# GoLive or Dreamweaver?



## RGrphc2 (Dec 17, 2004)

I'm looking to start developing a webpage for my portfolio.  I have an idea of where i want to get hosted at, but i am still looking   

Anyway which program is easier to use Dreamweaver or Adobe's GoLive?  and which one do you prefer.  I already have a copy of Dreamweaver, but haven't played around with it to learn it so to speak  ::ha::


----------



## mdnky (Dec 18, 2004)

If you have to use one of those two, then Dreamweaver is the way to go...especially since you already have a copy.  MX 2004 is the best version to use.  Personally, I usually prefer BBEdit (or similar ones like skedit, jedit, etc.), but that's me.  If you already have a good foundation in HTML/XHTML, why waste the rescources on a more complicated program like DW or GoLive?


----------



## andehlu (Dec 20, 2004)

mdnky is right. I use Dreamweaver when I have to. For PHP or anything other than html i use BBedit. Forget Go-Live, its crap.


----------



## JPigford (Jan 10, 2005)

There are plenty of decent low-cost/free options out there but if you are picking between Dreamweaver and GoLive then Dreamweaver is hands down the way to go.


----------



## wicky (Jan 17, 2005)

Dreamweaver is the industry standard, and is (probably) a more powerful tool for designers with little interest in hand coding (more GUI support for server-side scripting, etc.), but I quite like using GoLive myself.

Can anybody tell me why Adobe ditched the dynamic bindings palette? .... Seems like a rather stupid thing to do!


----------



## jjividen (Jan 31, 2005)

I used GoLive from the beginning and am now only using Dreamweaver. Too many problems with GoLive that even Adobe was not aware of if talking to their technical division is any clue.


----------



## jjividen (Jan 31, 2005)

Lately I have been getting this message..."The desired action could not be completed because an unexpected HTTP error occurred. (HTTP Error 100)."
And also this message.."An error occurred-cannot put index.html."
I am using IDisk (.Mac) and everything worked great until just last month when this started coming up...the strange thing is the updating still seems to work and the webpage has taken the upload. Anyone out there seen this before? Thanks.


----------



## gphillipk (Feb 1, 2005)

andehlu said:
			
		

> mdnky is right. I use Dreamweaver when I have to. For PHP or anything other than html i use BBedit. Forget Go-Live, its crap.


so what's better between DW and FreeWay Pro?


----------



## mdnky (Feb 1, 2005)

Never heard of FreeWay before, but after taking a look at their demo tour on their site, I'd stay away from it.  It's probably not going to create good/clean code, nor will it allow a lot of control over things.  Might be worth $25 or $35 to a novice user for a personal site, but it's not worth $229+ for professional work.

If you have to buy a WYSIWYG cheater program, then stick with Dreamweaver.  Otherwise invest in BBEdit, BBEdit Lite, or skEdit and learn HTML (or better yet, xHtml & CSS).


----------



## Giaguara (Feb 2, 2005)

GoLive all the way.

For everything I need a GUI or am not fast enough with SubEthaEdit


----------



## wicky (Feb 2, 2005)

mdnky said:
			
		

> .... If you have to buy a WYSIWYG cheater program, then stick with Dreamweaver.......



Hmmm, interesting point of view MDNKY (if not a little narrow). Enlighten me, why is a GUI based WYSIWYG app a cheat? 

Do you still do ALL your image based work with a pencil, and your photographic work in a dark room? Or, do you use Photoshop... the king of GUI's?

RGrphc2, it really doesn't matter which application you use, they all have strengths and limitations. WYSIWYG GUI's are a creative shortcut to help you quickly visualise your ideas, but working with code is the only way to ensure the correct funtionality. I suggest that you try them all to find an app that suits your style of working, but remember that this is just the starting point. Code looks pretty daunting when you're not used to it, but the more you familiarize yourself with it the easier it becomes (obviously).

GoLive works very well as a first stage design tool.... Adobe really know what they're doing with interface design. So, if you're just building a static site, and you're already familiar with Adobe's other products, this could be the way to go. On the other hand, Dreamweaver is much more established and has more features for dynamic content. If you intend to employ a database, this will probably be better.

Both programs are very easy to learn, so try them both out. Good luck.


----------



## olreb (Feb 4, 2005)

I have used VI for so long, most people I have run across use DW. GL is to big of a mess for someone starting out.


