By the way, I'm sure you can build an identical website with any application whether it be notepad or Dreamweaver. It's just how you want to get to that point. Some people have different tastes than others. So the question really is how people use the means to achieve the end...and how long does it take them compared to others?
Quote: CLRAdmin I'm sure you can build an identical website with any application whether it be notepad or Dreamweaver. I don't believe it! Just take a look at the source of a single page created by DW or GL and tell me anyone (with a life) is going to do that by hand in notepad.
Quote: mramsay Check out the source. It's clean and maintainable by hand Maybe clean and maintainable by hand but sorry, that's a boring display, my 12-year-old students used to come up with that sort of design with a text editor way back in 1995.
I'm talking about complex sites with DHTML, JavaScript, a little Flash perhaps.
Wanderer, to me that kind of thing looks downright messy. I've seen websites like that and when you try and please everyone with every kind of possible Javascript scenario, your website becomes bloated. Perhaps some web users should get with the times and off their old Netscape 4 browsers. :-)
My belief is there's a fine line between making a website usable for most users and going way overboard on extra code that really isn't needed. To me that's just supporting bad browser methods that don't comply with standards.
I actually like that website, mramsay. It's clean and easy to follow. Definitely not for the kind of crowd that requires things jumping out all over the page (a la MLB.com website, now THAT's hard to follow). I think that in the process of trying to "one up" the next guy, people go way overboard on "stuff".
Guys, you seem to forget one thing, in a commercial world it is not what you want that counts, it's what the client wants and what, in turn, they think their clients and visitors want.
I can't afford to get precious about these things otherwise I get "I paid you $xxxx.xx for that!?"
Standards, bloat, bad methods etc. don't mean a thing and they really only exist in your heads.
In the real world, what THEY want rules and if that's bloat and bad methods, so be it.
The only time in services when you give a client what they "want" is when they are a problem client or when you just can't do any better. Being a designer, in any field, means that you solve the problems customers encounter regardless of whether they are initially aware of such problems. It's your job to analyze the situation, identify the requirements, and deliver a solution that goes beyond mere satisfaction.
I could care less about DHTML, JavaScript, Flash, or any of the other elements that some people think are necessary. For some projects, yes, those elements might be necessary to communicating a message or solving a business problem, but they simply aren't necessary to all applications.
There are business cases for adhering to W3C standards, reduction and elimination of bloat, and proper design. I urge you to actually think about why these are so important instead of relying on this "customer is always right" mentality that, by the way, was made popular by Gordon Selfridge who later went insane and died. The customer is not always right and what clients want is only relevant to the extent that what they want is a point of reference. What a client wants is usually not what a client needs, but again, it's your job to discover the truth by digging to the heart of the matter. That's what separates professionals from amateurs.
Why should I spend a week writing code by hand when I can get paid the exact same amount for 2 days' work and without all the grief arguing with the client about what is "the truth" ?
No the customer is not always right but if they pay me for the right to be wrong then as far as I am concerned, they are right!
Dreamweaver (and yes I tried Golive for many years, but it changes code). Frontpage has always been a disaster and still is (unless you limit yourself to IE)
Wanderer, in DW you need to save the page only once to get the (relative) links right, after that (on the PC) no saving is required for preview (F12).
And to all those notepad/bbedit people... just ignore 99% of the dreamweaver features, you'll have notepad. Dreamweaver's template system alone has saved me 1000's of hours over the years.
I've always used DW, but only code view. The reason i use DW is the cmd+shift+u to upload the current file. I typically don't test locally, but on my test server or my real server in a test environment, so its great to be able to save, upload, switch to the browser, and refresh ALL with quick keystrokes.. i can see the results of my changes in a matter of seconds. Also I mainly write PHP, so i like having line numbers, and I also like having the organization of the "sites" in DW
I am now trying out Textmate, which i like so far, but haven't really put it through a good test yet... I am starting a small project now though and will see how it works. I really like it so far and hope that it (with transmit) can replace DW on my machine... considering I don't use most of DW.
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I don't believe it! Just take a look at the source of a single page created by DW or GL and tell me anyone (with a life) is going to do that by hand in notepad.
The prototype was sent to a CSS expert who made the prototype production-ready.
Check out the source. It's clean and maintainable by hand; although, I am looking to move the website over to WordPress one of these days.
Maybe clean and maintainable by hand but sorry, that's a boring display, my 12-year-old students used to come up with that sort of design with a text editor way back in 1995.
I'm talking about complex sites with DHTML, JavaScript, a little Flash perhaps.
My belief is there's a fine line between making a website usable for most users and going way overboard on extra code that really isn't needed. To me that's just supporting bad browser methods that don't comply with standards.
Seriously, nice website.
I can't afford to get precious about these things otherwise I get "I paid you $xxxx.xx for that!?"
Standards, bloat, bad methods etc. don't mean a thing and they really only exist in your heads.
In the real world, what THEY want rules and if that's bloat and bad methods, so be it.
I could care less about DHTML, JavaScript, Flash, or any of the other elements that some people think are necessary. For some projects, yes, those elements might be necessary to communicating a message or solving a business problem, but they simply aren't necessary to all applications.
There are business cases for adhering to W3C standards, reduction and elimination of bloat, and proper design. I urge you to actually think about why these are so important instead of relying on this "customer is always right" mentality that, by the way, was made popular by Gordon Selfridge who later went insane and died. The customer is not always right and what clients want is only relevant to the extent that what they want is a point of reference. What a client wants is usually not what a client needs, but again, it's your job to discover the truth by digging to the heart of the matter. That's what separates professionals from amateurs.
No the customer is not always right but if they pay me for the right to be wrong then as far as I am concerned, they are right!
Again it's horses for courses.
I'm feeling very clumsy with it, why can't I preview a page without saving it?
GoLive auto-makes a temp copy of the page to display, if you like what you see, save it, if not you can discard it.
Wanderer, in DW you need to save the page only once to get the (relative) links right, after that (on the PC) no saving is required for preview (F12).
And to all those notepad/bbedit people... just ignore 99% of the dreamweaver features, you'll have notepad. Dreamweaver's template system alone has saved me 1000's of hours over the years.
F12 (actually it's option-F12) asks me to save before every preview, if I click "don't save" the browser preview is of the last-saved state.
Actually I just found a preference: "Preview using Temporary File" which, when turned on, does what I want.
Dreamweaver is obviously female, requiring some judicious turning on before things happen as you expect!
Hahaha, nice.