FrontPage and Dreamweaver -- what gives?

[Flat Earth]

I've been using FP for several years to do several sites, one of which has
600 pages (a literary magazine). Nothing very fancy and I am far from
expert, but lately I've noticed EVERYBODY at my university uses Dreamweaver
and sort of looks down there noses at FP.

Well, I spent a few hours with Dreamweaver MX recently, and a few years ago
spent time with Dreamweaver 4, and I just don't get it. What is it that sets
Dreamweaver head-and-shoulders above FB from the DW devotee's point of view?
Could someone give me a point by point list of what people who love
Dreamweaver think are the big advantages of DW?

 

[EveryHost]

I've been using FP for several years to do several sites, one of which has
600 pages (a literary magazine). Nothing very fancy and I am far from
expert, but lately I've noticed EVERYBODY at my university uses Dreamweaver
and sort of looks down there noses at FP.

Well, I spent a few hours with Dreamweaver MX recently, and a few years ago
spent time with Dreamweaver 4, and I just don't get it. What is it that sets
Dreamweaver head-and-shoulders above FB from the DW devotee's point of view?
Could someone give me a point by point list of what people who love
Dreamweaver think are the big advantages of DW?

Hello Flat Earth,

If I could highlight one major advantage of Dreamweaver
over FrontPage then it would have to be the ability to
"drag and drop" design elements directly onto the page
- great for graphic and Web designers!

Never underestimate the power of design.

Best,

Andy

 

[Paul Taylor]

I've been using FP for several years to do several sites, one of which has
600 pages (a literary magazine). Nothing very fancy and I am far from
expert, but lately I've noticed EVERYBODY at my university uses Dreamweaver
and sort of looks down there noses at FP.

Well, I spent a few hours with Dreamweaver MX recently, and a few years ago
spent time with Dreamweaver 4, and I just don't get it. What is it that sets
Dreamweaver head-and-shoulders above FB from the DW devotee's point of view?
Could someone give me a point by point list of what people who love
Dreamweaver think are the big advantages of DW?

Dreamweaver produces code that is very nearly compliant with agreed
html standards. The code FrontPage produces is garbage.
Paul Taylor
http://www.technocurve.co.uk

 

[auerbach]

FrontPage 2003 has fixed many of the problems that caused professional web
designers to look down their noses at it and to favor Dreamweaver. It no
longer automatically corrects (mangles) HTML code it doesn't understand, can
be set to not include "tons of redundant tags" the earlier versions
included, and even accepts the DWT templates that Dreamweaver uses. It
remains somewhat easier to use than Dreamweaver, in my opinion, but
obviously someone already familiar with Dreamweaver would see that very
differently.

Alex

 

[Jeff Goebel]

I wish I could figure out why FrontPage gets insulted too. I've used
it since the 98 version, and nearly all of the bashing complaints
about it are fake. I believe the true hatrid seems to be with
Microsoft, and people everywhere LOVE to find alternbatives to the
leader.

To be honest, I probably would prefer FrontPage if it were a little
guy company (grin).

As a tool... it works, it was fairly easy, and it handles things
better than anything I've tried. You just have to accept that you
can't tell anybody it's what you use. Microsoft tries with each
release to get them to believe, but it's not a real image - just a
perceived one, so nobody is really interested in believing anyway.

Jeff Goebel
- frogstar.com web design with FrontPage

 

[Jeff Goebel]

I have to ask myself why MS allowed the extra tags in the first place.

Could it be for better browser backward compatability. Sometimes it is so
bad it could be considered spam (the amount of wasted bandwidth).
Glad to see it's taken care of.

It should be noted that Dreamweaver added almost as much when used in
WYSIWYG mode.

 

[auerbach]

In addition, FP 2003 includes an "optimize" feature that enable you to rip
out some or all of the comments, etc., as you publish your pages to the
website. This feature gives you so much power, in fact, that you need to be
cautious you don't overdo it and slash away stuff that FP may need for later
management of the site. But it indicates that Microsoft was being responsive
to the complaints about file bloat.

Given the cost of bandwidth and the high penetration of DSL, cable, etc.,
among Web users, I'm not sure that a hundred extra bytes per page is really
all that important. I suspect that designers were really just annoyed that
Microsoft chose to add a little advertisement for itself on every page that
FP produces. At least Redmond heard the complaints.