My server upgraded and the FrontPage extensions freaked out completely. Now I have to upload the whole site again. It will take forever!

Web design experts: time to switch to Dreamweaver or should I wait for Expressions to come out?

I currently use the expression suite (beta) and Visual studio 2005 for all my web UI dev work.

I use notepad.... or when I build a real world site I use .Net.

Frontpage is a joke.

Ive never worked anywhere that didnt use Dreamweaver for basic templates and HTML.

run, do not walk, away from FrontPage.

anything will be better.

Have you tried logging in with an FTP program to see what's still intact there? It sounds rather incredible that Frontpage extensions would ruin your complete mp3 collection, from what I know.

In the end it all boils down to code, code, code. Since you don't use any database system or server-side scripting language - you might want to give NVU a try.

At work I use Allaire Homesite but I'm switching to Microsoft's Visual Studio Express 2005 (which is pretty good, and free too). Thing is, most of VSE is useless if your host doesn't work with ASP.Net. It does have great code completion features and stylesheet editing.

I'd really look into getting some sort of server-side scripting in there . It makes the management of synth information a huge lot easier. Automatically generate tables, add sorting to them (alphabetical patchname, patch number) - you just have to think in advance about a good descriptive structure for synthesizers.

Dude, get rid of FrontPage. Once you use something else, the reasons for the switch will be patently obvious.

And don't use Notepad if you have anything over, say, one line of text. Notepad is a very, very simple program and is not intended for the complexities of entering source code.

Real programmers use real text editors. Simple as that. Visual Studio (arguable, but I use it), emacs, vi. There are literally hundreds of others that will fit your needs to varying degrees.

If you use Visual Studio, and you really want to do it right, avoid the visual designer. Learn XHTML and CSS and just write it directly into the code editor. If you are a beginner and/or know little about .NET development (e.g. C#, VB), do stay away from ASP.NET controls. Just write plain XHTML and CSS at first. ASP.NET is MS's attempt to graft a traditional GUI toolkit onto web development. When it works, it's a great time-saver. When it doesn't work, it's excruciatingly tedious to debug. You have to be fairly well versed in .NET and have a deep understanding of the page lifecycle. After a day, you begin to wonder "Jeez! What friggin' arcane incantation causes ASP.NET to output the HTML I want?". You spent all that time, and the end result is to put HTML into the server response. Guess what a text editor will do for you...

That's my 2.0E+4 microdollars.

Exactly.

The reason that Notepad was worshipped was that it proved your code was hand-coded as opposed to dragged together by a WYSIWYG editor; in 1998 or so the proof that you knew HTML and not just clicking somewhere . This was in 1998; most good editors nowadays should offer the preview/drag & drop as a courtesy instead.

I had this with DataLists and Repeaters. I wrote a really nifty piece of JS to page between news articles, and the DataList's default output ruined it.

The idea is however that if a component spews out HTML it's at least a single component, every version is the same, and they all obey a proper styling model. Mixing HTML with your code is polluting the 3-tier model; and that can get, IMHO, a lot uglier when it's not properly maintained.

Originally posted by XorAxAx You spent all that time, and the end result is to put HTML into the server response. Guess what a text editor will do for you... That's my 2.0E+4 microdollars.

You got it right the first time - learn the page life cycle, how events work etc - actuallly - learn to program too (if thats a limitation). It helps if you are actually a developer and follow developer disciplines.

Alot of web develops were not what I would call real developers and seem barely capable of anything more than the usual hideous mess that results from mixing markup and code randomly - sadly that seems to include many 'consultants' who think they are because they could hack together a mess that was a hideous mix of vb script, jscript, html and css and in doing so just create some hideous poor performance mess that so other poor sod has to sort out after they move on...

Stick with the standard ASP.NET life-cycle - there has never been anything that has forced me into using a response.write. BTW - I do this for a living - and have been involved in some very major national web projects in the UK.

Yup. And it's funny that often, to really know how styles will be applied to the control, you have to slap it on a page and see what the HTML output is. The documentation is often so poor, that's the only way. Once you're looking at HTML output, you've broken some of the encapsulation provided by ASP.NET.

I certainly agree that the HTML/code mix can turn unmaintainable spaghetti very quickly. Also, it is mixing presentation with behavior, which is a bad thing. But you should not have any tier 2 code in the ASPX/ASCX code-behind, either. It goes in separate files, preferably compiled to a separate DLL, perhaps even deployed to a separate server.

Back to the OP: I still recommend to start with HTML/CSS as the basics, no matter which direction you take later. If you choose to go the route of ASP.NET, you'll need to know HTML/CSS already anyway.

Some of this is a bit funny. It's all on target regarding Frontpage though. Your really way better off staying away from it.

As far as notepad goes it's quick, it's easy, it means you have to actually learn how to do what your trying to do, you already have it, and you can work on the site from any computer anywhere that connects to the internet. Like I said, for a quick site like your synth site with minimal to no database and user interaction it's fine. If you set things up properly and use CSS, includes, etc. you shouldn't be putting much work into each page anyway.

