Confused on Dreamweaver's Usage

Question

I'm not trying to start a war here, I just do not understand
Dreamweaver's reason for being. I came to Dreamweaver through my
update to Creative Suite. How is Dreamweaver different from GoLive?
I've always heard Dreamweaver mentioned in connection with
web site development and have seen may nice sites that were created
with DW. Same for GoLive. While I'm not a heavy web designer, I
like to dabble and have a simple business site and want to put up a
personal site to showcase some personal projects. Maybe the
question I really am asking is: How can DW help me with these
things?
I'm also having trouble getting started with DW. Suggestions
for guided self learning are welcome.

Answer 1

> I'd rather create graphically than hand code where
everything is going to
> go.
This is OK for hobby sites, and with that approach you'll
find no
significant difference between DW and GL, except that in DW
you'll have to
relearn where everything is. But this approach will get you
into dark
alleys and deep holes, from which you will not be able to
extract yourself.
> In between posts, I ordered "DW8: Training From The
Source".
As soon as you get it, put it on the shelf. Don't open it
until you have
spent some time studying and learning HTML and CSS. I'm
serious. Elizabeth
Castro's 6th edition HTML book gets good reviews here, as
does Dan
Cederholm's CSS book, and of course anything by the venerable
Eric Meyer.
> You are implying that DW is better suited to interactive
pages than GL.
> Does
> that sum up the major differences pretty well?
No, that's not what I'm implying. I'm saying that GL has NO
ability to
build server-scripted pages, i.e., pages that access data
online for
ecommerce, or content-management, or mailing lists, or any
application that
requires dynamic content on the page. DW has many such
server-behaviors
built-in, and an extremely robust 3rd-party community of
extension
developers who have built add-ons to enhance such
capabilities.
Murray --- ICQ 71997575
Adobe Community Expert
(If you *MUST* email me, don't LAUGH when you do so!)
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==================
"PghMitch" <[email protected]> wrote in
message
news:[email protected]...
> Thanks for the words of help, Murray. Looks like I've
got some new
> learning to
> do as most of this is unfamiliar to me. My current web
page is static and
> I've
> relied on GL to generate whatever code was required. I
was working on a
> strictly visual approach. Yeah, I admit it, I am lazy
when it come to
> writing
> code: I'd rather create graphically than hand code where
everything is
> going to
> go. I never got much beyond the basic "Hello World" in
various colors,
> fonts
> and sizes on a web page page using note pad. Fluent in
HTML: not hardly.
> Understand what's going on: given enough time, I can
usually figure things
> out.
>
> In between posts, I ordered "DW8: Training From The
Source". I previewed
> a
> few books and this one appealed to me more than the
others. If you have
> any
> other suggestions for books to help with CSS, I'm open
to suggestions.
>
> You are implying that DW is better suited to interactive
pages than GL.
> Does
> that sum up the major differences pretty well?
>