Web Publishing Tools

[johnnyone1]

Hi all,

I’m trying to figure out which would be the best Web publishing tools for me to purchase.

I have not created a website in the past, but I do have a background in computer print production – Quark, Illustrator, Pagemaker, and a little Photoshop. I haven’t been in that business or anything related to it for almost ten years.

I am pretty intuitive when it comes to learning new things.

I have done some research and have come up with -- Dreamweaver, Frontpage, and Namo Web Editor.
I have read that:
-- Dreamweaver is the best but it has a pretty steep learning curve.
-- Frontpage has been replaced by two products:
> Sharepoint Designer which is aimed at the professional webmaster
> Expression Web for the layman.
-- Namo Web Editor is, again, more for the layman.

The kind of websites I’m looking at creating are:
-- a Utube type site
-- a TERB type site ( but on an totally different subject)
-- an Amazon type site
-- or maybe a combo of all three of the above

What considerations do I have to give to hardware?

p.s. I really know nothing about this subject. Am I being naïve?

Thanks for any advice.

 

[Kyra.Graves]

My thoughts and I'm not a professional in this.
Dreamweaver is a great program and personally I've found it pretty easy to use, the tutorial is easy to follow and will give you enough skills to find your way around and experiment a little.

As far as the sites you're looking to build the difficult part isn't the front end site but the backend programming. At a minimum each of those sites has a searchable database that from my point of view would be next to impossible to build if you haven't experience in it.
There are a lot of basic programs out there that you can buy and then customize (shopping cart programs, forums, etc.) but for something custom to your needs you are talking about a pretty complex site.

If you haven't looked at these yet I'd suggest some reading, I haven't reviewed them all but rather just did a search on some available forums, shopping cart programs and one on video hosting.

http://forum.vbulletinsetup.com/
http://www.proboards.com/signup.cgi
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shopping_cart_software
http://www.wikihow.com/Build-a-Video-Hosting-Site-on-Your-Windows-2003-Server
http://www.shopping-cart-review.toptenreviews.com/
http://www.ecommercetemplates.com/

Good luck!

 

[johnnyone1]

Thanks Kyra, I'll check those links out.

 

[vavog]

Dreamweaver all the way!

 

[Anynym]

You talk about website creation, but you'll also want to look into web Content Management Systems. Popular choices include Drupal, Joomla!, and PHP-Nuke. Most of the available choices allow you to integrate a commenting system (such as vBulletin), as well as other popular features.

 

[erotix]

This site seems to be on the sam platform as bisexual.com so if you wanted to do a site like this, finding out who has the software might be helpful.

Some platform don;t take adult content.

 

[johnnyone1]

This site seems to be on the sam platform as bisexual.com so if you wanted to do a site like this, finding out who has the software might be helpful.

Some platform don;t take adult content.

Thanks -- It would not be an "adult content" site

 

[Kyra.Graves]

This site seems to be on the sam platform as bisexual.com so if you wanted to do a site like this, finding out who has the software might be helpful.

At the bottom of the page you'll see "terb is powered by vbulletin", the link is posted above.

A good rule of thumb is to find several sites that you like and see what they are using, and search it too see if the site building tools are listed (like the vbulletin notice at the bottom of the page). Large corporate sites like Youtube, Amazon, etc. are going to have proprietary software which depending on the size and complexity of what you are doing will cost 10k and upwards.
I am assuming you are hoping to do this relatively inexpensively so try searching charity, small retail or community interest sites to see what you do and don't like. Make a list of what you'll need and start searching for some pre-existing tools to assemble the site.

Anynym had a great suggestion about using a CMS (content Management System), many are as easy to use as Word and can get you started on a basic site.
If you are hoping to combine different elements make sure that they are all compatible before purchasing, it's very frustrating to have a bunch of puzzle peices that won't fit together.

 

[johnnyone1]

Thanks to everyone for all your tips and comments so far.

All very interesting and valuable information.

Anything else I need to know?

Cheers -- johnny

 

[tboy]

I just started producing my own website and for the record, whoever designed this system ought to have their head examined. Dreamweaver is INSANELY difficult compared to just about any other design software. I mean, it took me 12 hrs to produce 2 pages using dreamweaver and it would have taken me 20 minutes using word/coreldraw or any other application.

I understand the why, (because whatever you do has to be "read" by many browsers) but man, all I wanted to do was drop in some photos with text underneath each. Different categories on different pages. Not that complicated but to do even that.....whoa.

 

[vavog]

Dreamweaver is indeed a complicated yet powerful tool. Its not for the faint of heart (much like Photoshop for graphics.. 1001 features)

 

[johnnyone1]

Thanks tboy and vavog, you guys are scaring me.

Seriously though, as I said, I do have a background using print production tools so I should be ok.