Finally - a website for you to see!

[fizzbird]

Erm... for web development training. Is there a hidden subtext I'm missing here?

Yes there was

I have 4 websites and use frontpage for each. I agree it might not be the trendiest program in the world or the best, but for what it cost me (nothing) I think it does the job for anyone starting out and/or who doesn't have the necessary skills to write their own code.

You can go and have a good laugh at my expense now, if you wish

[tbp]

You'd be much better using Dreamweaver than Frontpage, it's not cheap but there is a 30 day trial version available.

The problem with Fronypage is that the code produced is to bad. A couple of months ago, I helped someone who was having problems with their site not ranking anywhere decent in the search engines. Looking at the code generated by frontpage is was horrendous!

I managed to remove 80% of it, but the site still looked exactly the same. Just through things like using a single style for one type of text, rather than what frontpage did which was to generate a new one each time, and having it inline rather than in an external stylesheet, or even in the pages header. As a result the site leapt up the rankings, and loaded a lot faster than before.

Yes Frontpage does allow beginners who have no idea how to code to create websites, but the trouble is it usally gives bad results, and then that puts them off. Dreamweaver will also generate code for you, as will other editors, but its much cleaner and more efficient so sites designed with it generally perform better and faster. Theres also no special hosting requirements as there is with Frontpage, which normally needs the frontpage extensions installed on the server.

[Stellar]

I agree with the comments on Frontpage. It is a waste of space.

The only thing it should be used for is using it in code view only. And if you can code by hand, then why use it in code view when there are much better tools out there? So yes, it is useless.

IMHO the best thing to do is learn basic XHTML and CSS. Learn how to do it by hand. You will spend almost as much time trying to learn how to get Dreamwearver to create sites/code for you. Why not just learn to code now?

Its a bit like trying to build a house without knowing any building skills like brick laying, carpentary etc.

Either that, or just use Wordpress and use someone elses theme. Or pay someome to do a unique theme for you. In fact, that is probably the easiest option. Wordpress is free. Drupal is better, but wordpress is easier.

[bazza99]

I thought I'd just mention something to the original poster that may not have been said in this thread so far (though apologies if it already has been and I've missed it).

I think that designing a website can actually be quite tricky if you don't have a natural feel for what you're doing. I'm fairly good technically but I'd be the first to admit that I'm pretty clueless on design.

I used to spend a lot of time trying to perfect new website designs but I found it time consuming and was still rarely happy with the outcomes that I achieved. Eventually, I decided that a better route was to let someone else concentrate on the design and for me to focus on adding content to the website and on handling all other elements, such as promoting the site.

There are a number of places online where you can download open source web templates. These are, to all intents, free for you to use. They often look as professional as anything that you're likely to produce yourself. The big advantage is that you can download them and then starting adding content - this can save you hours on doing the design work.

Anyway, might be worth a go - here's a site that I use regularly for this purpose - Open Source Web Design

[katy111]

hey, thanks very much just having a look at those just now and they seem great. Thanks to everyone for taking the time to reply, at the moment trying some html so far its going okay haha but im sure ill end up chucking the computer out the window soon haha.