web development tools-Dreamweaver vs. Frontpage 2003

[lkhntr]

Please advise on any difference between Macromedia Dreamweaver and Microsoft
Frontpage. We have a situation where an outside developer is wanting to use
Dreamweaver to spice up our website. If the outside developer spices up our
web site with drop-down menus and mouse-over effects, will Frontpage still be
able edit the code created with Dreamweaver. Are there any incompatiblity
issues with a web page created by Dreamweaver and Frontpage edits. Our major
concern is that the handful of resident web authors will need to be
re-trained with Dreamweaver. My understanding is that Frontpage can do
anything that Dreamweaver can. Is this correct?

 

[Bob Lehmann]

Unless FP or DW specific functionality is used, there should be no problem.

I really hate this tool-specific requirement mode that clients and
developers get stuck in.

Bob Lehmann

 

[Clark]

One option is to tell this developer to incorporate whatever
spicing-up he does into your Front-page-managed and published site.

For example, he can design image roll-overs and image-swaps on
mouse-overs using other tools than FrontPage (one particular such is
Macromedia Fireworks).

He then imports (sometimes pasting into Frontpage html code) the code
generated by the that other tool into Frontpage, and it becomes part of
the FP-managed site.

Then your guys dont have to learn Dreamweaver and can continue managine
other aspects of the site with FP. Of course, if you want to change the
spiced-up pieces of the site, someone will have to be able to use
whatever tool and do the re-importing and re-pasting.

IMHO lots of spicing up would be better left undone. Site usability and
functionality for its intended purpose are what matters.

 

[Murray]

I have a lot I can say about this, but you'll have to wait until
tomorrow.... Sorry.

 

[Ted Dawson]

Amatueur - FrontPage
Professional - Dreamweaver

 

[E. T. Culling]

Let your developer use Dreamweaver and then you can use a program called
Contribute to up-date it. It is not good practice to switch from one to
another .. awkward/strange things can happen.
I don't look at FP as a program that can do anything that DW can do ... One
reason why many web developers have moved on to DW is because of the
advanced possibilities it offers.
ETC

 

[Ted Dawson]

I'm sure you have, but have you ever seen a well-designed, professional site
done with FrontPage? I dare you to post the URL...|

 

[Stefan B Rusynko]

Amatueur
- Anyone that professes a specific Tool makes them a Professional
Professional
- Someone that knows how to use Any Tool Correctly and how to the select the Right Tool for the Task




| Amatueur - FrontPage
| Professional - Dreamweaver
|
|

 

[Ted Dawson]

Correct, use FrontPage to manage your "themed" sites.

 

[Clark]

See now there you've gone and done it. You already made it clear that
FrontPage is for non-professional work and now you want URL's for
professional sites done with FrontPage. Sounds like an oxymoron to me --
probably it would be hard to provide such a satisfactory (to you) URL.

 

[Murray]

Ted:

Don't be ridiculous. As others have said, it's the user, not the tool. If
you know your stuff, you can use any HTML authoring system to produce
beautiful pages.

 

[Murray]

Unlike FP, Dreamweaver has no reliance on webbots or server-side extensions.
As a result, DW's code is pretty clean, compared to FP's usual output (this
would depend entirely on the way in which you are using FP, however. The
more you use FP's special features, the more 'cluttered' your code will
become).

Perhaps the ONLY DW feature that edits with FP could break, would be DW's
Templates or Library items. FP also uses a DW4-type syntax for template
markup, and so IF you were using DW Templates produced by DW4 or earlier,
then editing the child pages with FP would be no problem. But Dreamweaver
MX and Dreamweaver MX 2004 have moved significantly beyond this markup
scheme, and these templates would not be respected by FP, allowing
developers to edit content in non-editable regions. FP has no feature
equivalent to Library items, again allowing FP developers to possible edit
content within a 'locked' Library item.

In addition, the folder structure that DW requires is significantly less
stringent than that required by FP, so DW's local sites will have many times
fewer "system folders".

Finally, DW uses FTP exclusively as a protocol for up- and downloading
files, while FP *can* use either FTP or HTTP.

The bottom line is this: allowing developers to collaborate on a site with
both applications *can* be an impending train wreck (depending on the site,
and the expertise of the developers). Using DW to upload a single file
could break your FP Server Extensions. Using FP to open a DW site could add
a curious mix of files and folders to the local site.

So - there you have the picture to the best of my knowledge. If it were me,
I wouldn't allow such a mixed editing environment. Eleanor's suggestion is
a good one, by the way. Contribute is quite a handy tool for such
collaboration.

 

[Kevin Spencer]

Much of microsoft.com is done using FrontPage. Other tools were used for
different portions. I wouldn't be surprised if some of it wasn't done using
Dreamweaver as well.

--
HTH,
Kevin Spencer
..Net Developer
Microsoft MVP
Neither a follower
nor a lender be.

 

[Kevin Spencer]

If the outside developer spices up our

web site with drop-down menus and mouse-over effects, will Frontpage still be
able edit the code created with Dreamweaver.

It depends on what the code IS, and what the code DOES. If your site uses a
lot of FrontPage proprietary components, esp. Themes, Shared Borders,
Naviagation, etc., you are pretty well stuck with FrontPage. On the other
hand, many FrontPage web sites don't use these proprietary conveniences, and
can be worked on with virtually any toolset.

Are there any incompatiblity
issues with a web page created by Dreamweaver and Frontpage edits.

Same answer.