I'm not sure why anyone is even concerned at all with the HTML code that .NET generates. I found pretty much no reason to ever even look at it. Our warehouses and production systems are entirely real-time web based .NET applications running 24x7 with probably 300-400 different web pages accessing 40GBs of databases from desktops and various wireless devices supporting IE. I think we have looked at the HTML code maybe twice in 3 years.

This is SOOOOOO true it's not even funny. It's really difficult to find a web developer that can write actual code. I've gone through several in the last few years and they just create a total mess that takes forever to clean up and fix. Too many jokers that think that since they can write a little HTML they are a web developer. And then they all want to use some lame wacked out shareware of freeware piece of crap editor and then act confused when the site gets f'ed up even more. You then have to have the 'you're a dumbass and should have used the normal fricken' tools' conversation.

Someone throw a bucket of water on this topic for me. I use Front Page for all my sites. Why? Because all I want is to make a good-looking page with my info and links and it does the job.

Every time I try another package, like the ones mentioned in this thread, I'm left with a feeling that now: Not only do I have to come up with a design and content, but I have to be a coder just to tweak the UI. All I need is text, pictures, and links and I don't want to learn a language just to do what I already can do. Am I missing an opportunity?

Originally posted by Umbra This is SOOOOOO true it's not even funny. It's really difficult to find a web developer that can write actual code. I've gone through several in the last few years and they just create a total mess that takes forever to clean up and fix. Too many jokers that think that since they can write a little HTML they are a web developer. And then they all want to use some lame wacked out shareware of freeware piece of crap editor and then act confused when the site gets f'ed up even more. You then have to have the 'you're a dumbass and should have used the normal fricken' tools' conversation.

Where it gets worse is when your one of the Architectural, performance and .NET coding best practise people who gets called in at huge expense to do design reviews and suggest ways of improving maintainablity, performance etc, but you not actually allowed to suggest the *right* thing to do - ie scrap the f***** thing and get some proper devs to do job

This is exactly what I'm talking about. Paolo has a site with text, images, and some mp3s. Why does he need .net or Dreamweaver, or some other environment for that?

To me its like he's saying, "I have some files on a disk and I want a better way to keep track of them." - and the reply is, "I laugh every time I hear someone say they don't have an n-tier storage system with cluster servers and redundant failover."

Well, the Q was asked on a board frequented by professional developers. What did you expect us to say?

Originally posted by XorAxAx Well, the Q was asked on a board frequented by professional developers. What did you expect us to say?

The answer to this, hopefully: "Paolo has a site with text, images, and some mp3s. Why does he need .net or Dreamweaver, or some other environment for that?"

And if everyone's a professional developer, why isn't anyone helping me with the EWP site!?

BTW, a neat story from years ago. One afternoon, my manager approached me with a user's request to create an identical folder hierarchy on a share for each property our company operated (about 10,000 at the time). I was really busy at the time, so I threw together some quick thing with Access. It took about an hour to get the folders out on the share. I called it done and moved on.

1.25 years, 5 rewrites, and 3 product name changes later, I delivered a 3-tier, security-enabled, WAN-accessible document management system. Redundant failover, disaster recovery, you name it.

Lesson: If the requirements seem trivial, make sure you've done enough analysis. Chances are you need more than you think you need.

Originally posted by Allerian And if everyone's a professional developer, why isn't anyone helping me with the EWP site!?

$$$?

Originally posted by XorAxAx $$$?

And with that said... I think we just learned why people use FP.

Hey, what's that over there!?

(*scurries away unnoticed*)

Originally posted by Yoozer Exactly. The reason that Notepad was worshipped was that it proved your code was hand-coded as opposed to dragged together by a WYSIWYG editor; in 1998 or so the proof that you knew HTML and not just clicking somewhere . This was in 1998; most good editors nowadays should offer the preview/drag & drop as a courtesy instead.

For people using windows habitually. The rest of us wouldn't even think of using notepad.

B>

hey guys - thank you for the replies.

I read a few books on FrontPage and while I'm proficient with that platform, to me it looks like the way to go is CSS. With CSS should be easy to make changes to the whole site without having to re-write a page at the time (and since synthmania has grown very large now, it would be a pain).

I realize that the design of my site leaves to be desired. It's very "late nineties"

I see that the trend now is the metal grey, very polished, the boxes with angles smoothed out, and a general trend toward websites being more like A BLOG than an old-school website.

VERDANA also seems be losing ground in favor of ARIAL?

I would like to design my site similarly to these sites that I like the look of:

http://www.apple.com

http://www.blogger.com

and MOST OF ALL, I REALLY, REALLY like the new Yahoo site:

http://www.yahoo.com

What program can I use that will give me the capabilities to do something similar to Yahoo?? Should I wait for Microsoft Expression to come out? Or is it wordpress or other software I should look into?

I have a lot to learn... thank you all!!

RIGHT !!!

He doesn't; he's got his stuff hard-coded now. Every page is an unique instance. If SynthMania's logo will suddenly change (for whatever reason) he'll have to track down at least 200 pages or so and change everything MANUALLY.

