Dreamweaver

[andysears]

Man there certainly is some utter tosh on here.

Frontpage?

CMS for serious designing?

Dreamweaver only for CSS templates?

Get real.

As for w3c validation PAH! If site does its job and makes money then b******s to it all.

So many hand coders *s*******

So what next? someone going to say Firefox is a market leader?

 

[beebo]

CMS templates are mostly layers of CSS.

I agree with you, Dreamweaver is good for making CMS templates. Have been using Dreamweaver since the 1st incantation over 12 years ago. However the scalability issue makes it a bad choice for a new webpage designer or new business. That was the point of the topic I think.

 

[beebo]

Sigh Andy -

Another batch of constructive criticism. Coming back to the UK makes me squirm sometimes.

So the guy wants to be a PART-TIME webdesigner ......you reckon he should splash out 400 quid on Dreamwearweaver? go the whole hog and buy Creative Suite for a couple of grand? spend a couple of years learning to hand code? Or use a free beginner type CMS like Wordpress and have a half decent (scaleable)site up and running in half a day?

 

[bdw]

Beebo EWD expressed his opinion a bit more forcefully than I but I tend to agree with him. What you are saying makes no sense and it is likely to mislead people. It is just plain wrong.

Regarding validation, when a website does not validate properly this can adversely affect search engine optimisation. It also reflects the professionalism of the designer. For various reasons it is not always possible to have a website that fully validates but the target should always be zero errors and warnings.

Your CMS website has many errors and warnings as does YouTube but then SEO is not important to YouTube. Everyone already knows where to find it and it is owned by Google. I think they could possibly influence its position if they were so inclined. Don't you?

 

[bdw]

Or use a free beginner type CMS like Wordpress and have a half decent (scaleable)site up and running in half a day?

Are you suggesting that a web design business can be built on Wordpress? The problem here is that many people do not understand all that is involved in web design. For example web development, graphic design, search engine optimisation, marketing, customer liaison, support, accounting, tax matters and I could go on. Having the ability to put a "half decent" site up does not make anyone a web designer.

 

[beebo]

BDW,

I agree there are a lot of things to being a webdesigner. The guy wants to be a part-time webdesigner tho. What cheap, quick tool which produces professional results would you suggest is a good starting point?

Incidently, put any term into google, see what comes out top, run it thro W3C tool. It is unlikely that it doesn't have errors. Google SEO doesn't equate to W3C rules it equates to Google analytic rules.

 

[fisicx]

I agree there are a lot of things to being a webdesigner. The guy wants to be a part-time webdesigner tho. What cheap, quick tool which produces professional results would you suggest is a good starting point?

I would suggest that a CMS is not the best place to start if you want to learn webdesign. I agree that they are great if jou want to get a site up and running in a couple of hours but to create a decent template requires some knowledge of HTML/CSS. Which bring us back to dreamweaver. You don't have to spend £400, you can pick up a copy of DW4 for £10 on ebay, it's a much simpler beast than CS3 and is the ideal tool to learn the basics. I cetainly wouldn't attempt to learn webdesign by building CMS templates.

 

[bdw]

Google SEO doesn't equate to W3C rules

Correct - but I did not say that it did. I said that when a website does not validate properly this can adversely affect search engine optimisation. I stand by that.

 

[chasd]

I am just about to purchase dreamweaver to start building websites,part time, What sort of costs are involved if i buy a template for £40.00ish
I know i have to buy my domain and hosting but is there any other costs or is it just my time

There have been many comments in this thread, but I can't resist adding mine, lol!

Basically, there are LOTS of "web designers" - the market is flooded with amatures, like yourself, who think it is easy money. Sorry!

Although web page design and implementation looks easy, it isn't. Even if you are doing this for yourself to promote your business, you would be much better off paying an experienced, trained, competent company to do it for you - after all if you are relying on the site to sell your business and it looks amature, then your customers will think you are an amature too.

Regards dreamweaver.... lots of cash which could be spent elsewhere. Have a look at HTML-Tidy - good editor for HTML and it's free.

 

[beebo]

I cetainly wouldn't attempt to learn webdesign by building CMS templates.

I agree, that would would be an advanced stage.

However whether you like it or not CMS sites are the fastest growing type of site out there. You are going to have to adapt. Wordpress is essentially a beginner CMS. However it can produce professional sites Wall Street journal Magazine is one http://magazine.wsj.com/. Sorry it's not w3c friendly (essentially irrelevent for SEO - use Google Analytics for UK, Yahoo tools for Japan, Baidu for China).

You might complain they are not very pure but.....

If you need lists of more examples mail me. Will also dig out ones for Joomla or Drupal if you want to see more advanced but free CMSs.

Might be worth making a new thread tho

 

[fisicx]

You are missing the point, I don't have a problem with CMS and already produce wordpress templates. The OP asked about using dreamweaver and that is where we should be focussing. Even if they did set themselves up and install wordpress, unless they have a robust knowledge of HTML/CSS they wouldn't be able to create of amend a template.

If you want to learn how to design a website then using Dreamweaver is as good a place to start as anywhere else.

 

[beebo]

I am just about to purchase dreamweaver to start building websites,part time, What sort of costs are involved if i buy a template for £40.00ish
I know i have to buy my domain and hosting but is there any other costs or is it just my time

If you read the post he wasn't talking about designing websites but building them using templates.

 

[bdw]

However whether you like it or not CMS sites are the fastest growing type of site out there. You are going to have to adapt.

Actually I think it is you who may have to adapt. You are the first and only person I have heard who thinks that CMSs are the way forward for web design. Perhaps I am missing something but I suspect that many more of us have been kept in the dark about this revolution.

Like EWD I am fully aware of Wordpress, Joomla, et al but why would any want web designer want to use them with all their restrictions? These are essentially for home made websites done on the cheap (and I am not slagging them off). If indeed they are the fastest growing type of website then that will be because they are free. That does not make them the best solution.

 

[beebo]

I am fully aware of Wordpress, Joomla, et al but why would any want web designer want to use them with all their restrictions? These are essentially for home made websites done on the cheap (and I am not slagging them off).

Doing on the cheap? That's what this forum is about, helping each other create a healthy profitable and functioning business. If Wordpress can be used be people at home and scaled up to big business like the Wall Street Journal, I would say that is an endorsement.

 

[fisicx]

If Wordpress can be used be people at home and scaled up to big business like the Wall Street Journal, I would say that is an endorsement.

Except the WSJ dopesn't use wordpress. It's the WSJ Magazine - an entirely different part of the business: http://publisherblog.automattic.com/2008/11/10/wall-street-journal-magazine-wordpress/

 

[32cardinalpoints]

I agree that there are thousands of people out there who claim to be able to design and put together websites. Lets face it everyone knows someone or someone's brother who can build a website.

If you do not choose the right web designer or company you could end up having a website looking like this one i have recently come across (it is a master class in web designing)

http://www.avacabtaxis.com/

 

[fisicx]

Good grief, even Ling would baulk at that one.

 

[pwaller30]

i find using DW easier. i'm already used to its code view and i although i do coding by hands, it helps using the prebuilt code-suggest and custom snippets right there. the find and replace command is also useful as it helps you speed up doing edits or placing some repeating codes. i like also the idea that DW can be used to create templates specially for large number of web pages. any tool can be put to good use depending on your choice but it really depends on how you maximize on using it.