Front Page Versus Dreamweaver: The Final Battle

There is always a lot of contention in the web design community as to what web site development software is the most appropriate.  By all means, Front Page and Dreamweaver are not the only software appropriate for web design, they just happen to be the most popular.

Dreamweaver

Adobe’s Dreamweaver software has climbed the totem poll to become an industry standard.  One does not have to seek out low cost frontpage web hosting with this software in order for the server to support sites built in Dreamweaver.  However, it is quite a bit more expensive than Front Page.

Dreamweaver offers a complete suite of tools to help you get your website off the ground.  Some of the more frequently used tools include the image map capabilities, the advanced CSS handling, and the wonderful split screen Code/Design interface.  Because it is not a Microsoft product, some users might have to overcome a bit of a learning curve to get used to the software at first.

Dreamweaver was originally produced by a company called Macromedia.  Macromedia was bought out by Adobe.  As a result, Dreamweaver does not have the familiar Adobe interface that some users might be used to from products like Photoshop or Flash.  However, after a little bit of practice, the Dreamweaver interface becomes second nature.

For server scripting languages like PHP and ASP, Dreamweaver becomes somewhat of a glorified text editor.  It does have a built in suggested script library and a somewhat archaic form of error checking.  Users coding strictly in server scripting languages may prefer software like Microsoft’s Visual Studio for ease of use.

Front Page

Microsoft’s Front Page is the easiest of all web design software.  It is very intuitive and users of Microsoft Office products will be able to move seamlessly into Front Page.  It is relatively inexpensive and comes loaded with template and pre fabricated template abilities.  All this user friendliness comes at a cost, however.  You must locate some low cost frontpage web hosting in order to upload your Front Page site.

The affordable web hosting company you choose must have Front Page extensions installed on the server in order for your site to look and act as you designed it to.  This is not as big of a problem as it once used to be, as most companies offer low cost frontpage web hosting.

Plain Old Notepad

With either of these web design suites, advanced web developers might have a problem with poor coding practices or just plain sloppy code.  Both Dreamweaver and Front Page add proprietary coding that your budget web hosting server might not find too agreeable.  If the page loads okay, it just might be an issue of unattractive or disorganized code.  This can prevent a problem down the road when implementing new features or modifying old features.  Every added element into a Front Page or Dreamweaver website adds code to the page in the order it is clicked in the interface, which is not always the logical order to code a website.  The programs, regardless of which one you choose, are tools and should not be substituted for actual knowledge of wed development and design.  For these “sloppy code” reasons, some developers choose to use notepad or some other plain text editor to code or modify their pages.  Do not be afraid to open a page in notepad and see how it looks, it might just give you a new perspective.

FTP = OBSOLETE?

Most modern web design suites have a built in file/ftp manager.  This reduces the steps one has to take in developing their website.  With Dreamweaver, you may plug in the FTP credentials of your budget web hosting plan and it does the rest of the work for you, making editing a fairly seamless process.  Front page is similar in that it communicates with your low cost frontpage web hosting package to get all of your content uploaded in the most efficient way possible.

However, I would not suggest deleting your FTP client.  No matter how useless it may seem if you are relying solely on web development software to build your site, sometimes a quick image fix, text edit, or other minor change is far easier if one simply manually uploads the changed files.

It is a good idea to check with your affordable web hosting company prior to purchasing and let them know which software you are planning to use to develop your site.  They should be able to tell you if low cost frontpage web hosting is necessary or any other type of modification to your hosting package to ensure a seamless hosting experience.