My Experience with Dreamweaver

I have had a hard time choosing a programme to use for my new site. I began with a cute little thing called iWeb. It all worked fine up until the time when I realised that iweb sites are not designed for professional purposes. They are there for your to place the photos of your holidays, babies and other nice cuddly stuff. If you are thinking about something serious, business-related, or simply professionally important you should think of something more challenging. This idea dawned upon me quite soon.

Then I began considering things like Dreamweaver, FrontPage or Front Page for Macs. The latter was released not so long ago. Apparently, it was not very successful and only one version has entered the market. I have tried to get it and use it for my needs but it was not so easy. Moving from Mac to PC with the view of using FrontPage was not convenient. Indeed, once you start using Macs, there is no way back.

So I settled with Dreamweaver. It is available for Macs, and it works fine. However, as a complete newbie, my first steps with this program were not easy. When I first opened the page, I was just staring at an empty screen with no clue. Soon I realised that all you need to do is to put everything you have in tables. Tables are the key to success in this program. Also, one common mistake made by all Dreamweaver newbies is to start designing their pages within the Dreamweaver environment.

This strategy almost always fails. You have to prepare all you have to put for your site well before touching Dreamweaver. Get a clean piece of paper or a number of Photoshop files and devise the structure of your paper. Get an idea what goes where and how many tables you would need to place all those items in their designated spaces. Then think of opening Dreamweaver. If you try to work in the Dreamweaver environment while devising your pages, you will be changing your tables and design creating all that extra-work for yourself.

Another useful tip. Do not create too many tables. Try to put as much information as you can to one table. By doing so you leave yourself plenty of opportunities for further editing. So if you decide to change something in your table, you can always split or merge cells, thus modifying the look of your page. If you have too many tables, it becomes difficult to edit your page when you are at the editing stage.

Also, try to avoid CSS at first. Best to define your style by traditional methods without resorting to CSS’ overwhelming definitions. Try to make your first steps within this program simple and clear. You can always have time for the subsequent increase in difficulties. I have been designing web hosting and online dating sites within the Dreamweaver environment. I compiled a list of best web hosting packages and online dating agencies. For this I really needed a couple of tables, and the structure of these sites was quite simple. But having made this start, I hope to create more difficult sites in the future.