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I've decided I'm going to learn Dreamweaver....

BigMike

BrokenbikeMike
Jul 29, 2003
8,931
0
Montgomery county MD
How complicated is it? I'm pretty computer savvy, and I just gots me a big book on Studio MX 2004.

Any dreamweaver users out there have any helpful hints?
 

manhattanprjkt83

Rusty Trombone
Jul 10, 2003
9,644
1,214
Nilbog
jaydee said:
It's ok as long as you don't have to maintain the code later. It writes some pretty horrific gibberish.
this is true, notepad is clean and you know exactlywhat is in it...dreamweaver can be a bit INSANE at times...
 

binary visions

The voice of reason
Jun 13, 2002
22,092
1,132
NC
manhattanprjkt83 said:
this is true, notepad is clean and you know exactlywhat is in it...dreamweaver can be a bit INSANE at times...
Notepad has some advantages but it's simply not realistic for full-time web designers. Hand-coding everything is tedious and time consuming.
 

corey_rideDC

Turbo Monkey
Sep 1, 2004
1,368
0
DCmetro
jaydee said:
It's ok as long as you don't have to maintain the code later. It writes some pretty horrific gibberish.
just use the code window exclusively then... it's a color-coded, hint-laden, line-numbered notepad.

mike, dreamweaver is the best yet in a long line of WYSIWIG html editors. the code it outputs in 'design' mode is far better than any of it's rivals. you might do yourself a favor and learn HTML while you're learning DW. it's basically an interpreter between you and the language. as with anything, something always gets lost in the interpretation.

let me know if you have any questions.
 

TN

Hey baby, want a hot dog?
Jul 9, 2002
14,301
1,353
Jimtown, CO
ewwwww....dreamweaver....I believe you can get me through the niiiIIIght....

really though, sounds cool. we still use Pagemill at work & will be getting Dreamweaver soon. let me know how you like it.
 

BigMike

BrokenbikeMike
Jul 29, 2003
8,931
0
Montgomery county MD
Cool, thanks everyone. I know a LITTLE bit of HTML, its been quite a while. I was planning on re-learning it while I am working on these two little projects in Dream weaver.

We'll see how it goes
 

Roasted

Turbo Monkey
Jul 4, 2002
1,488
0
Whistler, BC
I template using dreamweaver, but since most of the sites I have done (internally or externally) use a CMS I made, I don't need endless code. I need the first page, plug in the informtion into the cms and modify if needed (funky designs) and then the site is basically done excluding content.

I also tend to take the time to rewrite the template as deamweaver does make some funky coding and spacing, but it is a great way to do pages. 100% better than front page. Besides with how it interacts with the rest of the studio it make the design side VERY easy.
 

Ridemonkey

This is not an active account
Sep 18, 2002
4,108
1
Toronto, Canada
It's ok as long as you don't have to maintain the code later. It writes some pretty horrific gibberish.
lol no it doesn't. As a WYSIWYG editor, Dreamweaver has always been far superior to anything else. You want ugly code? Try Frontpage or GoLive. Dreamweaver 8 writes XHTML 1.0 Strict compliant code, there's not another WYSIWYG out there that comes close.
 

BigMike

BrokenbikeMike
Jul 29, 2003
8,931
0
Montgomery county MD
Ridemonkey said:
lol no it doesn't. As a WYSIWYG editor, Dreamweaver has always been far superior to anything else. You want ugly code? Try Frontpage or GoLive. Dreamweaver 8 writes XHTML 1.0 Strict compliant code, there's not another WYSIWYG out there that comes close.
So is 8 that much better than 7? I'm just learning, and doing basic sites (for now) So I think i'll be fine with what I've got for now. If things go the way I am hoping, and I start making money off of this little project my friend and I are starting, then mabye I'll go buy 8 :)
 

BigMike

BrokenbikeMike
Jul 29, 2003
8,931
0
Montgomery county MD
Ridemonkey said:
Yeah, as a beginner you probably wouldn't distinguish the difference.

Just out of curiosity, what do you use to edit the VBulletin script to alter the site to your likings? Do they have a special script editor or is it up to you to figure it out?
 

jaydee

Monkey
Jul 5, 2001
794
0
Victoria BC
I agree that Dreamweaver is the best WYSIWYG html tool out there, but I still say it writes some weird stuff. It does make pretty usable templates though.
 

Transcend

My Nuts Are Flat
Apr 18, 2002
18,040
3
Towing the party line.
binary visions said:
Notepad has some advantages but it's simply not realistic for full-time web designers. Hand-coding everything is tedious and time consuming.
Really? I seem to do just fine in textwrangler (color coded text only editor). Find me a WYSIWIG editor that reads fully strict compliant css...
 

Ridemonkey

This is not an active account
Sep 18, 2002
4,108
1
Toronto, Canada
Sure it does, you're just not using it right :p.

I always chuckle a little when people say they use Notepad for coding. We've all (web guys) had our Notepad days, it's kind of a right of passage, but using a pure text-based editor for production work is just so impractical.

I do this for a living, 3-4 sites a month, LOTS of custom programming. If I had to rely purely on Notepad for coding, I'd never keep up. The great thing about a programming oriented editor is code suggestions. For the newbs, that's when the program "suggests" code as you type (eg. start typing "mys", and you get contextual menu with mysql_connect, etc.). This reduces your required keystrokes and gets you from point a to b much faster. Making HTML templates, I'd estimate this increases my productivity five fold, and with PHP it probably doubles it. Also, with something like notepad you don't get code colouring, which is very helpful in finding tags quickly, and spotting errors. You also get code collapsing, highlighting, etc with Dreamweaver.

All that said...why would you want to use notepad?
 
J

JRB

Guest
My programming is very limited, but RM is right. Why would anyone edit in notepad, when there are editors to use? I always loved that our administrator would try to keep config files in notepad for the router, and it never worked for him. I'm sure it works for some, but it didn't for him.