ChadR — Tue, 03 Apr 2007 11:44:21 +0000

Greg,

Dreamweaver actually puts in a lot of proper code. For example Line Breaks are exited not which is bad. There is a DOC type put in the header automatically at the start of every page. You can choose between Code, Visual or Split, so you can do whatever you like. If you are just starting off though and you don't know HTML I would highly recommend you use Contribute before Dreamweaver as Dreamweaver will have a lot of extras you won't be using. I have found that Contribute is easier for beginners too. The Only down side is it's not really made to "Create" webpages.

greg — Mon, 02 Apr 2007 15:38:57 +0000

there's some good advice here, thanks!

i was under the impression that Dreamweaver created too much code and have heard other bad things about it too.
ok, someone with no web coding skills whatsoever can pick it up and make a fantastic looking website
but i understood that its far better to code your own pages for better SEO and faster loading pages, and that Dreamweaver should be avoided?

hmm?

timjpriebe — Mon, 02 Apr 2007 13:45:24 +0000

Hey, that's my favorite combination too, jesse1! It takes some time to learn and get used to that setup, especially if you're new to PHP and/or CSS, but it's worth it in the long run.

jesse1 — Mon, 02 Apr 2007 13:11:52 +0000

My favorite combination currently is Dreamweaver PHP DWT templates, and CSS.

This allows you to create highly flexible websites (especially using external CSS sheets) and also allows you to add in neat dynamic coding effects such as random quotes, php script for time, date etc and even database queries, adding info to database, modifying database etc...

I think it is a valid question as to whether dynamic generated db pages rank well in the search engines but from all appearances the major search engines index these pages like any other now.

You will probably have to custom code all of your title tags and may want to pay careful attention to h1 tags.

ChadR — Fri, 30 Mar 2007 12:29:29 +0000

Greg,

I would recommend picking up a book and reading about PHP & MySQL

PHP and MySQL Web Development is an Excellent book.

You can make all your pages in .php without a problem because in order to for the server to read PHP you have to enter php with

<?php
//and exit with
?>

Good Luck in your journeys!

pr0gr4mm3r — Thu, 29 Mar 2007 19:58:13 +0000

You can find a couple drop-down menus at http://www.dynamicdrive.com/style/.

Regarding .php vs .html - you can make all your pages .php, however, it will put a (probably negligible) higher load on the server because it runs the file through the php engine before it sends it to the client. This additional load probably isn't enough to matter though.