Dreamweaver or Frontpage or Plain HTML

[MajorSetback]

I am starting up a home business and will be setting up a web site to
market the software that I will be developing in C++. I was wondering
if I should buy something like Dreamweaver or Frontpage or try to
develop the web pages directly using HTML and a text editor. I have
not had experience building web pages but have had several years
experience in programming in C and C++ and in using LaTeX for document
preparation.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Peter.

 

[Chris Sharman]

I am starting up a home business and will be setting up a web site to
market the software that I will be developing in C++. I was wondering
if I should buy something like Dreamweaver or Frontpage or try to
develop the web pages directly using HTML and a text editor. I have
not had experience building web pages but have had several years
experience in programming in C and C++ and in using LaTeX for document
preparation.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Not tried fp, but dw seems to be a very primitive table-based thing - I
shelled out for it, but junked it after a while.

html-kit from www.chami.com is good, or notepad.

Chris

 

[Neredbojias]

With neither quill nor qualm, (e-mail address removed) quothed:

I am starting up a home business and will be setting up a web site to
market the software that I will be developing in C++. I was wondering
if I should buy something like Dreamweaver or Frontpage or try to
develop the web pages directly using HTML and a text editor.

The latter. Html is simple. Css, which you'll also need, is fairly
simple although there are some issues regarding its efficacy and inter-
browser rendering.

You should be able to make a decent web page within 1-2 weeks. If you
apply yourself, you could be an "expert" in both well within a year.

I started by viewing the source of and "hacking" (-benignly) html email
then diddling with frontpage and being accordingly dissatisfied then
viewing the source of web pages I liked on the Net. The biggest flaw in
my learning-curve was not finding a newsgroup such as this one sooner to
get feedback on which procedures were right and which were not so right
as well as further methods and additional information not encountered in
my other efforts.

Hope this helps.

 

[granpaw]

(e-mail address removed) wrote in

I am starting up a home business and will be setting up a web site to
market the software that I will be developing in C++. I was wondering
if I should buy something like Dreamweaver or Frontpage or try to
develop the web pages directly using HTML and a text editor. I have
not had experience building web pages but have had several years
experience in programming in C and C++ and in using LaTeX for document
preparation.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Peter.

Hello Peter,
No one needs to use a bloated (IMHO) webpage editor that costs big money
and adds all kinds of useless junk to your code usch as DW or Frontpage.
Try this link:
http://www.evrsoft.com, It's free for the taking and has four levels of
function, from newbie to pro...built in FTP also.

Just a suggestion, hope this helps, and good luck.
granpaw

 

[Rastus]

Spend 80 dollars and get a proffessionally designed template if you can find
one to suit your needs.

Yes - we all know that webmasters are meant to make their own web pages,
only use notepad, only eat jolt and pizza and masturbate nightly with
cheesegraters etc, but it is just irresistably cost effective to use off the
shelf.

I tend to use project 7 templates simply because it would cost me waaaay
more than the template cost to do it myself. You only get so much time in a
day and some tasks pay better dividends than others.

 

[William Tasso]

Fleeing from the madness of the jungle
Rastus <[email protected]> stumbled into
news:alt.html,alt.www.webmaster,comp.infosystems.www.authoring.html
and said:

...
Yes - we all know that webmasters are meant to make their own web pages,
only use notepad, only eat jolt and pizza and masturbate nightly with
cheesegraters etc,

Just nightly? bah - lightweight

 

[David Segall]

I am starting up a home business and will be setting up a web site to
market the software that I will be developing in C++. I was wondering
if I should buy something like Dreamweaver or Frontpage or try to
develop the web pages directly using HTML and a text editor. I have
not had experience building web pages but have had several years
experience in programming in C and C++ and in using LaTeX for document
preparation.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Peter.

If you are a very good computer programmer it is likely that you are
not a very good aesthetic designer so go to http://www.oswd.org/ and
pick one of the free, open source, site templates. Get with the trend
and use the advanced search to ensure that the site you pick uses CSS
and conforms to one of the XHTML standards.

Now go to
<http://www.macromedia.com/cfusion/tdrc/index.cfm?product=dreamweaver>
and download the free thirty day trial. Use it to change the site you
downloaded to match your requirements. It includes a perfectly good
text editor and an FTP program which is the minimum requirement to set
up a web site. If, at the end of the thirty days, you find you have
only used the text editor and FTP program then choose something else.
If, like me, you like the way Dreamweaver can edit a site from the
code, pictorial, CSS or even File view buy it. You may even want to
buy it because it provides a one-click way to view your pages in each
of the multiple browsers you should have on your computer or because
it will reformat, validate and check the links on your pages.

