CMS Versus FP

[Wally S]

Hi Eric,

What you say sounds a lot more complex than necessary, at least in my case.
I am not a professional designer. My site is a news site for a religious
organization, and is updated frequently (although I recently took a
two-month vacation). I keep my design extremely simple, and my readers are
satisfied with the results I get using FP. I guess that's the real
criterion.

Some of the pros on the newsgroup have looked at my site and have found no
problems with the coding, so I don't see where I would get any benefit from
what you suggest. To me, it would make more sense to let FP do the hard work
and then tweak it rather than to invent the wheel twice.

Of course, what is suitable for me may not be suitable in all cases, and
maybe what you say would be applicable for the design of a complex site, but
I don't know whether the professional designers in the newsgroup would agree
with that.

Wally S
www.dipika.org

 

[Tahoma]

www.orbspinner.com

It runs on the desktop, but has a scripting language , SQL engine,
templates and forms and all..

The only thing it does different is produce the site on my hard drive
(as a static web site)..

I use it to run an intranet site without an actual web server -- I
just point users to my network share drive.

Its a good way to learn the basics (SQL, scripting, etc ... ) without
worrying about having a SQL server, telnet client, good connection to
the server, etc..

Not many templates for it yet, its still a young product. But
everything you need is there, just bring your imagination.

 

[Linda R]

FP is an OK prototyping tool. That's all you can do with any WYSIWNEG
editor. You can't get professional quality mark up from any primarily
visual editor since the web is not a solely visual medium.

Have you found a way to touch or taste it?

 

[Eric Jarvis]

Have you found a way to touch or taste it?

Not yet, but I and many others can hear it.

 

[Mark Parnell]

Previously in microsoft.public.frontpage.client,alt.www.webmaster, Linda

Have you found a way to touch or taste it?

Touch - yes. You can get machines that print in Braille.
Taste - no. But I don't know anyone who communicates through taste. Or
smell for that matter.

You also missed hearing - there are various aural browsers available.

 

[Stephen Horrillo]

If you know html and css then what you need is an effective text editor
that allows you to set up macros, has syntax highlighting, a good
find/replace tool, and a small footprint. FP is not that tool on too many
grounds.

FP is an OK prototyping tool. That's all you can do with any WYSIWNEG
editor. You can't get professional quality mark up from any primarily
visual editor since the web is not a solely visual medium.

You shouldn't be settling for simply "tweaking" the output of FP. What you

do is mock up a prototype and then create mark up and styling from the
ground up to get the same result. It may be worth taking a look at the
html that FP has produced, but it's not efficient to use it as the basis
of the site.

Which "tool" would you recommend over FP?

--
Warmest regards,

Stephen Horrillo, Realtor / C.Ht.
For MLS & Computer Training: http://www.BrokerAgentTraining.com
Realtors Earn Over 100% at EXIT: http://www.over100percent.com

 

[Scott Bryce]

Which "tool" would you recommend over FP?

There are several. I use UltraEdit.

 

[Eric Jarvis]

Which "tool" would you recommend over FP?

There are loads of good text editors around. I tend to use either
Arachnophilia 4.0 (later versions are Java based and horribly clunky) or
Note Tab Pro for most html or css editing, but the important things are a
decent find replace facility, an interface you find easy to use, syntax
highlighting, and the ability to set up keyboard shortcuts or macros to
suit the way you work.

What you DON'T want is a tool that is set up to make you work a certain
way.

At present I don't know of a free tool that handles both editing and site
management in the way that I want. On the other hand it isn't a lot of
hassle doing the two using separate applications, at least not the way I
work.

The other thing you need to do is build up a well organised library of
mark up and css "snippets" in text files, and a few basic getting started
page templates.

 

[Stephen Horrillo]

There are loads of good text editors around. I tend to use either
Arachnophilia 4.0 (later versions are Java based and horribly clunky) or
Note Tab Pro for most html or css editing, but the important things are a
decent find replace facility, an interface you find easy to use, syntax
highlighting, and the ability to set up keyboard shortcuts or macros to
suit the way you work.

How is Dreamweaver?

--
Warmest regards,

Stephen Horrillo, Realtor / C.Ht.
For MLS & Computer Training: http://www.BrokerAgentTraining.com
Realtors Earn Over 100% at EXIT: http://www.over100percent.com

 

[Mark Parnell]

Previously in microsoft.public.frontpage.client,alt.www.webmaster,

How is Dreamweaver?

If you use it as a text editor, it's as good as any other. The one area
IMHO that Dreamweaver really does a good job is in site management.

Just don't use the WYSIWIDG mode. Of any editor.

 

[Scott Bryce]

How is Dreamweaver?

It depends on who is behind the wheel. I maintain a site that was built
in DreamWeaver by someone who does not know HTML. It is a nightmare to
maintain. If you know HTML well enough to do DreamWeaver right, you know
HTML well enough not to need DreamWeaver.

