Website Design Software
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David
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February 20th, 2012
Website design software comes in a variety of flavors. There is software for people that are new to web design all the way to advanced applications that allow you to create elaborate websites.
What works for you may not for work for the next guy. Case in point, I use Microsoft FrontPage but there are people that don't like it because it adds certain un-needed code among other things. What I'll do is cover some of the more popular options and let you research each of them to see what works best for you.
Coffee Cup HTML Editor
Coffee Cup is a popular option because of it's ease of use. They actually offer a free 30 day trial so it doesn't hurt to start hear because the other options that I mention don't offer free trials.
The great thing about Coffee Cup is that they offer a large selection of website related tools so as your needs grow you can add new features plus they just released their 2008 version. With the other software that they offer you can easily add video, music players, Flash among other things to your website easily because they make sure that the add-ons easily integrate with their Coffee Cup HTML editor.
Microsoft FrontPage HTML Editor
Many years ago Microsoft released FrontPage as an HTML editor and did a great job to make it easy to use because of it's similarities to Microsoft Word. It became one of the most popular website design options and you can find about anything that you need for FrontPage in regards to templates, scripts, etc.
Last year Microsoft notified the community that it won't be coming out with a new version of FrontPage and it released Microsoft Expression. I still use FrontPage to this day but you may consider taking a look at Expression if you're interested in keeping up with the latest releases that Microsoft still supports.
Adobe Dreamweaver
For many people Adobe Dreamweaver is the way to go. Certain functions such as scripting, built in CSS features, form creators along with a built in FTP client make Dreamweaver the leader in HTML editors.
The other great thing is that if you intend on learning Flash or using the database Coldfusion, Dreamweaver is integrated with those programs because they are all Adobe products. This makes developing a dynamic and visually appealing site very easy to do.
The drawback is that Adobe Dreamweaver isn't very affordable for someone that's just starting a website but if you're wanting to start with the best, Dreamweaver may be worth the cost because learning it after you learn another HTML editor may be though.
Webmaster Forum
I invite you to visit my webmaster forum, it's a great place to discuss websites and ask questions to fellow webmasters regarding topics that you may still have questions on.