I should add that if you currently program in C++ using only vi,
Notepad, punched cards or even Emacs you will hate Dreamweaver. Use
the one you like to edit the HTML.

 

[Bruce Lewis]

Use latex2html if you're already familiar with latex.

HTML is a much simpler markup language than latex, so you can probably
pick it up quickly once you're done with your current project.

 

[Matt Probert]

have had several years experience in using LaTeX

Some guys have all the luck! I can't get my missus to wear PVC, let
alone rubber.....

</get coat>


Matt


PS

As everyone else has said, use a text editor and learn HTML, it's very
simple and unsophisticated.

 

[Travis Newbury]

If you are a very good computer programmer it is likely that you are
not a very good aesthetic designer so go to http://www.oswd.org/...

nice site.

 

[Paul Ding]

I am starting up a home business and will be setting up a web site to
market the software that I will be developing in C++. I was wondering
if I should buy something like Dreamweaver or Frontpage or try to
develop the web pages directly using HTML and a text editor.

No.

People are going to judge you software by the quality of your website.
You don't want a static website; you need something dynamic. A
bulletin board lets your users rave about your product, lets your
users suggest new uses for your product, and provide workarounds for
the, ahem, "features" we all work so hard to avoid. A blog lets your
users feel like they know you personally, and not only do many people
prefer to buy from a friend, even the ones that want to keep an arms'
length from their suppliers will be happy to believe that it's easy to
contact you for support. They worry about buying a product they can't
figure out how to use, with support in Mumbai, complete with such a
heavy accent they can't undestand.

Since you only have one product (or a half-dozen), you may well be
using PayPal and 2checkOut or something like that for processing
payments. (Some people love PayPal, some people hate it, and you will
benefit from offering potential customers both options.)

Consequently, you don't really need ZenCart or OSCommerce or some
other full-fledged shopping cart. That means you can use a regular CMS
instead. Drupal is pretty easy to deal with, and it's the one I would
go with.

Another solution might be to go with Mambo Open Source or Joomla.
These are basically the same product - there's recently been a rift in
the developer community, and it appears most of them are now working
on the new product, Joomla, instead of MOS. I've not spent much time
with Joomla, but there is a patch available that allows you can to use
single-sign-in Mambo Open Source with Simple Machines Forum for a BBS.
There are a lot of other CMSes, but they tend to be lot more
slashdottish in appearance, and I hink you probably want a website
that looks simple, clean, easy to use, because that will suggest to
customers that your C++ software will be simple and clean in
appearance, and easy to use.

Good luck in your venture!

 

[Jose]

If you are a very good computer programmer it is likely that you are

not a very good aesthetic designer so go to http://www.oswd.org/ and
pick one of the free, open source, site templates.

But DO NOT pick a good looking one. Pretend you are actually trying to
find stuff out from their website - see if it's easy to navigate,
resizes gracefully, and doesn't waste precious monitor real estate.
There are many pretty sites that are just a pain to use.

Jose

 

[Craig Cockburn]

I am starting up a home business and will be setting up a web site to
market the software that I will be developing in C++. I was wondering
if I should buy something like Dreamweaver or Frontpage or try to
develop the web pages directly using HTML and a text editor. I have
not had experience building web pages but have had several years
experience in programming in C and C++ and in using LaTeX for document
preparation.

I use htmlvalidator.com
Try it online here:
http://www.siliconglen.com/usability/

or download the free version here
http://www.htmlvalidator.com/lite/

 

[Charles Sweeney]

Craig Cockburn wrote

I use htmlvalidator.com
Try it online here:
http://www.sillyconglen.com/usability/

At *your* site. How convenient.

 

[Warren Warden]

I am starting up a home business and will be setting up a web site to

market the software that I will be developing in C++. I was wondering
if I should buy something like Dreamweaver or Frontpage or try to
develop the web pages directly using HTML and a text editor.

As a fellow C++ programmer, I can say that you will find the FrontPage IDE
easier to get used to. However, I can't stand FP and only use Dreamweaver --
which in my opinion is far superior.

 

[Samman]

(e-mail address removed) wrote in

Hello Peter,
No one needs to use a bloated (IMHO) webpage editor that costs big money
and adds all kinds of useless junk to your code usch as DW or Frontpage.

