Web Page Creation Software

This software allows you to design web pages.

What is Web Page Creation Software

Almost every page you look at on the web is created using HTML (Hypertext Markup Language). The web page you see in

Web Page Creation Software

your browser is a pretty face, but the HTML behind it is usually an incomprehensible jumble of your content, and commands that tell the browser what to do and how to do it. (It's sort of like your own face, beautiful on the outside, but on the inside it's a jumble of muscles and bones and nerves and blood).

If you’re serious about creating excellent web pages on a consistent basis, you’ll need to pick a competent web page creation software package and become proficient using it.

The type of software you choose will depend upon how you will be working with web pages.

If you need to create a relatively simple site of a few pages, and then maintain them occasionally, software that simplifies the process and minimizes your learning curve may be the best way to go. This may be either a software package you install on your computer system, such as Web Easy Pro or Web Studio, or a site/hosting company that allows you to create your pages online, such as GoDaddy.

Dreamweaver

If you are going to develop web pages professionally, you will need a solution that allows you full flexibility to create custom designs, as well as the opportunity work on professional level web page templates. For this, I think the choice is pretty clear - Dreamweaver is the program of choice. Dreamweaver is the website design software most popular with professional web designers. There is a huge amount of support available for the Dreamweaver, including books, training courses, templates, software extensions and support forums.

I made the decision early on to bite the bullet and learn Dreamweaver. It wasn’t the least expensive or easiest to use web design software, but, as a professional designer, it was well worth the effort. Here are some reasons why:

  1. Dreamweaver is used by the majority of people who design sites professionally. If you are looking for employment in a company, or working with other designers on the team, knowing Dreamweaver will likely be an asset. No competent web page design software is easy to learn, so why not spend your time learning a package that will make you more employable? Knowing Dreamweaver also allows you to collaborate with other web professionals who use it.
  2. Dreamweaver has a slew of add-ons created specifically for it that you give you a lot of power and versatility. Macromedia (Adobe) has a web site called Dreamweaver Exchange where you can download these add-ons.
  3. Dreamweaver has tools that allow you to add functionality to pages (for example creating Cold Fusion, .asp or .php pages).
  4. There are tons of support sites for Dreamweaver.
  5. Dreamweaver (and it’s creators Macromedia) has just been purchased by Adobe. Adobe makes one of the other professional grade Web design software packages – GoLive .  There is a lot of speculation about what Adobe will do with Dreamweaver and GoLive, and whether both applications will survive. At this point, from what I’ve read, the smart money is on Dreamweaver. It is likely that integration between Dreamweaver and other Adobe applications such as Photoshop will be coming in the next release of the software.
  6. Dreamweaver's latest version has excellent features for developing sites based on CSS (cascading style sheets).

All in all, if you spend a lot of time developing and/or maintaining websites, your investment in learning Dreamweaver will pay back handsomely over time.

GoLive

Adobe GoLive is an excellent and capable professional level web design package, that has the advantage of excellent integration with other Adobe applicaitons in the Adobe Creative Suite (Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Acrobat and Version Cue. Dreamweaver will likely catch up now that it is owned by Adobe).

GoLive has excellent support for CSS, development on mobile platforms and integration with Adobe InDesign. It works very well with Photoshop, has a built in page preview (based on the Opera broswer) and an excellent facility for converting a web page to PDF.

It also has good support for placing media objects such as Windows Media and Quicktime.

Finally, it has a selection of interesting behaviors (pre-written javascript) that are not present in Dreamweaver.

GoLive does not have the extensive support for web programming offered by Dreamweaver.

As good as GoLive is, I don't use it on a regular basis, because Dreamweaver fits my needs on a daily basis. However, I do open it when needed to do things that are not available or well supported by Dreamweaver.

Microsoft Front Page

Front Page was the first web design program I used when I started many years ago. It was a good programmer for a beginnner, as it was relatively easy to learn, and included some nice shortcuts that made things easier for a beginning designer. At that time, it had one major fault - the HTML code it produced was a mess and not well supported on browsers other than Internet Explorer. I understand the latest version, Front Page 2003, produces much better code, but still has problems in browsers other than IE. Front Page 2003 will be replaced in late 2006 with Microsoft® Expression, a package for professional web designers. As CNET says in their review summary, "If you need a midlevel Web site design app, Microsoft FrontPage 2003 is a good choice, but professionals should use Macromedia Dreamweaver instead."

Contribute

Contribute is not used for creating websites - it makes maintaining an existing website very simple. It allows end users modify website content even if they have little technical expertise. It works in conjunction with Dreamweaver, and can allow the client to update their own websites without the fear that they will break the code. It's simple interface is somewhat like working in Microsoft Word.

Note: I receive some compensation if you purchase some of the products mentioned on this page.