 

[Stephen Horrillo]

It depends on who is behind the wheel. I maintain a site that was built
in DreamWeaver by someone who does not know HTML. It is a nightmare to
maintain. If you know HTML well enough to do DreamWeaver right, you know
HTML well enough not to need DreamWeaver.

I take it Dreamweaver doesn't need extentions like Front Page does? Well it
sounds like I need to wean myself off WYSIWYG and begin learning html. Is
Dreamweaver better to start on or FP will do the trick? I like the split
view in FP. Is using the split view a wise way to learn html?

--
Warmest regards,

Stephen Horrillo, Realtor / C.Ht.
For MLS & Computer Training: http://www.BrokerAgentTraining.com
Realtors Earn Over 100% at EXIT: http://www.over100percent.com

 

[Eric Jarvis]

How is Dreamweaver?

Expensive.

It's good if the interface suits you and you do enough site creation from
scratch to justify spending that much on prototyping and site management.

 

[Stephen Horrillo]

Another point that should be made; how much time do you want to spend away
from your real job learning to hand-code, or use DW or FP? If you want to
be a hand-coding purist thats fine, but there are compromises to be made
in all things. DW has a slightly higher learning curve than FP, IMO.

I tried DW and it seemed more complex to me but the use of FP by a
professional seem to be taboo. Also there's a free web space out there that
has no ads but doesn't have FP extentions. There's some people who I know
who need a bargain basement site. But I guess as long as I don't use FP
components that shouldn't matter. It's more the way FP is frowned upon.
There must be a reason.

--
Warmest regards,

Stephen Horrillo, Realtor / C.Ht.
For MLS & Computer Training: http://www.BrokerAgentTraining.com
Realtors Earn Over 100% at EXIT: http://www.over100percent.com

 

[Stephen Horrillo]

Expensive.

It's good if the interface suits you and you do enough site creation from
scratch to justify spending that much on prototyping and site management.

I already have Macromedia MX. I guess my question is, is DW the real deal or
just a FP knockoff? And if so which one do you think would be best for
someone who wants to learn the right way but still needs a crutch?

--
Warmest regards,

Stephen Horrillo, Realtor / C.Ht.
For MLS & Computer Training: http://www.BrokerAgentTraining.com
Realtors Earn Over 100% at EXIT: http://www.over100percent.com

 

[Stephen Horrillo]

You don't need a crutch. Cut and paste of existing mark up and css from
other sites is the ONLY crutch you'll ever need.

Seriously. What you have to do first is develop a proper design process,
one that does the right things at the right stage, and you'll find that
there are only two things you can do better with Dreamweaver than with
freeware, and only one thing you can do better with FP. If you are aren't
creating lots of entirely new designs then you won't really need a WYSIWYG

prototyping tool, at least not very often, and if you aren't managing a
large scale site of lots of sites you won't need anything more than a
sensible file structure and a competent FTP programme.

I don't know MX, never really used it. I've done a little bit of scripting

now and again, but by and large I know too many people who can do all the
dynamic site stuff quicker and better than I can. So any that needs doing
gets subcontracted.

For now I need to know how to create password protected areas for members,
web forms, polling, and how to properly integrate multimedia (online video
tutorials short movies) into the site. I have Camtasia which should take
care of the video unless you know of a better way, but I'm not sure how to
do web forms without using FP and don't know a thing about creating password
protected areas and polls which is what attracted me to Mambo / CMS sort of
solutions. I would like to become good at creating sites with those
requirements without being dependant on any particular type of web creation
software.

Knowing my requirements. What would you recommend I do?

BTW, I just wanted to thank everyone for their comments, you have no idea
how much this is helping me. Many many thanks.


--
Warmest regards,

Stephen Horrillo, Realtor / C.Ht.
For MLS & Computer Training: http://www.BrokerAgentTraining.com
Realtors Earn Over 100% at EXIT: http://www.over100percent.com

 

[Thomas A. Rowe]

If you don't want to be dependent on any one application, you will need to learn to hand code in a
server-side scripting language, which depends on what is support by your chosen web host.

The most common scripting language choices are:

ASP
ASP.net
PHP
CFM
JSP
CGI-Perl


--
==============================================
Thomas A. Rowe (Microsoft MVP - FrontPage)
WEBMASTER Resources(tm)

FrontPage Resources, WebCircle, MS KB Quick Links, etc.
==============================================

 

[Stephen Horrillo]

If you don't want to be dependent on any one application, you will need to
learn to hand code in a
server-side scripting language, which depends on what is support by your
chosen web host.

The most common scripting language choices are:

ASP
ASP.net
PHP
CFM
JSP
CGI-Perl

Decisions decisions!

--
Warmest regards,

Stephen Horrillo, Realtor / C.Ht.
For MLS & Computer Training: http://www.BrokerAgentTraining.com
Realtors Earn Over 100% at EXIT: http://www.over100percent.com