Dreamweaver vs frontpage

Darren

Locally I can learn either Dreamweaver or Frontpage. I just wonder what is the difference-in a nutshell- between the two. I have no idea what HTLM is, all I do want is "to drive the car and run some diagnostic tests but not to know how the combustion engine or catalitic converter works"
--
baruth

Hi Baruth

I've used both programs. I did my very first website using Microsoft Frontpage a couple of years ago. My latest one was made using Macromedia Dreamweaver.

I'm no website expert, but of the two, I would recommend Dreamweaver. I think Frontpage is considered a little 'old hat' now.

Dreamweaver is a very easy program to use, allowing you to design your website exactly how you want it to look. It comes with a very easy to follow help guide in case you get stuck. You don't need to know much HTML as all the coding is done for you in Dreamweaver. Of course, if you do want to include some bespoke code you can do that.

Designing a website can seem daunting at first, but once you get into Dreamweaver you'll really enjoy it.

Please feel free to take a look at my site and let me know what you think.

--
Paul Jones
Olympus E-20
http://www.pauljones.org

In a nutshell:

It doesn't take much of a nut in the shell to learn Frontpage.
It does take a full nut in the shell to understand Dreamweaver.

Frontpage provides pre-designed templates(websites) to build your website. NO html background is required, just simples rules to follow to get your website up and running the way you want it. Very easy to pick up.

Dreamweaver offers No templates for you to build on. You have to build from the ground up. Much more difficult to learn, but more versitile and creative if this is a long term commitment you are willing to pursue. More difficult to pick up in the short term.

hope this helps...just my thoughts on the nutshell

-scott

baruth said:

Darren
Locally I can learn either Dreamweaver or Frontpage. I just wonder
what is the difference-in a nutshell- between the two. I have no
idea what HTLM is, all I do want is "to drive the car and run some
diagnostic tests but not to know how the combustion engine or
catalitic converter works"
--
baruth

Click to expand...

It has been helpful to hear your experiences. Scott's nutshell was to the point and really good. Paul's website was interesting and may be what I would like to start with. Paul, I would like to ask: where is your website located, and how much do they charge? and why ".org" ? Here in the USA the ".org" means an official mostly govermental things.

artboss said:

It doesn't take much of a nut in the shell to learn Frontpage.
It does take a full nut in the shell to understand Dreamweaver.

Frontpage provides pre-designed templates(websites) to build your
website. NO html background is required, just simples rules to
follow to get your website up and running the way you want it.
Very easy to pick up.

Dreamweaver offers No templates for you to build on. You have to
build from the ground up. Much more difficult to learn, but more
versitile and creative if this is a long term commitment you are
willing to pursue. More difficult to pick up in the short term.

hope this helps...just my thoughts on the nutshell

-scott

baruth said:

Darren
Locally I can learn either Dreamweaver or Frontpage. I just wonder
what is the difference-in a nutshell- between the two. I have no
idea what HTLM is, all I do want is "to drive the car and run some
diagnostic tests but not to know how the combustion engine or
catalitic converter works"
--
baruth

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

--
baruth

Baruth,

I vote for FrontPage. Very easy to use and quick if you don't all that bells and whistles that distract your viewers and take forever to load up. On the other hand, if you want to be 'artsy, fartsy' then go with Dreamweaver or another software.

This web was done with FrontPage. Take a look and see if it would satisfy your requirements.

http://www.battsphotography.com

Good luck,
Joel

baruth said:

artboss said:

It doesn't take much of a nut in the shell to learn Frontpage.
It does take a full nut in the shell to understand Dreamweaver.

Frontpage provides pre-designed templates(websites) to build your
website. NO html background is required, just simples rules to
follow to get your website up and running the way you want it.
Very easy to pick up.

