Page 3 - FrontPage: Your Say!

Much a question of horses for courses. FP, Dreamweaver and all of the other WYSIWYG editors have their place and usefulness, but they come with an overhead and certain amount of rigidity. While I have experience in most of the major "tools" I prefer to code by hand, using a simple text editor. My current choice is Notepad2, very light, excellent set of tools built in, syntax highlighting, and personlisation of schemes if required.

I agree with Lafinboy of course, but Frontpage is usefull for newbies who don't have time or will to program themselves. I know such people, and they're simply dependant on FP. when I suggested them to use Notepad or something similar they just laughed. crappy websites indeed, but it's their choice and they still get money on this. can't really judge them, and bottom line from this is, that FP is useful tool...

I've just downloaded Notepad2. It looks like it is just the ticket. As long as it doesn't start doing any of that fancy cleverness other script editors do, I think I'll stick with it.

Simple, colourful and most of all, I'm in control. I'll post back with any problems I have.

I think Visual Studio might have to be the choice for .net as it suggests properties and highlights syntax whilst typing. When I become more experienced in .NET, I might even be tempted to use Notepad2.

Thanks LafinBoy.

frontpage generates code that is a lot more bulky than code that is hand generated ...

That said, it is very useful for prototyping webpages to show clients when developing intranet based web applications. Its really easy to throw together a general idea of the page will look like, or will contain, on Frontpage.

I would not use frontpage for internet pages primarily because of the 30 ~ 50 % file size difference.

Front Page is a good starting tool and ok for people wanting stardard sites. But not sure if the FP Extensions are warrented !

If your version of Office didn't come with FrontPage or if you don't have Office, save your money and don't spring for FrontPage. It's not worth the CD it's burned onto. Syntax highlighting is the most important thing (I think) in programming just because it really makes life easier. Having a convenient FTP client is good too because sometimes you don't want half of your development time to be navigating your remote folders and dragging/dropping documents. This time saving is why I like Dreamweaver but like everyone has said, write your own code. It's cleaner, leaner, and probably better. Plus that's really how you learn.

I use dreamweaver to code my sites, the wysiwyg makes designing the site nice and easy and then i use the code tab to write the code

Until you start using CSS and then it's WYSINWTG assuming it's an external style sheet

i do use CSS and i code that myself.

then you know what i'm talking about with styles not really showing up in the Design View. That is my only annoyance. The Design View, on dreamweaver and all the other apps too, do not show you what the site will actaully look like. They come sorta close but when you start using centered divs, padding, particular margins, floating elements, etc. you don't get the world's most accurate representation.

nothing is perfect !! That us what i have come to understand !