I’m starting now and need to increase the range of tools to make a quality website, then in addition to the Adobe programs, another set of tools we use to make our sites?
Hello,
Don’t Use Frontpage! 
The only tools that are absolutely required for web development are a good text editor, browsers and an image editor.
Dreamweaver is still the best wysiwyg editor if that’s what you’re looking for, but all professional developers write their own code by hand.
You don’t need others. As said, you need a program that can edit and upload code—all of which Dreamweaver does. It’s also handy to have an image editor, like Photoshop, which you also presumably have.
That’s it, really. The rest is basically learning a range of coding languages, like HTML, CSS, JavaScript, PHP etc.
People who use front page should be burned at the stake like witches in the medieval ages. Though I have *some sympathy for those who are not selling services but not very much. If your using frontpage as a “professional” developer you should be put down. In all seriousness don’t use frontpage – ever. If I said what I was going to say next in regards to recommending a wysiwg editor I would need to put myself down. So I will just leave that implied by the markbrown4’s comments.
Microsoft acknowledged that Frontpage was long dead way back in 2007. Unless you are developing for IE5 and earlier you should avoid using it.
I wouldn’t recommend Frontpage to anyone. I also wouldn’t recommend Dreamweaver to anyone either. Far more often than not, it generates way bloated and invalid HTML and the thing you are mostly likely to learn from Dreamweaver is how to not build a website.
The bear minimum you need is a text editor (not MS Word though), or better yet a really good IDE like Netbeans and one of the better free image editing applications or something like [URL=“http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshop-elements.html”]Photoshop Elements.
If you’re going to use server side code (like PHP for example) you’ll also need a local web server like XAMPP (free)
You can use Dreamweaver to make your website with good tools.It provides built in code to create the website.
I am weaning myself off of FrontPage and have been doing some research into life-after-FP possibilities for HTML editing. I’ve spent a good chunk of the afternoon reading about NoteTab Pro which has been steadily gaining awards for its HTML editing program. I’ve been worried about moving into anything other than a WYSIWYG program, but I have been convinced that such visually comfortable programs sacrifice clean source code in the process. NoteTab is supposed to have a quick-view function associated with F8, if memory serves, that gives you the view of the page you are creating in the browser view of your choice. I am impressed enough with what I have heard and read that I just downloaded the very reasonably priced program and will begin trying it out tomorrow. Let me know if there is anyone out there - other recovering FrontPage users - that would be interested in reading what I think after I’ve used NotePad for a while.
Hi SusanOhara. Welcome to the forums.
I don’t really see the point of such tools, when you can view your page in browsers anyway. I tend to have a lot of browsers open while developing, and I just keep testing the results in each browser.
When I first moved away from WYSIWYG designing, I was amazed at how simple is was to code a page, and you have the security of the browser views to make sure you’re on the right track.
I agree. You would never be able to tell if the preview was displaying correctly as the page will appear in XYZ browser or is following slightly different rules - the end result being a web page that may only display correctly in the preview.
If you’re using Frontpage and are considering Adobe for coding then I think your definition of quality will differ from mine…
Photoshop is a given, as it’s basically the industry standard. However, I know of no developers that ever use Adobe products for anything other than design. If you want to write HTML and CSS then get a good text editor like Notepad++ or Komodo Edit.
Notepad++ is all I’ve ever wanted in an editor. Personally, I have wysiwig editors as they create all sorts of nonsense around templates. “Proper” coding is the only way to do it right imho.
Although I have Photoshop, 90% of my graphics work is done in Irfanview and Paint, which are free just like Notepad++.
I use Dreamweaver, its the only best software for this purpose and also suits me too.
im using alsoo front-page its nice but 90% Webmaster use Dreamweaver
Why? It has been dead for about 10 years now and the most recent browser it actually works properly with is IE6 which is also now dead. Even Microsoft acknowledged its death in 2007 when they announced Expression Web was its replacement (which has now also been declared to be obsolete as Microsoft have moved on to yet another web editor as a replacement for Expression Web).