Dreamweaver offers No templates for you to build on. You have to
build from the ground up. Much more difficult to learn, but more
versitile and creative if this is a long term commitment you are
willing to pursue. More difficult to pick up in the short term.

hope this helps...just my thoughts on the nutshell

-scott

baruth said:

Darren
Locally I can learn either Dreamweaver or Frontpage. I just wonder
what is the difference-in a nutshell- between the two. I have no
idea what HTLM is, all I do want is "to drive the car and run some
diagnostic tests but not to know how the combustion engine or
catalitic converter works"
--
baruth

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

--
baruth

Click to expand...

--
E10 Image Gallery
http://home.earthlink.net/~jtbatts/Index.html

I agree that Frontpage is a "quick start" programme and if you don't want to become a "web head" it will do almost everything. The HTML that frontpage writes is often more complicated than it needs to be and people using a web browser other than Internet Explorer might not see what you want them to see. Dreamweaver is a more advanced and professional programme that writes neater code. It is harder to learn, but once you understand it, it is better. I have had Dreamweaver for well over a year now and I know about 15% of it. I like the interface, and I love it's flexibility. My wife has Frontpage and I find it a bit "clunky" to use after DW. There are excellent websites put together on either software, but if you are paying for a course I would go for the Macromedia one.

Neil.
--
http://www.dg28.com

I use Dreamweaver as it generates more standard complient HTML than Frontpage.

How does Go Live behave?

Uwe

Neil Turner said:

I agree that Frontpage is a "quick start" programme and if you
don't want to become a "web head" it will do almost everything. The
HTML that frontpage writes is often more complicated than it needs
to be and people using a web browser other than Internet Explorer
might not see what you want them to see. Dreamweaver is a more
advanced and professional programme that writes neater code. It is
harder to learn, but once you understand it, it is better. I have
had Dreamweaver for well over a year now and I know about 15% of
it. I like the interface, and I love it's flexibility. My wife has
Frontpage and I find it a bit "clunky" to use after DW. There are
excellent websites put together on either software, but if you are
paying for a course I would go for the Macromedia one.

Neil.
--
http://www.dg28.com

Click to expand...

artboss said:

Dreamweaver offers No templates for you to build on.

Click to expand...

This is no longer true with Dreamweaver MX, the just released version, which contains quite a bit of "prefab" content. (The overall sentiment is correct. Dreamweaver is a much more complex program than Frontpage. Think of Dreamweaver as being a fully decked out medium format rig complete with tethered laptop, etc. while Frontpage is maybe an Oly E20 if you're lucky...)

-Z-

baruth said:

Locally I can learn either Dreamweaver or Frontpage. I just wonder
what is the difference-in a nutshell- between the two. I have no
idea what HTLM is

Click to expand...

Have you ever done any programming? If you have, I recommend Dreamweaver.

FP, as with any other MS product, really do not like to follow standards hence will most likely render your web site useless for non-IE browsers. DW has built in code checking for both IE and Netscape browsers.

FP, (havent play with DW MX yet), while allows for quite easy page creations, it does so by hiding all that stuff from the user and you must uses its interface to get your content out to the host properly. If something goes wrong, you will have no idea of what went wrong and hence debugging is a hassle. Everything in DW is plain text/html, so there is nothing you do not know about because you didnt create it. This little difference many times leads to problems when you look around the directories.

DW is also totally JavaScript extendable, which means many web sites has free features ready for you to add into DW.

--
jc
F707 w/ Nikon 5T/6T
http://www.reefkeepers.org/gallery/f707
http://www.reeftec.com/gallery

Neither. Get Net Object Fusion MX for $99 and a free upgrade to v7 in 3 days time when that ships.

It beats both of the other products hands donwn IMHO.

http://www.netobjects.com/

Paul

Jimmy Chen said:

FP, as with any other MS product, really do not like to follow
standards hence will most likely render your web site useless for
non-IE browsers. DW has built in code checking for both IE and
Netscape browsers.

Click to expand...

That's an old complaint that was true for a while, but has also not been true for a while. Frontpage 2000 and XP can turn off all nonstandard features and "play nice."

