Is it worth it to buy Dreamweaver

Question

I have to redesign and maintain my own website now. I'm okay with this, as my site needs to be changed frequently anyway, and I'm the type to do it right away. So this will be good.

I download free Kompozer. I am having a terrible time with it, support forum is horrible, directions are confusing. I see by reading forum that others have problems too. I haven't even begun with CSS. Yikes.

I watched tutorial on Dreamweaver. Looks like a dream!

My site will probably always be around; it's not a fly-by-night thing; I'm involved (20 years) in animal breeding and showing. The site is 8-10 pages. I'm really pretty good with the computer, not illiterate, but not about to do my own HTML, that's for sure.

Am I justified in buying Dreamweaver. Will it be a pleasure to use, like Adobe PHotoshop, which I recently bought (elements and premiere).

Answer 1

A lot of people stand by Dreamweaver because it is easy to use. It kind of makes web page development easy for everyone - even those with zero experience.

I would recommend, though, learning HTML, XHTML, and CSS. Since HTML is text based, you can use ANY text editor (like notepad) to write and edit your HTML documents...

I suggest this for 2 main reasons (although, I'm sure I could think of more):

1. Dreamweaver produces, typically, very ugly HTML that is not valid by today's standards...

2. Using a text editor like Notepad will force you to learn every single element of your page because you'll be doing it on your own. You'll ultimately have more control and comfort with your pages.

Edit

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Just an FYI...because some people may not know. HTML is not programming, nor is HTML "code".

Answer 2

Dreamweaver is an Adobe product - If you were able to follow tutorials for adobe photoshop then yes it would be worth it to get dreamweaver.

Food for thought - since you are "only" doing your site - why not consider buying an "old" version of dreamweaver -  its still easy to use, would be lots cheaper, and you will find lots of people who can help.

Answer 3

Pass on Dreamweaver since there is too much code generated when you can simply design a webpage using NotePad, Word or FrontPage.  Your unfortunate experience with Composer is due to lack of Forum info which is understandable unless you are willing to check out a number of books on Composer [when conducting a search at Amazon Books.com].  Again, Composer is truly the most intuitive table based authoring tool which can simply and directly generate pure HTML webpages.  Check out www.foodforfilmstylists.com which was constructed using Composer.

Good luck!

Answer 4

Dreamweaver is not worth the expense.  It writes lousy code so your pages will never pass validation nor look the same in different browsers.  After a few years, you have to update it as the code is also outdated.

If you absolutely need a Visual Editor, then check out NVU.

Ron

Answer 5

i would use Microsoft Visual Web developer Express it is free and powerful for being free.

Answer 6

Microsoft Expression Web is a less expensive option to Dreamweaver, and is also a WYSIWYG type editor. If you have the money to spend you could also have your site designed professionally from a design company like http://www.megastarmedia.com and then update it yourself.

Answer 7

Macromedia makes Dreamweaver.

I have used it for years and while many "purists' web designers think you should work directly with the code most of us just want to learn a program and "git r done".  I am one of those.

It has been a great program for me and well worth the time and money to buy and learn.