled referenced explanations described my implementation of fonts in "my FP presentation" as 'ransom note style'

soon I will understand web design like I understand a conversation between two BGs .. ..

thanks guys .. / gals? / kethoys? ..

[cdnvic]

A good book for introducing yourself to CSS is Teach Yourself CSS in 10 Minutes - By Russ Weakley

For a online HTML and CSS tutorials try http://www.htmlgoodies.com/

Even if you use a WYSIWYG editor, it's still good to know the basics.

[dsys]

A good book for introducing yourself to CSS is Teach Yourself CSS in 10 Minutes - By Russ Weakley

Dam good book still us it almost on a daily basis as a ref when the brain is out of geer. Another book bit more advanced but I find very good is "Css Mastery, Advanced web solutions. Andy budd. isbn 1-59059-614-5" Great for layout and navbars.

also check out www.w3schools.com/css/