I don't guess anyone has mentioned that it's also cheaper than DreamWeaver.

DreamWeaver is much more versatile for web developers, but FrontPage is better for people who want to spend more time and money creating photographs. The difference is like using a "Pic" mode on a camera versus a plainer auto mode (like shutter priority). But DreamWeaver is not as Spartan as using straight manual mode.

RDKirk
'It's always socially unacceptable to be right too soon.' -Fuji FP6900Z Owner

RDKirk wrote:
[...DreamWeaver...]

The name "Dreamweaver" is not bicapitalized. Nor is Photoshop.

-Z-

While the replies so far are pretty accurate (don't know about that, there Net Objects though) no one answering yet knows what your goals are . . . and that's the key to a smart choice.

It really is the key.

Wanna be a pro website author . . . use DW. Learn Photoshop for WWW and Fireworks etc.

Want to get up fast, easily, and look just fine use FP2002 without near the learning curve . . . make some clean jpg or gif headers and buttons and Schwing! you are online.

If the scenario is "We've gotta keep our intranet updated by non-geeks," or "I'm a shooter who just needs to keep my site up so my biz' looks professional" then FP is the ticket.

To say FP is old-hat is WRONG.

If you are a web newbie (or vet) there are SOME things FrontPage can do that NONE of the other programs CAN . . . i.e. getting online forms up quick and a main goal of ANY site is to allow clients to reach you.

I'd suggest getting FP even if it is just for its wizard driven ability to put up online forms that save to a data file, route as e-mail and append an HTML page . . .an that is on both Windoze servers and UNIX.

I'm a DW guy and have taught it (and GoLive) for several years. I've also had FP in my back pocket for forms. (Too darn lazy to learn yet another custom PERL iteration). I've also taught a LOT of in-house folks, and freelance accounts to use FP to update their site,even after it was ORIGINALLY build in DW.

Consider . . . rather than hitting DW's learning curve. (No, it's not impossible at all, but time is $$$)

Spend your time writing good copy and organizing your website's "story". Based on that, make some straightforward headers and navigation, or tweak and FP wizard and get the thing up. Have online forms that work and build you a e-mail mass mailing list.

Spend time on your shooting and learning a good tool for displaying your work. Shoot well and schmooz your clients.

Better yet, hire a web guy like me or your other respondents to get a nice site online. Then, learn enough of one of the two tools to not "blow it up" and make simple updates yourself . . . any nice developer will help you after the main project wraps.

Sorry for an sermonizing.

BB

baruth said:

Darren
Locally I can learn either Dreamweaver or Frontpage. I just wonder
what is the difference-in a nutshell- between the two. I have no
idea what HTLM is, all I do want is "to drive the car and run some
diagnostic tests but not to know how the combustion engine or
catalitic converter works"
--
baruth

Click to expand...

--

Technology, it's just like Nebraska weather, 'If you don't like it, wait an hour, it'll change.'

to who ever said that FP does somethings that arent on the HTML4.0 standard was correct there a few pieces that only work in IE and are messed up in NS like drop down boxes , then some of the way that they set up forms (feedback with radio buttons ) causes debugging problems that you cant resolve easily.

personally i use both because i started on FP 98. but now i use the following for building webs (oh btw i do this on the side to help pay for my college education) FP (98,2k,02) DW DWMX, fireworks,freehand,flash, adobe PS7, Illistrator,page maker (for documents) and acrabat for document transport.

I im fairly talented but am always learning new things all the time, and i have built a large library of gif,jpeg, and page templetes to go everything rom simple to mind blowing

for whihc program to choose, i reccomend for beginers FP, and then when they want to get in the deep end then go to DW(IMHO Go live is nothing but FP dummied down even more)

Member said:

Neither. Get Net Object Fusion MX for $99 and a free upgrade to v7
in 3 days time when that ships.