For sites that aim to be a compendium of sorts, that's insane. Thing is, once something like this gets bigger than a certain size it's better to approach the problem in a programmer's fashion, not as just a hobby project of sorts.

They make writing code easier. Frontpage will spew out tags; those are deprecated. To illustrate this:

You're reading a newspaper. How do you, as a human being, see that something is a headline? Simple; it's huge text. It jumps at you. You know that huge text = important = therefore headline.

A computer is, in that aspect, blind. It can't do anything with the idea of big fonts; it won't see 'm. So, you've got a

tag which tells you that the text between the tag is a headline. If you want to see how computers perceive your site, download the Lynx browser and see what you're missing. Google, Yahoo, etc - they all "see" your website like that. No colors, no bold, no big fonts, no pictures - so you have to provide something like that yourself.

It's more like this; imagine you're working on a new PC where the installed DOS version is so primitive it doesn't even understand the concept of folders. Every file has to have an unique name. Worse, you only have 8 letters.

Everyone with Windows 95 would laugh at that, because that computer would still be capable of running Windows 95 - but it'd be so much easier to work with once you got over your fear of the new interface .

That's only part of what you could do .

You know that for every Roland synthesizer there's navigation on the side that links to all the other Roland synthesizers. It is possible to use a single "navigation" file (commonly called an "include") - one line of code on the page and it gets inserted in the page. New synth? Just make a single page for the new synth itself and add the name and link to the navigation include; all other synths of that brand (which have the same include) will get it instantly, too.

I realize that the design of my site leaves to be desired. It's very "late nineties"

Oh, the design is certainly not the problem. It's easy on the eyes, easy to read, no blinking backgrounds that make you gouge your eyes out, no Javascript that tries to follow your cursor or 20 messageboxes popping up. What you have to change are mainly the semantics (what the text means) and the design (which means with CSS that it can be unified all over the site).

But all those old-school pages on GeoCities were essentially blogs . People didn't know what to put on them most of the time.

I'm personally very charmed by Trebuchet MS, but Verdana is in some cases more readable.

If you have the general template programmed this is no problem.

If you look at the code for Blogger, you will not see any tables used for layout. This is something else that is not easy for most old-school webdesigners: it's not smart to use tables for layout. A table should only contain tabular data (for the list of patches you have, it's excellent though!). It only appears when the complete table has finished downloading. The only reason companies keep it in there is for backwards compatibility.

No program comes with those things preinstalled; not PHP, not .Net. You have to break down the page of Yahoo in concepts to figure out what has happened. You're also going to need a graphic design for it.

The real-time switching of tabs is very clever. Took me a while to get that emulated. Disable your Javascript and it'll try to find a way around it - even more clever.

Components like that - well - you've got Javascript APIs but they still expect you to be a programmer and they still expect you to do all the design. All pieces of JS floating around on the 'net are most of the time useless, outdated turds in a sewer; the truly useful gems are hard to find and usually hand-crafted.

As I said; first try to make a concept of what you want your site to be.

You've got an archive of synthesizers. Every synthesizer can be described with properties. There's no ready-made archiving system for that; you'll have to make your own database structure. When you get the hang of it, things get really simple in that regard.

Then you want to simply muse about your synthesizers or post news articles about them; new synth added, new pictures added, new demo added. This is stuff you write yourself. A system like Wordpress (or any other piece of blog-software) can handle this for you.

What would you want to do besides that?

So, you could have one database (that's all you're going to need). It contains all the tables (a table is a set of data with similar properties). You can put the synth data and the news data in a single database.

You can practice this in Excel if you want: simply make a bunch of columns, like:

"Polyphony" (1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 8, etc.)

"SynthMethod" (FM, virtual analog, analog subtractive)

"LFO"

"LFOWaveForm" (see FilterType)

"FilterType" (1, 2, 3, 4 where the numbers stand for an ID number - "None", "Lowpass", "Lowpass and highpass", "Lowpass, Bandpass, Highpass", "Lowpass, Bandpass, Highpass, Bandreject", for instance. You then make another Excel file with 2 colums - one called FilterID and one called FilterName, and then put the descriptions next to the numbers)

Now, it's going to take quite a number of columns to adequately describe a synthesizer. In some cases it might even convince you to put FM synthesizers, sample-playback synthesizers and (virtual) analogs in different Excel files to cut down on the number of columns. This is called "normalizing" the database; you avoid storing duplicate information (and it's what I did with the filtertypes already; instead of putting all the words in a single cell I've "linked" them).

Once you have this structure figured out it's awfully easy to convert it to a table; or to use a database application like phpMyAdmin to accept that Excel file and do something with it.

It's also possible to get a complete CMS like Joomla - but it's hard to write for it (because you have to obey their rules). It also comes with a blogging component and a login-component, but I don't think anyone thought of a synthesizer-component yet .

If you need any help, no problem .

I've used nothing but text editors to design my web pages over the years. In the early days of web browsers you had no other choice.

Every page creation package I tried added stupid complications that drove me nuts.

The (big?) downside of text editors is you have to know how to write HTML code.