Website help

[Scrib]

I would recommend dreamweaver, it's easily the best...

[Chris]

If you're going to use dreamweaver there are a couple of things you need to keep in mind, because while dreamweaver is probably the best GUI for web development, it can very quickly make a pile of garbage if you're not careful.

1. Never develop in "design view". Dreamweaver has it's own WYSIWG but like any other before it, it just doesn't stack up to hand-code in terms of semantic value. For instance, if you hit <ENTER> while in design view, it creates a new paragraph element, or <p> </p>. To the newcomer, this might seem like a good way to "space" things out, so before you know it, you've got hundreds of empty paragraph elements for absolutely no reason. This is trashy markup, and is not conducive to standards.

2. Be familiar with the "Check Page" function. It doesn't completely mimic the accuracy of W3C in terms of validation, but if one of the things you'd like to have covered is browser compatibility, you should get in the habit of validating on the go. The "Check Page" function as well as the Validate Markup button beside it (the play button) are very handy, and once you get used to correcting the same mistake over and over (if you have any reoccurring), you'll start to write better markup. Once you've done this a few hundred times, you won't even need to validate because you already know you've developed to standard. But, not to seem like a standards zealot, this is just if you concern yourself with this aspect of your work. Call it the "anal quality control" perspective.

3. Avoid any of the "cleaning tools" dreamweaver provides. There is one function in particular that is sort of useful, and it's the "Clean up XHTML" tool, under Commands. And it's really a hit or miss. While the actual cleaning is done via an algorithm, it's always created chaos for me. Be aware of what the tools you use do to your code, or you could potentially be throwing it away and starting over. I guess Undo works good in this case.

4. COMMENT EVERYTHING! This isn't just a dreamweaver tip, but moreso a general helpful tip to you in your adventures with html. Commenting your markup is a nice and easy way to organize your thoughts and develop them in a systematic way. You basically leave yourself breadcrumbs. Once you've done about 4-5 sites with 10-20 pages of dynamic or custom content, you're going to forget what you did or how you accomplished a certain objective. Comments help bring you back to the moment of development, instead of going back to square one. If you ever find yourself working with a team of developers, commenting is also a nice way of organizing your work for others to handle. Comment your markup can also be used to hide sections of code you may have replaced, updated, or something you might need in the future. I don't see this happening alot with HTML, but when you get into javascript, php, etc this will become more handy.

5. Don't bother with the site functions. I get that dreamweaver wants to be all-powerful and be the singular tool used in the development of an entire site, but I have to say the learning curve and the overall design of the sites function is terrible. And if you don't know what you're doing, it's very easy to create a mess. If you work with dreamweaver, save your files to your own project folders, and use an FTP program to put them up. This will avoid alot of headaches when it comes to figuring out why 10 files didn't get uploaded because you missed one single radio button.

6. The one piece of good advice I have: definitely make use of the CSS tools in DW. They are by far one of the best parts of DW IMO. Dreamweaver is also I believe in the process of building "live" updating CSS (sort of like firebug, except in development as opposed to being live), and when that comes, you will have a whole new echelon of power over your work. But what they have now is just as good. It lists all the possible properties for your selected object, but be careful of how you use it. Dreamweaver seems to favor bugs found in IE, so be conscious of what it "recommends" you use and test your code frequently.

Overall, if you want the best experience with DW, design for firefox. And when I say that I mean use firefox to build your layout. If it looks good in firefox, chances are you are on the right track. Once you've gotten the barebones set and looking the way you want it in FF, switch to IE and catch the loose ends. Conditional styles are a good way to handle instances where FF and IE just won't get along, so be sure to use those when you feel it necessary.

[Jeff]

I would recommend dreamweaver, it's easily the best...

dreamweaver is okay for just HTML, but even for that, it's not too great. it might seem nice for beginners, but a lot of the things it automates shouldn't be used for the same reasons as website generators. it was really only useful for locating code by clicking an area of the website in the preview screen. once you get into any kind of scripting, it's much worse. syntax checking was basically broken, and the built-in FTP didn't feel like uploading half the time.

Komodo Edit + Firebug are great tools for web development. Chrome has some nice developer tools built-in as well.

[Chris]

And don't forget the trusty Notepad++. Easily the best color-coding ASCII editor around.

[Applejuice]

Super guys. Thank you. I am going to use Dreamweaver. Tommorow morning I'll start.