[stainer711]

I just recently became interesting in making professional websites and have been going over the various information and tools i will need to do so. I came across a program called Dreamweaver cs3 that appears to bea complete package of website creating tools that do not need any knowledge in Html or CSS. Are there any downsides to using Dreamweaver to create sites instead of writing my own html?

[NathanLedet]

I'm currently using Dreamweaver 8 and I love it. I cannot wait to get my hands on Dreamweaver CS3.

to answer your question, yes DW will do it for you, to an extent. The better you are with hand coding, the better you will understand how exactly certain codes will work. If you're trying to achieve a certain effect and you don't quite know how to do it in Dreamweaver, it's best you know the code and go in manually and do what you need to do.

Dreamweaver is worth every penny, IMO.

Also, the improvements with CSS are awesome. Stay away from designing web sites with tables. It's easy, yes, but it's not exactly "proper". Learn HTML and CSS at W3Schools Online Web Tutorials...great info there.

[alansafani]

If you are really interested in getting in to creating websites professionally, you should without a doubt learn to hard code. If you can go at it with just a text editor, you will be able to create anything and everything you can imagine. You won't be sorry! In my opinion, that is the only way to go.
That being said, Dreamweaver is an excellent program that will get you some beautiful results.

[motoxer4533]

Basically, Dreamweaver will allow you to design the site through a term called WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get).

Whenever you insert a table, for example, it automatically puts that tag into the HTML code.

In essence, you design it - Dreamweaver does (most) of the dirty work for you.

[theone_trent]

I prefer html and css coding. I never use any program to make my websites. It gives me a better feeling of knowing I did the finished product all on my own, and if there ever is a problem with the site I know exactly what it is in the code that is messing up because I can read it. I've seen many sites that are made in a program like dreamweaver and through the designer's computer it looks great, but on other computers with different resolutions... well, it looks like crap. Be care if you use dreamweaver. I suggest taking the time to learn code. I believe you can never "learn code" completely. You simply, keep learning from website tutorials like w3school and your mistakes. It's a challenge that can become difficult, but as long as you have determination, you can get your site looking really great.

A suggestion I have is to google "Web page templates" and take a browse around the different templates. This way you get different styles and themes. A great thing to do is to try and recreate one or more of these templates (using code of course) and see what you can come up with. You really might suprise yourself with what you can do.

Have fun with web design. It's a lot of fun. Don't be scared to try things out. The worst you can do is completely mess up, but what are you to learn without ever trying? It's like riding a bike. You can read how to ride a bike, but until you get on the bike you will never understand it completely. If you have any problems with the coding post your problems here, or contact me. I'll be happy to help.

[Saxon]

I learned to hard code and how to use Dreamweaver at the same time (this was back in the days of Dreamweaver 3) I use doth methods to compliment each other.

[Vormund]

Originally Posted by Chris Chadwick

I learned to hard code and how to use Dreamweaver at the same time (this was back in the days of Dreamweaver 3) I use doth methods to compliment each other.

Yep, this is what I did as well. I'd let DW do the general coding, then go in and reformat it and add the specifics as needed. Now I just use UltraEdit, which is a feature-rich text editor... and I have no desire to go back.

@theone_trent,
Resolution differences are a problem everywhere, regardless if you use Dreamweaver. But that is common ground that has to be decided upon...most say to base it around 800 x 600 with a little play. So long as you use Firefox, the web developer extension is superior. You can have it resize your window on-the-fly, view cookies/session information...pretty much anything accessible from the browser is presented in a clean format to you.

[theone_trent]

You have to be careful though to make your site accessible for both Firefox and IE. What I mean by accessible is have it look organized. This is where css can give a helping hand. CSS gives a more precise location of where the content of a site should be placed (floating or positioning).

[motoxer4533]

Originally Posted by theone_trent

I've seen many sites that are made in a program like dreamweaver and through the designer's computer it looks great, but on other computers with different resolutions... well, it looks like crap.

thats why you initially create your design at a resolution smaller than 800x 600 so it will display in any res.

[theone_trent]

Even if you create in a smaller resolution your "absolute positioning" can be really off simply because firefox and ie do not read pixels the same. I know this from experience with it.