</snip>


Can you be more specific about what DW adds to the code?

 

[William Tasso]

Fleeing from the madness of the Road Runner High Speed Online
http://www.rr.com jungle
Samman <[email protected]> stumbled into
news:alt.html,alt.www.webmaster,comp.infosystems.www.authoring.html
and said:

</snip>


Can you be more specific about what DW adds to the code?

example only:

<table>
....
<tr width="270">
<td></td>
<td></td>
<td></td>
<td></td>
<td></td>
<td></td>
</tr>
</table>

....

<br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br>

 

[Samman]

Fleeing from the madness of the Road Runner High Speed Online
http://www.rr.com jungle
Samman <[email protected]> stumbled into
news:alt.html,alt.www.webmaster,comp.infosystems.www.authoring.html
and said:


example only:

<table>
...
<tr width="270">
<td></td>
<td></td>
<td></td>
<td></td>
<td></td>
<td></td>
</tr>
</table>

...

<br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br>

--
William Tasso

Save the drama
for your Mama.

That is indeed interesting...
I have been working with DW in a production environment for about 4 years
and have not witnessed code (markup) being generated like that, unless asked
to do so.

Example. I asked DW to make a table, 100% in width, 3 rows and 2 columns.
Here is the markup it gave me...

<table width="100%" summary="test table">
<tr>
<td>&nbsp;</td>
<td>&nbsp;</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>&nbsp;</td>
<td>&nbsp;</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>&nbsp;</td>
<td>&nbsp;</td>
</tr>
</table>

The non-breaking spaces it inserts are just placeholders, where other
objects/content would be placed. After content is added, it looks like this
(no code cleaning was done)...

<table width="100%" summary="test table">
<tr>
<td>Lorem ipsum dolor si</td>
<td>Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consect</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Lorem ipsum dolor sit am</td>
<td>Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscin</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Lorem ipsum dolor sit </td>
<td>Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectet</td>
</tr>
</table>

Looks pretty clean to me, nicely indented, etc...

I'm not trying to convince you to use the tool. Use whatever you are
comfortable, happy & productive with.

 

[Duende]

On 11 Jan 2006 Samman wrote in alt.www.webmaster

The non-breaking spaces it inserts are just placeholders, where other
objects/content would be placed. After content is added, it looks like
this (no code cleaning was done)...

<table width="100%" summary="test table">
<tr>
<td>Lorem ipsum dolor si</td>
<td>Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consect</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Lorem ipsum dolor sit am</td>
<td>Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscin</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Lorem ipsum dolor sit </td>
<td>Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectet</td>
</tr>
</table>

Looks pretty clean to me, nicely indented, etc...

Yah, but your content isn't very original.

 

[William Tasso]

Fleeing from the madness of the Road Runner High Speed Online
http://www.rr.com jungle
Samman <[email protected]> stumbled into
news:alt.html,alt.www.webmaster,comp.infosystems.www.authoring.html
and said:

That is indeed interesting...
I have been working with DW in a production environment for about 4 years
and have not witnessed code (markup) being generated like that, unless
asked
to do so.

well - yes, that's the point isn't it.

Example. I asked DW to make a table, 100% in width, 3 rows and 2 columns.
Here is the markup it gave me...

<table width="100%" summary="test table">
<tr>
<td>&nbsp;</td>
<td>&nbsp;</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>&nbsp;</td>
<td>&nbsp;</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>&nbsp;</td>
<td>&nbsp;</td>
</tr>
</table>

Ahh yes - forgot the &nbsp; - apologies, above was from memory.

The non-breaking spaces it inserts are just placeholders, where other
objects/content would be placed. After content is added, it looks like
this
(no code cleaning was done)...

<table width="100%" summary="test table">
<tr>
<td>Lorem ipsum dolor si</td>
<td>Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consect</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Lorem ipsum dolor sit am</td>
<td>Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscin</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Lorem ipsum dolor sit </td>
<td>Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectet</td>
</tr>
</table>

Looks pretty clean to me, nicely indented, etc...

markup looks just fine and dandy[1] - goes to show that power-tools make
stuff quicker, not necessarily better[2]. Not sure where you're posting
from, but in AWW we see a lot of empty tables when reviewing
DW/FP/whatever generated pages

I'm not trying to convince you to use the tool. Use whatever you are
comfortable, happy & productive with.

Likewise - live long and prosper.

[1] usual caveats about correct use of table markup applies
[2] the number of people that can't drill a straight hole is truly
astonishing