Simple web design

[los_design]

A DW template works in exactly the same way as Actinic overall layout

the nav is on the template which is then applied to all pages, thus one change to nav is applied automatically to all pages

A woman after my own heart

You would be amazed how many DW users do not use this function or are aware of its usefulness.

Hi G....I live by DW not I even sleep with it after the inception of CS3

[jont]

nowt wrong with notepad

For partial design snapshots it is my tool of choice

[los_design]

For partial design snapshots it is my tool of choice

I still use it for creating my snippets and similar to you partial designs too.

No intrusion at all with eroneous code at all....

[jont]

Simplicity is all too often over looked in this day and age.

[los_design]

Simplicity is all too often over looked in this day and age.

Observing KISS will keep you and your clients, and their clients sane...

[Big_Dave]

Thanks for the info so far. Some useful comments there. Am I right to be worrying about WC3 conformance? My Actinic site seems to throw up lots of errrors if I use the 'WC3 conformance check' tool but I think most of them are incorrect as its perhaps just Actinics design? (dunno).

Cleaner pages created with FP for example conform better but still have some major errors/warning. Just curious if some of the tools mentioed earlier (DW etc) produce pages that conform to WC3 or am I being overly worried?

When I looked into Serif Webplus and NetObjects they seem to suggest that all output is WC3 compliant and I'm assuming thats gotta be good?

[los_design]

Thanks for the info so far. Some useful comments there. Am I right to be worrying about WC3 conformance? My Actinic site seems to throw up lots of errrors if I use the 'WC3 conformance check' tool but I think most of them are incorrect as its perhaps just Actinics design? (dunno).

Cleaner pages created with FP for example conform better but still have some major errors/warning. Just curious if some of the tools mentioed earlier (DW etc) produce pages that conform to WC3 or am I being overly worried?

When I looked into Serif Webplus and NetObjects they seem to suggest that all output is WC3 compliant and I'm assuming thats gotta be good?

W3C and Actinic do not mix.

You will never get Actinic 100% compliant I am afraid due to some of the coding required for the cart to function. The closest we got it was down to 4 errors.....(only because we stripped almost all actinic out on a bare page )

Regards

[jont]

WYSIWYG editors will comply - so long as you are only adding a fews lines of text and basic images - even then you may need to manually edit the HTML to get level 3 compliance.

The only real way to get full 100% compliance is to type you own code from scratch following their guidelines. Start adding any functionality to the site (Actinic for example) and it will fail at some point.

This issue has been discussed before and it is a balance between what level you can attain and the level of functionality you require.

Swapping to other solutions such as Net Ojects and Serif won't really help things along compared to FP (assuming you have a later copy) .. DreamWeaver is a better step but then again sites can very quickly fail tests for sites created in DW.

[Big_Dave]

I'm more comfortable with FP and have been using it for some time. Its just simple which is what I'm after.

I did notice Microsoft have now ditched frontpage and have brought out something else. 'Expression' is it called?

Maybe thats the route I'll take. I can always download the trial version.

[acompton]

I've used NetObject before and its very good at handling the navigation side of things. It comes with load of templates, and you can make your own. It does allow you to tweak the HTML but its biggest drawback used to be very fixed formats.

If you're managing a content-rich site, perhaps you should be looking at a Content Management System?

Alan Compton
www.greenknightgames.co.uk
Great board games and cards games you won't find in the High Street

[pinbrook]

It comes with load of templates,

There are 2 definitions of template in this thread.

1 is template as i use it within Dreamweaver, this works the same way as the outer layout does in Actinic. Ie you have a master layout, that gets applied to everypage, ie company logo, navigation, footer, and an empty space for the content that will change on every page

2 Template as in predefined design like you would buy from a site like monstertemplate or get free from other sites or built in. Again the similarity to Actinic is actinic template are the themes.

so

DW template = Actinic outer layer
Generic Template = Actinic Theme

[Big_Dave]

Well I may have found what I was looking for. I downloaded the 60 day trial version of Microsofts Expression Web (the replacement for FP). I have to say I'm impressed already and its as close as I'm going to get to DW without buying DW.

The full retail version costs about £200.00 but if you have a registered version of FP you can get Expression Web for about £100.00.

To me it looks and acts like DW. Although I'm sure DW is still king. However Expressions features are impressive and I think it will be a major player and competitor.

Be interested to know if anyone has tried Expression Web yet?

[pinbrook]

FP/expression will always have a market place, due to its price/features/affiliation to Microsoft it will always be an attractive option for home users.

Sadly i don't think it will ever get taken up as the software of choice by professionals as it is far to propriatry and doesn't have the flexibility DW does.

[jont]

Have not tried Expression yet but it has some very good reviews - especially in its handling of CSS and editing it in a WYSIWYG environment.

The main issue would be its lack of integration with Actinic v8 in creating external outer layouts .. but this may not be an issue if for non Actinic sites.

[Big_Dave]

Its not going to work well for Actinic but as a standalone web development tool it looks very very good. One of the main improvements being that its now cross browser friendly where as the old FP tended to favour IE and not much else. I liked the preview options allowing viewing in IE, Netscape, Firefox, Safari etc at various versions and resolutions.

I think it will sit nicely between FP and DW and could become a contender to DW based on price/features etc.