Our major
concern is that the handful of resident web authors will need to be
re-trained with Dreamweaver. My understanding is that Frontpage can do
anything that Dreamweaver can. Is this correct?

HTML is HTML. Some web components in FrontPage are proprietary, but anything
that isn't can be manipulated in either program. As to FrontPage being able
to do anything that Dreamweaver can do, well, again, we have to
differentiate between common HTML and things like proprietary components,
server-side programming, etc. There are things you can do in FrontPage that
you can't do in Dreamweaver, and vice versa. But the bulk of a web site is
simply HTML.

--
HTH,
Kevin Spencer
..Net Developer
Microsoft MVP
Neither a follower
nor a lender be.

 

[Murray]

There are things you can do in FrontPage that

you can't do in Dreamweaver, and vice versa.

To be fair, I would say it this way -

There are things that FP does "automatically", or via the intervention of
some wizard, that must be done manually (or via the intervention of some 3rd
party script) in Dreamweaver (examples would be guestbooks, form processing,
slide shows, etc.). To be truthful, most of these things are things that
*I* would want to do manually anyhow, but that's not really fair, because I
*know* how to do them already. 8) Some of them are things that you can find
3rd party extensions for (a concept similar to the FP design-time
extensions).

In general, wizard code is fragile code, in my experience....

 

[Stefan B Rusynko]

The single best feature in FP is site management
- especially live online thru http

Agree
The webbots are tools for those that don't know how to do it
- just as DW "tools" don't do anything an experienced developer can't do w/ notepad if needed




| > There are things you can do in FrontPage that
| > you can't do in Dreamweaver, and vice versa.
|
| To be fair, I would say it this way -
|
| There are things that FP does "automatically", or via the intervention of
| some wizard, that must be done manually (or via the intervention of some 3rd
| party script) in Dreamweaver (examples would be guestbooks, form processing,
| slide shows, etc.). To be truthful, most of these things are things that
| *I* would want to do manually anyhow, but that's not really fair, because I
| *know* how to do them already. 8) Some of them are things that you can find
| 3rd party extensions for (a concept similar to the FP design-time
| extensions).
|
| In general, wizard code is fragile code, in my experience....
|
| --
| Murray
|
| | >> If the outside developer spices up our
| >> web site with drop-down menus and mouse-over effects, will Frontpage
| >> still
| > be
| >> able edit the code created with Dreamweaver.
| >
| > It depends on what the code IS, and what the code DOES. If your site uses
| > a
| > lot of FrontPage proprietary components, esp. Themes, Shared Borders,
| > Naviagation, etc., you are pretty well stuck with FrontPage. On the other
| > hand, many FrontPage web sites don't use these proprietary conveniences,
| > and
| > can be worked on with virtually any toolset.
| >
| >> Are there any incompatiblity
| >> issues with a web page created by Dreamweaver and Frontpage edits.
| >
| > Same answer.
| >
| >>Our major
| >> concern is that the handful of resident web authors will need to be
| >> re-trained with Dreamweaver. My understanding is that Frontpage can do
| >> anything that Dreamweaver can. Is this correct?
| >
| > HTML is HTML. Some web components in FrontPage are proprietary, but
| > anything
| > that isn't can be manipulated in either program. As to FrontPage being
| > able
| > to do anything that Dreamweaver can do, well, again, we have to
| > differentiate between common HTML and things like proprietary components,
| > server-side programming, etc. There are things you can do in FrontPage
| > that
| > you can't do in Dreamweaver, and vice versa. But the bulk of a web site is
| > simply HTML.
| >
| > --
| > HTH,
| > Kevin Spencer
| > .Net Developer
| > Microsoft MVP
| > Neither a follower
| > nor a lender be.
| >
| > | >> Please advise on any difference between Macromedia Dreamweaver and
| > Microsoft
| >> Frontpage. We have a situation where an outside developer is wanting to
| > use
| >> Dreamweaver to spice up our website. If the outside developer spices up
| > our
| >> web site with drop-down menus and mouse-over effects, will Frontpage
| >> still
| > be
| >> able edit the code created with Dreamweaver. Are there any incompatiblity
| >> issues with a web page created by Dreamweaver and Frontpage edits. Our
| > major
| >> concern is that the handful of resident web authors will need to be
| >> re-trained with Dreamweaver. My understanding is that Frontpage can do
| >> anything that Dreamweaver can. Is this correct?
| >
| >
|
|

 

[Kevin Spencer]

The single best feature in FP is site management

- especially live online thru http

I've got to agfree with you there Stefan. There are quite a few software
packages for editing HTML. But FrontPage is probably the best in terms of
managing web sites.

--
HTH,
Kevin Spencer
..Net Developer
Microsoft MVP
Neither a follower
nor a lender be.

 

[Wes]

So you're accessing the FrontPage newsgroup because...?

 

[Tina Clarke]

If the dw outsider is a 'professional' she (or he) will be able to work with
both tools, if she/he can't then think about someone else, he/she is one
person, your team already knows and you have bought frontpage why go the
expensive route just for an outsider? Find a designer that uses FrontPage,
if your that concerned .. I don't know what dw does to the code but FP can
be used without any webbots and users of both progs will probably use
topstyle for css if they are 'professsional' or else write the css code
directly... Also just cos this person uses dw does not make him a
'professional'... his portfolio may look good to see but what about under
the hood? How's his/her SEO skills? It's not just about what tool he/she is
using.

If you want add content without disturbing the template ... use
http://contentseed.com it works with any editor and is far cheaper. I'll bet
the service is comes out tops too.

It would be nice to see the site in question.

Tina

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