----------



## DanTekGeek (Feb 4, 2005)

I use sub-etha-edit.
I figure that I learn more by hand codiing everything.


----------



## enforce1 (Mar 6, 2005)

In my experience, GoLive has a particular knack for creating junk code. Thats not to say that most wysiwyg html proggies don't, but GL is _especially good at it_.

That said, I'd use Dreamweaver. Its nice. Thats all 

Also, on the hosting aspect, if you go to www.dreamhost.com, and select the hosting plan that is 120$ (2 gig storage, 120 transfer, or something like that), you can enter the promo code 777 and get 110$ off.... Thats not a type, Its 10 bucks a year for 2 gigs storage and 120g transfer... Its a ridiculously good deal.


----------



## RacerX (Mar 6, 2005)

mdnky said:
			
		

> If you have to buy a WYSIWYG cheater program, then stick with Dreamweaver.


 

I guess Dreamweaver and Golive are cheater programs the same way that Safari, Firefox and most other browsers are cheater programs. _Real_ men create pages in BBEdit or Emacs and view them in Lynx.

And all you cheaters out there using InDesign and QuarkXPress, get with the program! You should be hand coding your page layout in postscript!

 

Anyways, I use GoLive and Create, and any hand coding is done in OmniWeb. A client offered me Dreamweaver but I wasn't all that impressed by it so I declined.


----------



## andehlu (Mar 6, 2005)

RacerX said:
			
		

> _Real_ men create pages in BBEdit or Emacs and view them in Lynx.



HAHAHAH dam straight. I think what mdnky is saying is that when you are designing for other purposes than straight html, apps like bbedit are what you need to use. If you have ever coded larger php applications you will know what I mean. Now and then I open my php files in DW and they totally fall apart.

WYSIWYG isnt cheating... i still use it daily for dynamic template building etc. My only issue with these tools is that I dont trust the code they write. The site I run for work is a complete mess because of older version of DW back to version 4 and interdev. 

A friend of mine who knows nothing of web but tried to pick up DW can up with a good point. He said that its amazing how HTML editors still have a leraning curve to them. He thought that WYSIWYG editors should be built more like a photoshop environment and just pump out the code to standards.... i thought that made sense.


----------



## mdnky (Mar 7, 2005)

Don't forgot about PICO 

If you're doing PHP, BBEdit (or similar) is definitely a much needed app.  

What I was referring to as 'cheating' (cheater program) has to deal with programs for people to code a page with absolutely no idea what HTML is, can do, or should do.  

Cheating in a nutshell can be defined as trying to pass off knowledge on a subject without having any/much actual knowledge on that subject.  When you cheated on a test in school, you were doing such.  Same with some (notice I didn't say all) uses of certain HTML programs (DW, GL, FP, etc.).  Cheating definition 

DreamWeaver can be useful, there's no doubt about that.  However, you'd be surprised just how much more efficient hand-coding in a lightweight app can be.  It's also a lot cheaper.  When you're trying to learn something you need to know the basics first, before you can learn the more advanced features.


----------



## wicky (Mar 7, 2005)

Yawwwwn. It's a bit dull this isn't it?

Look, the term cheating is both derogatory and pretty insulting to the people who use those mentioned apps, which ever way you cut it. It may be just semantics, but the way that you have phrased your point is very elitest.

You're making the assumption that anybody who uses WYSIWYG apps has little or no understanding of the underlying code. You're also assuming that the role of design and development are not mutually independent. I think you are wrong on both counts.

Yes, lightweight, well constructed code is preferable. I don't believe anybody would suggest otherwise. However, there is such thing as "fit for purpose".

WYSIWYG apps offer a very efficient way to demonstrate a design idea to a client, especially one who is incapable of making the conceptual leap that would be required in order to understand simple functionality when presented with screen shots. In a fast paced design studio, where designs must be signed off by the client after each critical stage of development, GoLive and Dreamweaver are invaluable tools. Likewise, for designers who are migrating from print to web design, these tools are great to see immediate results and encourage further learning.

I don't know about your clients, but I know that the majority of mine have no understanding of HTML, and even less interest in it. What they often want is simple brochure style websites.... yesterday. WYSIWYG apps are a perfect way to deliver this.

Your argument is purely a geeky one..... is clean code better than WYSIWYG generated code. Yes, of course it is! This, however, does not mean that all other approaches are cheating. Design is about creation, and all of the tools and techniques are as valid as one another in order to achieve the end result.


