Which Web Design Software

heyal,

my first post so hello everyone!

i've used frontpage in the past and add-on's but now am looking to do biz web sites and wanted to ask which software do you recommend, something easy and with options or features that business sites would benefit from. i'm not sure yet if they will want shopping carts which a lot of ISPs offer but not sure which would be the easiest to use.

i'd like any advice you can offer and also am searching for what the going rates for web design are.

thank you,
sb

Welcome to Dev Shed.

Are you looking for software capable of design view? If so, I would hesitantly say Dreamweaver. Think it's the best for design view web design software.

If you're looking to code it, I would say HTML-Kit (http://www.chami.com). This is my choice for web design software. Lots of options.

As far as going rates.. depends on where you're located... city, state, country. In Florida alone, you can find web designers that go from $40/hr - $250/hr. Depends on the need of the client really. There's not one set price for web designing. If someone wants a 3 page static page with nothing but info, maybe $40 per hour. If they want an ecommerce site with an extensive backend, maybe $200/hour.

Yeah I totally agree, Dreamweaver will probably be your best bet for this. Or you could do what I do and create the site in DW, but use a plain text editor (for example, Notepad) to edit out some of the stuff that DW puts in that you don't really need (what a confusing sentence ).
Hope this is helpful,
Liam.

I would also recommend Dreamweaver not because of the nice design view, but because of the preview hotkeys.

I find design view highly unreliable because a lot of times, In Design View, Firefox, and Internet Explorer, they ALL look different.

Most web design software (with and without design view) have preview hotkeys. That wouldn't be a reason to use Dreamweaver.

But I do agree... Sites look different in different browsers when you create them through design view.

Agree with above comments - reckon Dreamweaver is best bet. Still generates some rubbish, but miles better than Frontpage...
Need to be careful to test for cross browser compliance...

heya,

thanks for the all the replies i appreciate.

well it ended up he just wrote $800 for 2 sites which i thought was low .... but

this is about where im at since post
other problem is i had see suggestions and was trying to find old site and could never get my old office 2k to reinstall so had to install office xp but came up with 2 errors, i tried to load the previous directory that web was stored on things were not loading correctly so i started a new one using the wizard [hard to remember 2k v dont know xp v] was doing fine until i tried to cut and paste the contacts info to separate page list line was there but follow format when adding to it any the hyperlink info there is a property box u fill in and it keeps the email addys but after frustration trying to clear it and with that page i just deleted and started over with new blank web.... well that dayuuuum
box still came up with the info when i was setting contact page on the new pages.

oh forgot to mention that the them template i made previously was listed and used it tho.. confusing anyway

i have less than 24 hrs to get something up on site and am hitting a wall here good thing is neither sites need ecommerce shopping carts so aside from dreamweaver are there different suggestions on a program fast an templates galore?

some suggestions elsewhere said publisher ... of course i dont have that any others?

thank yal so much i am sooo happy i found this forum
ill check back in few for any replies.

sb