Click to expand...

Unless Fusion has changed their db storage style, I would stay away from it. I used it for close to an year. The app was excellent at crashing the db file and you would have to copy and paste the whole site over just to so you can work on it again. If anything, if anything, it is the worst of all three in my experience. We switched to DW because of how restructed it was.

--
jc
F707 w/ Nikon 5T/6T
http://www.reefkeepers.org/gallery/f707
http://www.reeftec.com/gallery

One thing about the latest version of Dreamweaver (MX) is that Macromedia is making great inroads in fully integrating their products.

Dreamweaver, Flash, Cold Fusion, JRun, and Generator are really starting to play well together. Lot's of really cool tools you can use to build various aspects of your site.

Dreamweaver also has a lot more back-end support options if you're interested in building dynamic (data-driven) sites. (CFM, ASP, JSP, PHP, etc.)

Front Page wants to get you into Microsoft ASP-land, period. I believe .NET is the flavor of the week.

baruth wrote:
Paul, I would like to ask:

baruth said:

where is your website located, and how much do they charge? and why
".org" ? Here in the USA the ".org" means an official mostly
govermental things.

Click to expand...

+++

Hi Baruth

My site is hosted on free webspace with Tiscali here in the UK. I registered the .org simply because all the other derivations (.com/.co.uk, etc) had already been taken.

Regards

Paul
--
Paul Jones
Olympus E-20
http://www.pauljones.org

I'm jumping in here late but I have to say this: 'Easy' and 'Good' are at two opposite ends of a scale. You've got to decide which way you want to go.

Why not take the time and learn? I don't understand the problem with that concept.

Cheers
D

artboss said:

It doesn't take much of a nut in the shell to learn Frontpage.
It does take a full nut in the shell to understand Dreamweaver.

Frontpage provides pre-designed templates(websites) to build your
website. NO html background is required, just simples rules to
follow to get your website up and running the way you want it.
Very easy to pick up.

Dreamweaver offers No templates for you to build on. You have to
build from the ground up. Much more difficult to learn, but more
versitile and creative if this is a long term commitment you are
willing to pursue. More difficult to pick up in the short term.

hope this helps...just my thoughts on the nutshell

-scott

baruth said:

Darren
Locally I can learn either Dreamweaver or Frontpage. I just wonder
what is the difference-in a nutshell- between the two. I have no
idea what HTLM is, all I do want is "to drive the car and run some
diagnostic tests but not to know how the combustion engine or
catalitic converter works"
--
baruth

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

Hi Baruth,

Sorry about coming into this so late...I couldn't log in yesterday for some reason.

You've heard a lot of opinions here, I'll try and stay non-partisan: They're both programs for helping you create HTML without doing the coding.

The advantage of Dreamweaver is that it's not tied to creating code for a specific platform...Macromedia has no preference toward IE over Netscape or vice versa. The code it creates tends to be robust on both platforms.

The advantage of Frontpage is that, while it creates code that is strictly IE-aware (of course), sometimes it may be able to take advantages of features that only exist in IE (fixed backgrounds, integration with VB Script or whatever).

If I were starting out and I didn't code by hand, I would myself choose Dreamweaver for cross-platform compatible pages and give up the features that FrontPage allows me access to.

No pressure, though! Cheers, d

baruth said:

Darren
Locally I can learn either Dreamweaver or Frontpage. I just wonder
what is the difference-in a nutshell- between the two. I have no
idea what HTLM is, all I do want is "to drive the car and run some
diagnostic tests but not to know how the combustion engine or
catalitic converter works"
--
baruth

Click to expand...

Z (is real) said:

RDKirk wrote:
[...DreamWeaver...]

The name "Dreamweaver" is not bicapitalized. Nor is Photoshop.

-Z-

Click to expand...

Don't start sentences with conjunctions.

--
RDKirk
'It's always socially unacceptable to be right too soon.' -Fuji FP6900Z Owner