FrontPage...

ISCNetworking · 07-01-2001, 06:35 PM

I was told in a chat room when people visited my site that a true designer wouldn't use FrontPage. My question is that "Is this true?" If it is I can switch but I really enjoy working in FP because it has a great interface to work in. Please respond to this.

This is way not BlueLight specialing...

0degree · 07-01-2001, 07:44 PM

Well whether the designer is a "true one" or not, FP usage will allow him/her to achieve almost all tasks in the creation of web pages. Furthermore, FP in my view, is better than most website creation programs out there. However, its usage is limited especially when compared to really powerful programs such as Dreamweaver. And although FP's interface is usuable, it cannot even be compared with Dreamweaver's. The biggest difference between FP and other programs is FP extensions. With these, a designer is truely limiting him/herself (they are almost useless and the server hosting the site has to be compatible with them.)

The point of your discussion is similar to saying a true graphic designer wouldn't use Adobe Illustrator (as opposed to Macromedia Freehand and Quark Xpress.) Although all these graphic programs do a wounderful job in graphic design, some are just better than others.

I will agree with the point you mentioned if the program in question was something like Hotdog, Hotmetal, Word or the tools offered by the likes of geocities.com.

Tony.
- I've been using FP since it was released and I still use it sometimes but then again, I don't consider myself a "true designer"

ISCNetworking · 07-01-2001, 07:58 PM

I thank you for your support, Tony. I consider myself a true designer and you should too. It is really neat how FP helps. Thank you. I use MIC for my graphic making and sometimes I use Macromedia Fireworks. I just don't understand how people could criticize you on the programs that you use. You almost want to say.... "What the hell do you use then?" FrontPage is the #1 program in web design anyway! :y

*Jeff* · 07-01-2001, 08:35 PM

Quote:

FrontPage is the #1 program in web design anyway!

You can do a great site with Notepad... it just takes longer

With that said, you can do a great site with Frontpage. It's just that newbie's tend to use FrontPage's built-in functionally and aesthetically challenged components (things like their message board which is pretty bad compared to a real perl/php solution and my all time favorite, those gradient buttons which are all over now).

Since the number of "newbies" using FrontPage who don't know what not to use outnumbers the number of "artists" using FrontPage who know exactly what they want to do and can thus make it work using any tool, the program gets (and probably deserves) a bad rap.

Dreamweaver doesn't have the poor-quality tools built in, and newbies are no longer newbies by the time they figure out how to use it, so Dreamweaver has a much better reputation.

BOF · 07-01-2001, 10:11 PM

A good alternative for compiling Web pages is NetObjects Fusion - the latest version is MX. See www.netobjects.com if you'd like to check it.

janderk · 07-02-2001, 03:02 AM

My vote is for Dreamweaver.

While Frontpage and Fusion contain many features to make it easier for novice users to create web pages. These same features limit the ability of web designers to use the full power of HTML.

The difference is that Frontpage and Fusion are targeted at novice users and Dreamweaver is targeted at users with at least some experience, making the learning curve steeper but also allowing more control.

I especially like the way Dreamweaver allows switching between WYSIWYG and HTML code view mode. Dreamweaver also does not mess with my HTML code, while older versions of Frontpage tend to do many things with my HTML which I did not like. Not to speak of those evil server extensions and Frontpage templates.

For a customer I had to check something in Fusion some days ago and again it's a nice application for novice user, but it is severely limited. For example, it would not let me import web pages with frames.

Jan Derk

ISCNetworking · 07-02-2001, 11:30 AM

Dear Responders,
To agree with all of you I need to split it up. Forgive me for taking up too much space on these pages.

Janderk -> I really agree with you. Dreamweaver really does help the HTML designer and I really like the interface of it. I agree with the "novice" part of your post. Novice's give FP a bad name. I didn't even realize that FP had so many features that were utilized in the wrong way.

BOF -> I downloaded Fusion the other day. I really don't like it. I just can't get the look and feel down.

Jeff -> I thank you so much for your support in this matter. I really like the way all of the posters here have responded more to Dreamweaver than the intial topic of this forum. If people like Dreamweaver better I might as well purchase the full version and begin using it. Dreamweaver, I would have to say, is the better of the two programs by far. In better terms, thank you for pointing me in a new design tatic.

Sincerely,
Andrew Markle
President/CEO of ISC Networking, Inc.
wmarkle@internetsolutionscentral.com

*frankc* · 07-03-2001, 11:49 AM

Andrew:

As an extremely-limited-in-graphic-design-talents sorta kinda website design guy (and I use the word "designer" in it's loosest sense as it's all done "on the side"--not professionally), it makes me just NUTS when someone would have the gall to say

Quote:

....a true designer wouldn't use FrontPage

Gosh...sorry to anyone this offends, but I think that's elitist. We're all here slugging it out, trying to do a job. The tool matters not--what does is whether the tool and the site it creates does the job you want.

I've used TextPad, HotDog, FrontPage 2000, FirstPage and others. As a general design tool, FP2k is very useful.

My only disagreement with FP has led me to evaluate NetObjects Fusion MX because of positive comments here and my extreme dislike of the huge numbers of useless files and subdirectories that FP2k creates on *nix servers. KissFP.com has a great lil' utility to replace FP2k's "publish" feature and spike all the overhead, but it's another $39-99 depending on your use. That has the effect of increasing the cost making FP work the way I want it to.

So, use the tool that does the job, always evaluate other potential tools, ignore the "noise", and just do it!

Frank

ISCNetworking · 07-03-2001, 12:14 PM

Yeah,
I agree with you Frank. If people were to contradict a program that will do most anything for you, has a friendly interface, and has many add-ons... Yeah... they need to keep it down with FP 2k. I use FP 2k all of the time and this was traumatizing to me that someone would say that a true designer wouldn't use FP. I almost started to ask them what do you use? I drove me insane. I asked the same two people that said that, "What do you use?" They didn't answer.

Andrew

*sheila* · 07-03-2001, 01:37 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by ISCNetworking:
I use FP 2k all of the time and this was traumatizing to me that someone would say that a true designer wouldn't use FP. I almost started to ask them what do you use? I drove me insane. I asked the same two people that said that, "What do you use?" They didn't answer.

Traumatizing? Surely you exaagerate? Everywhere you go there will be those who will criticize the way you choose to do something. If it works for you, don't listen to them.

Personally, I use Dreamweaver and Homesite and PFE and rarely Notepad. Whatever works.

I used to read the newsgroup alt.html quite a bit, and they will criticize FP up and down in that group. I believe it is, as mentioned already in this discussion, because so many people who use it really don't learn how to hand-code their HTML and just assume that any idiot with FP can make a nice-looking web site. Plus (at least with older versions of FP), it is easy to design websites that work in IE but crash in NS.

I think that if you know how to hand-code HTML, you might be a web designer.

Otherwise, you are definitely not.