----------



## marbiol (Mar 7, 2005)

Just wanted to ask a few questions -

mdnky - are you one of those guys who would rather write raw postscript than use a dtp program? Why get mad with people who want to be able to create sites without having to wade through the code to get them to look right?

When you dismissed Freeway as producing worse code than dreamweaver and golive, did you bothe rto check any of the reviews, or even download a trial and look at the code yourself?

If you had, you'd find that the code is actually (and this is the opinion of *most* of the raw coders who've looked at it) the cleanest artificially generated code around...

But I'm not going to try to convince you - I'll leave you to continue talking your mouth off about things you haven't bothered to research. I'm not writing this to offend you - just to make the point that you should think before you type...


----------



## Travis86 (Mar 18, 2005)

I hate to interrupt all of you real men...

I finally got around to posting my review of GoLive. I really didn't like GoLive, and I list all of the things I found wrong with it. I really like Dreamweaver. 

The page is at TravisDart.com/golive.

Also, I believe that both of these programs are available as demos.

Hope that helps. 
And to all of you GoLive lovers: don't flame me.


----------



## wicky (Mar 18, 2005)

Travis, my argument isn't that I think one tool is better than another, but that I feel that the term cheating is an inappropriate way to describe the process of using these tools to create. 

I think that using tools that work for the job in-hand is OK, whatever the tools are. Personally, I generally use GoLive for simple, effective, cross media publishing (largely due to the fact that I use all of the other CS tools, and it integrates very well with VersionCue), but I don't claim it's flawless by any means. The decision to remove the dynamic bindings palette is still confusing me! Why Adobe, why?

I had a very quick look at your review of GL, and it seems to me that you have probably got quite a lot of experience with DW, and very little with GL. Is that correct? I only say this, because many of the points that you have made are actually incorrect. DW and GL are different packages developed by different vendors, and as such they behave quite differently. Your review reads more like a comparison of the 2 packages side by side, with DW being the standard which GL should echo. You're bound to be disappointed if this is the way that you measure GL's worth.

I appreciate that if you are used to DW, the GL interface and workflow can be quite confusing, but that doesn't mean that it is inferior (for appropriate work). Exactly the same problems are often experienced by people migrating from DW to GL.

I'm not going to go through your whole review, but at a cursory glance.........

1. Perhaps this is a workflow thing, but I define the colour palette at the design stage (to be signed off by the client), before actually starting the build. The colour palette that I choose is all available "directly" in the CSS editor.

2. The CSS editor can be accessed by one click on the top right icon of ANY open page.

3. I use Safari, and the CSS look/feel are fairly consistent with how they appear in GoLive. This is not true of IE, but that's the difference in web browsers rather than bad CSS handling in GL. 

4. I usually define text size as pixels in CSS, and this has NO affect on the measurements of tables, etc., for which i often use percentage.

5. Remove colour is referred to as "unchanged", and seems to work ok for me.

6. The CSS editor isn't a 50/50 split as you have described it. The right pain is a fixed size and the left pain resizes, probably to accommodate longer descriptions.

7. etc., etc.

Cheers guy, I hope that helps


----------



## TangentIdea (Mar 30, 2005)

If you're new to web design, I'd recommend starting with Nvu (from Mozilla) and then start looking at DreamWeaver/GoLive once you have a better idea of what you're doing. I've used Nvu for years, and I always recommend it to newbies, because of it's power and ease of use, and the fact that it is free.  You can get it at www.nvu.com

I would steer you away from DreamWeaver. I have DreamWeaver MX, and it's really quite awful. Very very powerful, but rather unpredictable and very unstable. I can't comment from experience on GoLive's advantages, but from what I've heard from Mac-using colleages, it's much more Mac-friendly and intuitive than DreamWeaver.

Furthermore, Macromedia customer support ticked me off so bad that I will not be doing business with them for a very, very long time. Long story short: I found a bug -- confirmed by other users -- that brought a project to a screeching halt; I absolutely could not get around this bug, and I absolutely had to get this function done. Macromedia refused to even comment on it, even when I explained that I was following manual directions exactly and this bug was even acknowledged by other users and Macromedia associates. That was, unless I paid $49 first. I decided, forget it, I'll learn the PHP code myself.

That said, DreamWeaver is good if you are already well acquainted with HTML and server scripting code. I would not recommend it to a beginner, however.


----------

