[Maflynn]

I'm looking for a web publication software that will suite my needs.
I have a short term project and a long term project coming down the pipe. The last time I did any web publishing it was on the PC with front page.

Which of the two products provides you with the tools to get a website off the ground with little hassle. As an example, FrontPage offer's various themses to customize your site. Various roll over buttons, and other items just by dragging and dropping. Do both or either one, offer themes etc.

I understand Frontpage isn't offered for the mac, but its my only point of reference to compare the different products.

Feel free to provide your insights, opinions, and recommendations on either one.

One final thought. I understand GoLive is going to be updated at the beginning of 2005 (I'm sure dreamweaver at some point in 05 also) but the rumor mills are saying this will be a major upgrade. Is this somthing to keep in mind when purchasing a product now (I'm not going to wait as I have the need now plus I may not be in school to take advantage of the discount).

Thanks
Mike

[Macola]

If you're used to FrontPage, pretty much anything else will be a breath of fresh air.

Check over in the webdev forum, this has come up pretty often. I used GoLive for a while, then switched to Dreamweaver. In a nutshell, GoLive has better site management features, but Dreamweaver is better at most other functions. That's just my opinion, though.

[osxisfun]

each has a free 30 day demo. download them and try them yourself. A lot of what makes a "favorite" editor is how it feels to you.

[AB^2=BCxAC]

Neither are like Frontpage, because you need to know just a wee bit more to get a page running nice using these apps. I use them both, daily. Neither has cool graphics and easy rollover gimmicks for templates - you bring your own to this party. But they do have great CSS templates to start with and getting the hang of rollovers and other behaviors is a snap.

Pros
----

Dreamweaver MX 2004:

1. Good implementation of XHTML, CSS (even though it renders badly in the preview pane),
2. Has okay tools for setting up dynamic pages with PHP, ASP, and other common server-side languages for database interaction.

Golive CS:

1. Wonderful tools for controlling tables and layout.
2. Easy to get started, and painless to understand.
3. Really good drag and drop implementation for adding files to your site with minimum fuss.

Cons
----

Dreamweaver MX 2004:

1. You will need to buy a good book and do some tutorials, because it's not obvious at all until you're familiar with it.
2. Harder to work with tables (although you should be using divs more often by now)

GoLive CS:

1. No longer has dynamic PHP or ASP dynamic scripts.

[Maflynn]

Cool thanks for the input.
I'll look at the web dev forum too.

I kind of thought both didn't have the the hand holding that frontpage does, but conversly I'm sure it provides the developer with more freedom in creating a site.

I'm leaning towards dreamweaver since I can get the whole suite, for short money.

I'll download both and start working on which best fits what I'm looking to do.

I was looking for input and suggestions, thanks.

Mike

[Maflynn]

I've had some time to play with both trial apps, and at this point I'm liking GoLive better.

DreamWeaver seems to be on the slow side, getting the spinnng beachball of death a few times.

I was able to drag and drop pictures into Golive, and DW didn't seem to like that, I had to either code by hand, and use the menu to insert an image. Since I've used Photoshop, the interface is more intoative to me. I've got a full (well 28 now) 30 days to play with both but I'm liking GoLive, there creative suite is extremely tempting, I only of photoshop and to get the other tools, at student pricing, well, that's too tempting in its own right.

Mike

[ppmax]

I cant resist: I needed to use DW as part of a freelance job. I asked around and my expectations were lowered after hearing people's gripes. Having purchased and used it, DW is a piece of crap. Im on a PMac G4 Dual 500 and it is nearly unusable. Yes I applied the new patch and it did speed things up a bit, but it's still brutally slow. There are a bunch of lame "porting" defects too; it's clear that making a good Mac version was low on Macromedia's priority list. FWIW: I've used it on a PC--it's not bad!

What do you need one of these packages for? My advice: BBEdit. Learn the code and code to learn. Any of the "higher level" tools get frustrating to work with once you know what you are doing anyways. There are a number of decent code editors around (XCode, SubEthaEdit) and once you get used to these tools you will be much more productive.

If you want Ill sell you my copy of DW: I purchased it for full list price: it could be yours for $200.

If you are interested pls email me at [email protected]

[craigthomas]

I've been using GoLive since 1.0. The latest CS version is very nice. Love the new preview which will download images hosted elsewhere from the internet (great for doing html emails). I'm still learning CSS, but this version does make it easier for me so far. I hesitated buying CS for a long time and wish i had earlier - money well spent.

