if your lazy (like me sometimes) adobe photoshop album will produce image gallery's in seconds that can be then uploaded to webspace. is useful for large number of images
I use a Macromedia Fireworks/vi combination when working on websites. I like the Dreamweaver coding part of the application, but the WYSIWYG is a pain. It only does what you tell it to, and all of those attributes turn into a mess. It's best used as a supplement, if at all.
lol, you said it dad... Anybody ever try maintaining over 50 sites using textpad/notepad?? no self-respecting web designer uses only text based editors... it just takes too long...
That's what scripting languages are for. I take back the part about DW's WYSIWYG being bad though...if you have huge tables of data, it's the only good way to put it in. (assuming you can't dynamically generate it)
I've got Studio MX and the only piece I use from it on a regular basis is Flash MX. I've used Dreamweaver in the past and find that while it is good in some respects, I don't typically prefer the way it codes the page. It basically comes down to personal preference as was mentioned before. If you can get your hands on a copy of Microsoft InterDev .NET, it's my personal favorite. It's got functionality for all web programming languages (except for java, damn microsoft), the colored syntax is completely customizeable, you can have it autoformat all of your tags on the fly, and it also includes a built in page viewer (based off of IE) that allows you to see how your page looks in progress (image tags don't preview well with relative addresses though). HTML isn't hard to learn or use, but it's also limited in what it can do. In come the scripting languages, VBScript, Javascript, DHTML, and XML/XSL. These allow you to do just about whatever you could dream up. If you are interested in learning flash and have questions, I'd be more than happy to help you out. I have designed flash interfaces for several companies. It's also easy to learn but hard to master, as it is very versatile. I'd also reccomend reading up on site usability. Two great books are web pages that suck, and more web pages that suck. These will show you what not to do. If every one would only read these books we'd have a lot less crappy web pages out there. Hope that helps.
Jeffrey Zeldman writes some pretty good stuff too...http://www.zeldman.com And if you want lots of articles on that sort of thing, there's always http://alistapart.com
I'll vouch for Photoshop for image editing/creation and Imageready for web based graphics. I think they are at version 8, but starting at version 6.0 Imageready 3.0 was included. If you want simple html editing, FrontPage express does come with windows and it should serve as a starting point. After you master using it, Dreamweaver should be your next stop. Macromedia MX or whatever programs make those SWF Files, or vector based web animations everyone loves. There is a free open source html/code editor called Gvim, based on VIM for linux. It uses color coded highlighting. Go here http://www.vim.org/download.php In the end, its all arranged like this: Use Adobe to make images for your site, either notepad/gvim/outlook express or dreamweaver to construct the HTML code for your site. If you want pretty inbrowser movies, learn Flash MX.
Wow, Frontpage and vi in the same recommendation. Vim has a steep learning curve, but once you figure it out it's incredibly easy to get things done. Assuming you're a keyboard-shortcuts type of person.
Dreamweaver is mans best friend. It tears notepad apart with its validation. It just laughs at frontpage with the rest of us I have: Dreamweaver MX 2004 Fireworks MX 2004 Flash MX 2004 Photoshop 7 Photoshop Elements 2 Zend PHP Studio I first started with dreamweaver 4 years ago. It has carried my back for so long now. You cant help but start to understand HTML with it because it seems it is in its nature to make you learn it. The extensions you can download for it are just fantastic. Fireworks is a nifty piece of kit which is squarely aimed at web designers. If you just plan to do web design then give this the nod over photoshop. If you feel that you make like to incorporate really top notch artistic style graphics into your website then go with photoshop. Flash is cool...only get to learn it when you have mastered web design for a couple of years