Building a web site.

Hello,

I am a new merchant, but am now interested in learning how build my own personal sites and explore the affiliate side. What you do recommend as a package: would anyone recommend dreamweaver or front page or any other.

thanks for your response.

dave

I use Dreamweaver 5 and once you get used to its little annoyances it's great. I assume Dreamweaver MX (the latest version) is even better, but I've not used it. I know it has more support for interactive site building. Expensive, but you get what you pay for.

I tried to use FrontPage once but I just couldn't get anything done. Compared to Dreamweaver it's a bit of a toy although I don't think there's anything specifically wrong with it.

cheers hare*3

yes i heard that frontpage was not that great but easy to learn. I would rather start of on the right foot. Whatever you use you have to learn and use html i presume?

dave

Frontpage is simpler to get started with but I've always preferred Dreamweaver. The new version MX is good for database backed sites but version 4 is fine for static pages and you might be able to pick that up cheaper.

you don't need to learn HTML but it will help. dreamweaver will write all your HTML for you but if something goes wrong you might need to look at the HTML and overall a good understanding of HTML will help you understand your website a lot better.

thanks bertm

can you pull dreamweaver of the web or have to pay. A freind of mine ( i do have one or two) said that you can pull all you need of the web, free, but is that if you don't want to use a program i suppose?

dave

you might be able to find some dodgy warez site to download it but I strongly believe it's well worth the money buying it properly. It's an excellent piece of software and for the potential it offers I wouldn't say it's expensive.

Alternatively for some free software to get started with try some of the packages here

www.webattack.com/freewar...iwyg.shtml

thanks again, <img src=http://www.gamers-forums.com/smilies/contrib/ruinkai/biggthumpup.gif ALT=":thumb">
i am off to check out dreamweaver, i only want a static site (i think) so we will not go too mad at first.

thanks for the advice

dave

Take a look in wh smith/newsagents at some of the mags like .net, internet works etc
You can usually find on the free cds that come with the mags trial (30 day) versions of most web authoring software inc dreamweaver.

our minds must have met in the ethers somewhere, i have just done just that,

cheers

dave<img src=http://www.gamers-forums.com/smilies/contrib/ruinkai/biggthumpup.gif ALT=":thumb">

Well i've always used frontpage.

It is easy to use, it is part of office after all, and i've not found anything it can't do.

I've never seen any of them problems with links changing, or most the other quirks people mention. I've been with it through to the XP version. Only change i've made is the installation of Rocket, so it can deal with php.

For simple sites, Macromedia Contribute is pretty cool. Nice for allowing stupid clients/employees to update pages too. And it's cheap(er than dreamweaver!)

This is where it gets confusing, dreamweaver is expensive and i have been offered a copy of frontpage, haven't checked it out. I am looking at simple sites at the minute, nothing fancy but want to do some affiliate work when i am up and running. Would frontpage we ok for beggining??

Thanks for the feedback

dave

It is what frontpage excells at. It feels and looks like an office component. If you've used word/excel, you'll already know much of Frontpage.

The only parts of frontpage i have not explored, are the frontpage extensions. Never come accross a need for any of it, and doesn't sound such a good idea to me. I also do not allow it to upload for me. I use a seperate ftp utility.

If you get stuck, you'll also find a lot of people do use it, so you should get your questions answered.