After reading that Macromedia is underdeveloping the Mac version, I'd go with GoLive. I've tried to like DW by playing with the demo, but as metioned earlier, it isn't that friendly. And who need a spinning ball of death!

[Maflynn]

I've been using Golive now for a few days, giving up on DW, very slow.
I also bit the bullet and picked up the whole creative suite, I figured in for a penny in for a pound.

Thanks all for your input and help
Mike

[siMac]

Good choice.

The Creative Suite is simply excellent.

[craigthomas]

Originally posted by siMac:
Good choice.

The Creative Suite is simply excellent.

Agreed. With the exception of Illustrator - which has a major flaw of outlining some type from older versions of Illustrator files leaving them virtually unusable (typewise).

[xmacintosh]

I'm a DW MX fan. What's better in GoLive CS?

I tried GoLive in the past, but I couldn't see SSI (Server Side Includes) offline, like I can in DW...

[maxintosh]

Personally, I like GoLive a lot more. The interface is so similar to other Adobe products, that it just clicks. And their student pricing does rock.

It has its own flaws, of course. I think it could stand to be a little snappier�.

[Maflynn]

For me, there was a few points in GoLive's favor that caused me to purchase GL over DW

First and foremost was the speed. It was slow going and at times I'd get the spinning beachball. That's on my G5 2.0 with 1.5Gig
Second as others have mentioned was the interface, its consistant with the adobe suite.
Finally I was able to get the creative suite for a deep discount. I've been going to school at night and that meant I qualified for a student discount.

Mike

[direinsanity]

I like DW, I have the whole suite aswell and I love flash and they all flow together nicly, besides DW is what I learned on so it's what I know

[darcybaston]

I started on PageMill 3, moved to GoLive 5 and got the CS upgrade this summer. I continue to be extremely satisfied by this product. It does everything I need it to do.

A gripe: I find its redraw routines to be slow when switching in/out of this app, and clicking on the menus usually involve a delay before they pop open.

I really enjoy its integration with other Adobe apps, and the PDF support is awesome. I'm a big fan of PDF.

Stay away from Frontpage. That nasty little twerp will inject your code with so much crap, it will make code created by apps like DW and GL seem hand written. I had a 3x20 table I was editing in Frontpage, and when I highlighted the table to change a font, it set an open and close font tag for each individual cell. And it wasn't just a consice <font face=arial> </font> or whatever, it was this huge multi-line outpouring of Microsoft custom XML tag stuff, so that the HTML file would remain MS Word compatible. DOH! Who cares! I'm writting for the web and not a word processor.

Also, Frontpage formatted HTML pages that use form elements, become completely dependent on an Extensions server to work; so even if your form does nothing more than just submit and bring you to a new page, a Frontpage site of two pages will not work offline. This sucks for collaborative efforts. With GL and DW, they just stick to regular form actions, and anybody can preview designs locally/offline.

GoLive is amazing at getting quick designs online. You can just create an image in Photoshop, drop it in GL, and it can fade it out for you to use as a background image, and design on top of it, zooming into the web page for very high alignment precision. Or, you can drag and drop that image into a page and get GoLive to slice it up into separate images, and then you can toss whatever you want into/on/around it.

[zl9600]

the wysiwyg editors will obviate learning code. if you're a designer, don't bother with bbedit unless you have a lot of ritalin.

ok maybe that's just me.

i used DW for a while, now on GLCS. not perfect, but i would never go back to bbedit (yes i used it in the days before a good wysiwyg)

it's good to know what underlies a website, but i think hand coding is going the way of the model t.

maybe i'm just jealous i can't stare at it long enough any longer.

look, something shiny! i gotta go now.

[Kenneth]

Been using CyberStudio (now Adobe GoLive) back in 1996 at school, I eventually stick with GoLive (till version 6). Since my sister bought the license of Macromedia Studio MX, I got familar of Dreamweaver. At school, they taught with DW. Well, I would say DW is more like a standard now.

[chris.p]

You could try this too- its free.

http://www.nvu.com/

Its a WYSIWYG html editor, so can't be too bad.

[Angus_D]

Just thought I'd throw in a link to Freeway for those of you that aren't already aware of it.