Hi all

 

I wanted to start this thread to get some advice and to see if anyone use's dreamweaver as a WYSIWYG and WHY!!

 

The thing is, my director is very much stuck in the old days of using tables for layout and has very little or no knowledge whatsoever of all the latest trends like CSS3, HTML5 and jquery(to name a few)

 

She will only use dreamweaver in design mode(WYSIWYG) and has even insulted me by asking if i will learn how to use the css panel in dreamweaver to speed me up!

 

To top it off - she will only use Fireworks CS3 for her layouts and has never even touched Photoshop for anything saying it seems such a long way around things.

 

Now, i question anyone's commitment to this industry if they can't even be bothered to learn the industries standard design tool and that viewing page layouts in a WYSIWYG mode in DW is a big no no!

 

I am getting very frustrated with her and feel that i can no longer work there. I have worked hard over the last fours years learning web design the right way with usability and accessibility in mind - again something she has no idea about. And she has no intention of learning anything either!

 

So my question(s) after such a long moan.....is how do i get it through to her and waht are the true pros and cons of dreamweaver?

 

And does anyone know of a good design agency anywhere in Essex?

 

- neil

Fireworks is more of a web development tool than Photoshop is - FW was created specifically for web development whereas PS has it's roots in graphic/print design with a few bolt-on features to make web friendly output.

 

She does seem stuck in the past with her general non-standards approach though. In fact I'd go as far as to say that Dreamweaver is no longer the "standard" tool - look at any Mac based web dev studio, they're probably more likely to use the likes of Coda or Textmate?

 

Someone like this is probably never going to chnage their mind - I think jumping ship is the way to go

I use dreamweaver all of the time, but only in code view. I like the way it changes the colours for you and has an auto tag closure which is helpful. The design view is terrible though I have to say, it can be very misleading and confuse people who are new to this.

To top it off - she will only use Fireworks CS3 for her layouts and has never even touched Photoshop for anything saying it seems such a long way around things.

 

Now, i question anyone's commitment to this industry if they can't even be bothered to learn the industries standard design tool and that viewing page layouts in a WYSIWYG mode in DW is a big no no!

 

These two points are absolutely not true. They've already been touched on but in no way is Photoshop & DreamWeaver the 'industry standard' for web design.

 

Use whatever works for you. For me it is a Mac, Coda, Photoshop, Illustrator, Terminal, and Chrome. I don't expect everybody to do things like I do.

These two points are absolutely not true. They've already been touched on but in no way is Photoshop & DreamWeaver the 'industry standard' for web design.

 

Use whatever works for you. For me it is a Mac, Coda, Photoshop, Illustrator, Terminal, and Chrome. I don't expect everybody to do things like I do.

 

 

I appreciate your reply(s)and i don't wanna get into an argument, but Photoshop IS the industry standard for web design because it is used more than any other software. Fireworks is considered it's sister? But each to there own. I actually wrote a tutorial on Firework CS4 in the web designer mag - issue 161. So i am not completely against using it.

 

I also know Dreamweaver is somewhat avoided by a lot of professionals with coda, textmate and textedit being the favorites. I knew this and told her that, but it fell on deaf ears as usual.

 

I arrived at this company just under a year ago hoping that i would be looking up to people and learning from them. But between six of us, i am actually the most knowledgeable designer there!(not blowing my own trumpet)....and i still get paid a juniors wage!

 

Okay! I wont flog a dead horse anymore.....time to move on i suppose......

I arrived at this company just under a year ago hoping that i would be looking up to people and learning from them. But between six of us, i am actually the most knowledgeable designer there!(not blowing my own trumpet)....and i still get paid a juniors wage!

I really sympathise with you situation, I'd personally hate to be in that position in any company. If possible, you should review your current situation and considered taking the freelance approach or starting a new company in the same field. I highly doubt that you are gaining anything from working under people like this, and it is most likely limiting you from develop your own abilities further. A company like the one you are in will most likely linger until it's finally out-shined by competition and the probably shut down. Leaving you in a not so brilliant situation, and with a lower skill set than you may of otherwise had.

 

Anyway... back to the main point of this thread.

 

I personally use a number of different applications for coding sites up, most recently NetBeans IDE. Not a big fan of Dreamweaver, in my experience it can cause numerous problems in it's path, although admittedly this is what I used years ago when I first started designing websites.

 

The reason I used to use it was simply because it was a WYSIWYG editor... I had absolutely no idea what I was really doing, I just clicked buttons and stuff happened. I'm sure there are some great designers out there that use Dreamweaver, but in my opinion there are better alternatives to choose from.

 

I've heard great things about Fireworks recently, Adobe must have been feeding it steroids since I last used it back in Macromedia days. I personally use a combination of Photoshop & Illustrator, due to simple fact that they can output a site perfectly for me, plus I can do all my photoediting and create vector illustrations at the same time.

 

I've nothing against Fireworks or Dreamweaver, but until somebody shows me a major advantage of using them over what I use now, I think I'll stick to my current combo.

Hey there.

 

I use Dreamweaver, Fireworks and Photoshop. Yes to some it probably seems very basic. But apart from Flash, what can't I create or edit easily and quickly?

 

@BlueDreamer is absolutely correct with what he says about Fireworks being a web development tool. I always think how historic it is but for web design and creating vectors it works incredibly simple and effective.

 

Also Dreamweaver isn't a bad little program at all. In code mode it color patterns it, making it easy to understand and it also auto suggests code for you which is very useful if you can't always remember every single CSS, PHP or HTML code snippet.

 

Hope this helps and regardless of what happens I feel saddened about your situation. Can't be easy.