Best web design software

Crapaud

I bought Frontpage (2002) a number of years ago, but haven't done anything with it 'till now. t'll probably be good enough to do what I want, but is there any good (free preferably) more modern sofware out there?

Try and not turn the thread into another Microsoft bashing one. Thanks.

Le Commentateur

Customizable templates are the future for straightforward sites by DIYers.

Have a look at www.squarespace.com

For blog templates (with hosting), try www.tumblr.com
Photoalbums (with hosting), look at http://jalbum.net

Xiphon

http://kompozer.net/

or Notepad (or Crimson Editor, if you want syntax colouring)

bompington

I'm no microsoft basher, but I've had no end of trouble with Frontpage's lack of respect for web standards - I've set up more than one website which simply won't render in anything other than IE.
I'm aware of most of the well known packages but I haven't used any others, so if anyone has then I'd be interested in hearing your experiences.


PS if this goes true to form then, as well as the M$ bashing*, it won't be too long before someone pops up to say that you're a bit mentally and morally deficient if you don't just code it in HTML yourself


* Just thought, you don't see this particular bit of cheap microsoft bashing much these days, do you? Could it be because everyone's favourite corporate goodies Apple & Google are now much better at milking the punters?

Xiphon

Perhaps MS have actually produced some good products, which don't warrant being 'bashed' ?

Win7, SBS '08 (although '03 was very good), Office 2010, etc.

dmch2

The problem is that if you want the site to do anything other than being like a static brochure you need more than Frontpage. Something like sitefinity will give you everything completely free and comes with loads of templates etc.

http://www.sitefinity.com

and some example sites - a simple one
http://www.stcuthbertshospice.com

a more complex one
http://www.kia.co.nz/home.aspx

MS were appalling at web standards in the early days - IE 6 is a horror to develop for. IE 7 helped, IE 8 is actually not bad, IE 9 looks to have finally caught up with the rest of the world with some real advances.

Cleat Eastwood

Frontpage has been discontinued for quite a while now. Dreamweaver is the best software for web design. You can get older copies for very little money. Infact I might have a copy spare somewhere.

Weejie54

Dreamweaver is the best software for web design.

+1. The standard by which all other apps are judged.

roadracedave

Have you looked at Wordpress, really simple to manage site content, and you can create custom templates to change the look of the site. There are also thousands of free templates you can download that are very good.

Otherwise, if you are looking for the best web design software then probably Adobe Dreamweaver. Its incredibly in-depth and will take a bit of learning if you've not used it before.

There is also http://www.moonfruit.com that is an online design app that is a pretty good complete package for creating good looking sites.

cee

MS Visual Studio FTW.

Free version available here.

http://www.microsoft.com/express/Web/

Le Commentateur

roadracedave wrote:

Otherwise, if you are looking for the best web design software then probably Adobe Dreamweaver. Its incredibly in-depth and will take a bit of learning if you've not used it before.

That's the thing – if you are a pro it is the industry standard software package, but if you haven't time or inclination to get proficient with it you may be better off going the customizable-templates-with-hosting route (Wordpress, Squarespace, or whoever), as these will be web-browser compliant with a lot of the donkey work being done already.

Weejie54

That's the thing – if you are a pro it is the industry standard software package, but if you haven't time or inclination to get proficient with it you may be better off going the customizable-templates-with-hosting route

Customizing templates with Dreamweaver and Fireworks
Use the sample Dreamweaver templates to easily format single or multiple pages in a site. The sample template folders contain Dreamweaver templates and sample pages created from these templates. The templates provide the page layout and design structure you need to create your own customized Web site. By adding your own content, such as text, images, or other objects, to the sample pages you can quickly create unique pages based on a uniform page design

http://www.adobe.com/support/dreamweave ... _tutorial/


The internet is awash with third party Dreamweaver templates too.

Crapaud

Cheers, guys. I knew that you'd come through; plenty of food for thought there.

I hadn't thought about web building/hosting sites. I'm generally wary of templates as I seem to spend more time trying to bend the template to my will and making a complete arse of it. As Le Commentateur points out I wouldn't want to have to become a web developer. I've got most of Adobe's stuff - all of it is pretty old - including Dreamweaver, and I've dabbled in Flash and they all take loads of time to become good at, time I don't have (though I'd love to be a creative, I've come to accept that I don't have the talent).

I think I'll use Frontpage to put together a basic design idea before throwing it together on one of the WYSIWYG sites.