EricW Posted March 29, 2003 Share Posted March 29, 2003 [For those not in the know, Front Page is a web page editing "tool" - or so Microsquish claims.] Front Page REEKS!!! It may possibly be the most worthless piece of software I've ever used. Never in my life have I had so many problems with petty little issues. It's classic Microsoft at its very worst. I have spent a week fighting Front Page to put up my website - and as of last night - I was so frustrated I wasn't sure if I might not just load my guns and drive to Redmond. However, by that time, sitting in the corner in the fetal position while sucking my thumb was looking equally attractive. It is virtually impossible to maintain consistent HTML formatting with Front Page for any length time. It just does whatever the hell it wants - AT RANDOM! I think Front Page may actually be a virus, it's certainly about as destructive. FWIW, I just got done installing Adobe GoLive and it looks like I'm going to be much happier. Have a copy of Front Page lying around? Destroy it now, before you inadvertently install it and go mad. Save yourself! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mark123 Posted March 29, 2003 Share Posted March 29, 2003 Yeah! I would suggest GoLive over Front Page and even over DreamWeaver. Front page comes with a free target...oh, wait. That's a CD. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kimel Posted March 30, 2003 Share Posted March 30, 2003 Do yourself a favor and uninstall FrontPage and go with something else. I personally like Dream Weaver but that may be because a) it is the standard at work so I am already familiar with it, it was the tool that saved me from FrontPageRage. I am not so sure that Notepad isn't a better tool than FrontPage. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EricW Posted March 30, 2003 Author Share Posted March 30, 2003 Hi Kimel, I'm already living it up with GoLive. Ahhh......I can feel the healing already. By the way, did you get my PM? E Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loves2Shoot Posted March 30, 2003 Share Posted March 30, 2003 Dreamweaver is pretty good IMO Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SiG Lady Posted March 30, 2003 Share Posted March 30, 2003 I've been rather pleased with DWeaver, but then I used to build Webpages from scratch (see kimel's remark about Notepad) where, yes, there were some limitations, but not nearly as many as you would imagine; and it was stunning sometimes, the silly stuff I could pull off with just a little creativity and legitimate insertion of modules of code into just the right places.... General consensus about FrontPage is it's the lowest of the low. I like the concept of FrontPage being a virus. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BrianH Posted March 30, 2003 Share Posted March 30, 2003 I am not so sure that Notepad isn't a better tool than FrontPage. I've done all my "basic" stuff in notepad....once I doubleclicked on one of my files, and it opened with Front Page Express (I forgot the association was there), and without doing a thing, FPX added a bunch of bullsh*t I didn't want, and didn't even need..... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
George Posted March 30, 2003 Share Posted March 30, 2003 IMHO, if you are gonna use a layout/site management app, then GoLive is the best, with Dreamweaver right behind. Netobjects Fusion is also OK if you are running Windows (98-2000). I would rather use PageMill (old adobe app) than FrontPage. Heck, Word outputs more consistent HTML than FrontPage!. Of course, we all know that hand-coding, and stripping the text clean in BBedit (or other text manipulation app) is the mondo bad-ass way to do it ;~) Eric, If you have a full version of PhotoShop 5.5, or later, then try building the main image/page layout in PS, slicing, tabling, and creating the rollovers in ImageReady (comes with PS 5.5, and later), then dropping the resultant folder of code, and images on GoLive. Voila, you have a site ready to add the HTML text, and upload. Adobe has done some wonderful things with interlocking apps. It isn't 1997 anymore, and automatic web design really works when you add the name Adobe. Regards, Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wide45 Posted March 30, 2003 Share Posted March 30, 2003 My competance with HTML is almost zip, but BBedit Lite is all I use. That one belongs on the What I Like page. Free software good enough to pay for. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EricW Posted March 30, 2003 Author Share Posted March 30, 2003 George, Thanks for the tips. I've finally got my hands on Photoshop, InDesign, and GoLive now. At first, I thought that I was real smart and would do what you suggested and create things in Photoshop, then piece them together. Unfortunately, I chose FrontPage to start out with. The upshot is I'm slowly getting smarter as I go. I really liked PageMill - I had it on my Mac. I'm really sorry they dropped the product - it was just my speed. I've learned my lesson: web design is HARD. Next time, I'm going to have money before I start and just farm the whole thing out. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
George Posted March 30, 2003 Share Posted March 30, 2003 Hi Eric, If you have any old PageMill site folders, GoLive will import, and update them. I hand-coded the first site I did for my company back in 95, found PageMill in 98, bought into the Adobe Holy Trinity of PhotoShop/ImageReady/GoLive in 2001, and have never looked back. I manage 5 sites right now, three I built via the Holy Trinity, and two I sucked into GoLive after being handed the management task by clients of mine. GoLive makes my life easier than any other option I have found. Heck, I use it as my main FTP client too. GoLive V6.0 is the most stable version since 4.0. Move through 5 ASAP, if that's where you are. Any site that is up, and running on the web, or on any server, at any URL, can be sucked into GoLive via an HTML, or FTP import. Works great if you need to rescue a site from another programs clutches. Regards, Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vince Pinto Posted March 30, 2003 Share Posted March 30, 2003 I guess I'm the odd man out here, but I've used FrontPage for years and I've never had a problem, although I originally started out by coding raw HTML in Notepad. About a year ago I converted my company website to XHTML and FrontPage made my "find & replace" work (e.g. replace <br> with <br />) very fast. