Best/Least expensive web design software?

[Steve Wagner]

Also posted in General Discussion:

I am currently starting up an online league and am looking to build a webpage. I am reading several books, but wanted to know what program I could get the most bang for the buck from. Which combines the best options, is user-friendly, and is cost-efficient.

Thanks for your input!

[EagleEye_0]

I use 1st page html editor to design all of my pages. I think its a very good editor and definitely the best free one out there. If your looking for a visual one then dreamweaver is supposedly the best, but is really expensive.

[crackpott]

Two answers. Notepad is the cheapest and easiest to find, Dreamweaver the best, but one of if not the most expensive. I use both.

[Aussie Mark]

The cheapest WYSIWYG web page creator is Microsoft Front Page EXPRESS. Free download and no el bloato code like the "standard" Front Page generates.

[Treches]

I use Editpad, way better than Notepad as it allows you to open multiple pages and another goodies. It was free back then. Writting down the code takes a bit when you start from scratch but brings no html junk like the designing software does. If you're not familiar with html code, go with Front Page EXPRESS. As stated, is free. Whether it offers no el bloato or not I don't know, as I don't have the first idea about what that means.

[Aussie Mark]

Treches,

By "el bloato" code I meant the "html junk" that you described. Sorry for any confusion :-)

Front Page EXPRESS generates no "html junk". It's a very clean and simple editor.

As an example, my band's website was created using Front Page Express ....
'65 Mustang

[kq76]

Last I was involved in web design (couple years ago), homesite (easier to learn) and dreamweaver (harder) were the best. I'd be surprised if they still weren't the best. As for simple updating I use textpad, a suped up version of notepad.

[Church OOTP]

Dreamweaver if you like to see a representation of the code you are working on in real time, but it's not free. It is imo the best and that is what I use to do about 90% of the work I do. If you don't know what you are doing, it's pretty easy to get frustrated.

Any word processor will do if you get a rush out of doing it the old fashioned way. For the Mac, bbedit is what I use. There is something to be said for doing it manually to get use to language, then move onto a more intensive program. That's how I did it years ago.

Church

[sgstauder]

I knew it... after seeing Church's logos for Hardball he HAD to be a Mac user. PC users couldn't create such good logos...

[Church OOTP]

all my graphics are made on the pc for OOTP :P

[sgstauder]

really? surprising.... using a Mac for coding but a PC for design

[caleb1740]

Is this notepad you talk of, the same program that comes with windows?

[kq76]

Originally posted by caleb1740
Is this notepad you talk of, the same program that comes with windows?

Yes.

When people say they use notepad (or a similar program) they usually mean they prefer to just code without help from a program to code the html for them. Like someone said before, it's probably best to learn html before you start using a WYSIWYG program for several reasons including: 1) making cleaner faster code, and 2) making updating or slight changes faster. However, once you do learn html, a WYSIWYG html program like homesite or dreamweaver will allow you to make webpages faster, though you'll still probably want to go back to tweak the code yourself.

[Killebrew]

Originally posted by kq76
Yes.

When people say they use notepad (or a similar program) they usually mean they prefer to just code without help from a program to code the html for them. Like someone said before, it's probably best to learn html before you start using a WYSIWYG program for several reasons including: 1) making cleaner faster code, and 2) making updating or slight changes faster. However, once you do learn html, a WYSIWYG html program like homesite or dreamweaver will allow you to make webpages faster, though you'll still probably want to go back to tweak the code yourself.

Yes, the default Windows Notepad program has very serious limitations that other text editors do not have, like file size limits and no replace function. Often when people say "this page designed by Notepad" it's often a bit of geek bragging rights (not putting that down either, I have done it myself). It's very possible they created the page with notepad but a more complex page was likely done in a more friendly text editor with some design functions. These text editors are all going to be much cheaper than Dreamweaver, and they have 2 key advantages if these are important to you: You will learn html and you can do some neat things the web devel programs will not even allow you to do (ooo whatta' rebel).

If you want to go this route you need to get the tools:
To get a good text editor check out download.com or tucows.com for text editors. There are probably some good free ones but 2 very popular ones have been TextPad and UltraEdit. I see a lot fewer offices using TextPad these days, I think UltraEdit has far surpassed their features, but there are also many other very good text editors.

And learn a bit of html:
Check out simple websites, save the source code as a *.html file onto your local drive and edit it with your text editor. You can view your edits by double clicking on the page and seeing it through your browser. Just hit REFRESH (F5 key on your keyboard) after an edit'n'save and you instantly see what you just did. Many people learn to do this stufff by that method, just don't try extremely complex pages when you are a beginner.

[PCline26]

I'm a seasoned vet with Notepad, but I always dip into Frontpage 2000 to catch my mistakes. Works out great.

[caleb1740]

alrighty thanks