WYSIWYG Web Site Design Software
From LoveToKnow Web-Design
WYSIWYG web site design software has become the tool of choice to build the Internet. Where the early days of the web were coded by hand by programmers using venerable editors such as Windows Notepad or Linux eMacs, today's programs such as Dreamweaver, Microsoft FrontPage and GoLive tend to be the tools of choice.
Why WYSIWYG Web Site Design Software?
The reason for the gain in popularity is simple: The Internet is complicated. Especially as "Web 2.0 and social network apps have become more prevalent, trying to understand how a site looks simply from the code being typed has become more and more difficult. When only HTML was being used, visualizing how a table or an image looked could be deciphered from the elements of the tag itself.
In today's web, however, tools such as XML and Cascading Style Sheets have separated the presentation of a page from its content, so that an iPhone accessing a page will have a different layout than a Windows computer. Also, while web standards are slowly permeating the net, several browsers such as Microsoft's Internet Explorer are not fully compliant with them, and the best written code can have unexpected results when displayed in a browser.
This is where WYSIWYG web site design software comes in.
Dreamweaver and Frontpage
While there are many different kinds of WYSIWYG web site design software, there are really only two major contenders for any serious designer.
Microsoft Frontpage
An early and now-venerable competitor, Microsoft's Frontpage editing software prided itself on being usable by the most novice designer to the most seasoned professional. If a person wanted to have a professional-looking site, with rollover button, colorful effects, animated GIFs, even forms and polls, Frontpage can do it. In fact, many of these things were already included in Frontpage templates for various types of sites. The program came with an extensive library of themes, allowing a fully coherent site design to be completed at the click of a mouse. All the designer would need to do is put in the relevant information for the particular site, upload some images, and the site would be live.
It's very simplicity became what was most annoying about FrontPage to many designers, though. As long as a person stuck to the themes and layouts as Frontpage laid them out, it was fine. However, trying to change things – sometimes as simple as moving a button or centering text – would easily lead to problems and difficulties as the program tried to "help" the designer fix things. Also, while there were many themes included with the program, the sheer number of sites being created in FrontPage meant that there was some unavoidable duplication. Many designers began to easily recognize just from visual styles if a site had been done in FrontPage, and it became synonymous in some circles with lazy design.
However, one big advantage to using FrontPage is its complete integration with other Microsoft products, such as ASP, .NET, Windows Media Player, and other web technologies. If a business plans to use a complete suite of Microsoft web products, FrontPage can make that integration very easy.
Adobe Dreamweaver
Formerly the creation of Macromedia (later bought by Adobe) Dreamweaver has a higher learning curve than FrontPage and does not come with built-in themes to produce a site at the click of a mouse. Functioning more like a word processor, the WYSIWYG web site design software uses a "split view" that allows the designer to see both the code being written while at the same time seeing a visual display both updated in real time. More importantly, both are completely editable by the designer – Dreamweaver will not try and "help" you by changing code after you've written it.
That is not to say it is just like notepad. Dreamweaver boasts a full integration of the latest web technologies, including Flash integration (Flash is also owned by Adobe), CSS and dynamic site generation, contextual site inspectors (letting the properties of web page elements be edited quickly and easily) and many more. In fact, part of the learning curve is simply trying to grasp all the ways that the program can assist the designer. Since the program has been purchased by Adobe it also features strong integration with Photoshop, with many tutorials online teaching how to use it more efficiently in workflow.
Whichever WYSIWYG web site design software you choose, being able to see what you are creating as you create it will make your web design experience much easier and more efficient.
Learn More
This page has been accessed 1,702 times. This page was last modified 05:18, 4 July 2008.
© 2006-2009 LoveToKnow Corp.
Print this page
Follow ltk on twitter
Visit us on facebook