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jmallard Posted March 30, 2003 Share Posted March 30, 2003 Guess that makes me odd man out no. 2. I've been using FrontPage since version 97 and I too started with Notepad. I edit with Note Tab Lite now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dowter Posted March 31, 2003 Share Posted March 31, 2003 I guess that I'm odd man out 3 I started with doing my webpages on Notepad. And I now do my work on Front Page 97 too. I notice something though... those of us who started from scratch(notepad) don't mind crummy ol Front Page. I am NOT without complaints about Front Page. It want's to turn everything into a friggin paragraph- screw my formatting! It harasses the hell out of me if I want to do something odd like put a .bmp file on my page and if I'm not paying attention - it will change it to a .jpg on it's own. I guess I just gave into the darkness and learned to tolerate Front Page. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ErikW Posted March 31, 2003 Share Posted March 31, 2003 My site proudly wore a "Created with SimpleText" tag at the bottom. Never trust a machine to do a man's work. (SimpleText is the Mac equivalent of Notepad.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shred Posted March 31, 2003 Share Posted March 31, 2003 IMO FrontPage sucks worse than notepad and I've done many a site in Notepad. I will note that FP didn't start out as a MS program, they had to buy that kind of evil. I knew FP was evil when it moved one of my hand-notepad-ed comments Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
George Posted March 31, 2003 Share Posted March 31, 2003 I actually like working with HTML as text. I think hand coding in a text editor is a real gas, heck it might even be fun to put a site together in "edlin" someday ;~) Yeah Right! I create all of my forum posts, and tweak scripts, and such in Apples "TextEdit" app (same as "NotePad", and "SimpleText"), but when it comes to grinding out a site, site layout apps win hands down, especially if you have prepared templates to start from. I think todays 4th, & 5th generation site layout/management apps do an incredible job of handling big HTML tables with hundreds of image slices, and dozens of rollovers per page, on a multitude of pages. I know the code output from site layout apps isn't as tidy, and proper as you might want, but that's where hand tweaking can be used if you really feel the need to hammer your code into any specific shape. I mostly sign off when sites look, and run clean on the latest versions of the big 3 browsers, in the big 3 OS's. CSS is your best friend here. Modern browsers (4th gen, or later) are damned forgiving nowadays, and it makes little difference anymore if every single one of the tiny code niceties are exactly perfect. I may sound cavalier, but I do not care about all 9 of the folks still using Netscape 2, or the one soul still cruising "text only" in Mosaic 0.1, nor am I at all worried about both iCab Beta users. Assemble it in your layout app, (clean & strip it first in BBedit, or such if you feel you absolutely must tidy up the code), upload it, and manage it from the layout app, and you have a pretty easy way of keeping a grip on bulky sites that need regular updating. The graphical interface option in modern layout apps is way faster when assembling pages where look, and feel is almost entirely determined by external input (read client whims, and moods here). In fact, graphical layout modes are the best way to deal with "over the shoulder input" situations. I do not always get to settle for how the code wants to be. The client may want a layout/look that needs a non code-centered approach. That's where today's website layout software really shines. These apps (and their interlocking graphics handling counterparts) may cost hundreds of dolllars (at the minimum each), but they are worth every cent times 10 if you sling a lot of web pages on a regular basis. In the client driven world, it typically doesn't have to be perfect, it just has to look real, real good (on the big Kahuna's favorite browser) by a very specific date. Regards, Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ErikW Posted March 31, 2003 Share Posted March 31, 2003 Rollovers? Javascript heretic. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
George Posted March 31, 2003 Share Posted March 31, 2003 Ah, Java. Kinda like coffee, "one cup is good, two cups is great, three cups is even better" JavaScript really is kinda like an open class blaster in many ways. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EricW Posted April 2, 2003 Author Share Posted April 2, 2003 I've been messing with GoLive for a couple of days now. Schweet Jeeeezzus!!! Viva La Difference!!! I am in LOVE with the layout grid feature. It is SO cool. You can actually format an attractive table and flow text nicely. I have seen the promised land... Now, I can't wait to fix everything else I've screwed up and button up my site. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
2alpha Posted April 2, 2003 Share Posted April 2, 2003 Is GoLive in the same price range as Front Page? I can't find it anywhere locally. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EricW Posted April 2, 2003 Author Share Posted April 2, 2003 Front Page is essentially free. Microsoft bundles it in with Office now, I believe. GoLive is $400 at PC Connection GoLive is targeted more at the professional graphics/web person. So, you're not likely to find it at regular computer stores. It's probably not a worthwhile investment for personal use, but if time is money, it's absolutely golden. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
3quartertime Posted April 2, 2003 Share Posted April 2, 2003 How big is the Go Live file? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EricW Posted April 2, 2003 Author Share Posted April 2, 2003 The install set is a shade over 100MB, so I'm guessing that equates to 200-300MB after expansion. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ron Ankeny Posted April 2, 2003 Share Posted April 2, 2003 I guess I am in the minority too. I used to own a small Web publishing business and I have been teaching Web publishing for many years. Like any tool, I guess you need to know when and how to use it, the advantages, disadvantages, and so on. FrontPage is OK if you are intimately familiar with it (including the back end) and you plan your Web site with FrontPage in mind. What a lot of folks fail to remember is FrontPage was one of the early Web site management tools and it's primary advantage was the use of proprietary elements used in conjunction with FrontPage server extensions. FrontPage never was a premeir design tool nor was it intended to be one. I used FrontPage, Photoshop, and Illustrator for years. Now we are using Macromedia products across the board. I like Dreamweaver, Fireworks, Flash, and Director. But they too have their benefits and limitations. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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