Many people are thinking about making their own website, but they often don't know the facts of doing so. On this page I will name most important things you'll have to know before creating your own website. After that I will dicuss some different applications you can use for making websites.

The facts:

• Unless you have a mac with iLife, making your own website takes a lot of time.
• Learning a new application is usually a lot of work, and learning the code language (such as HTML, CSS or JavaScript) to make websites without the need of an application, is often even more work.
• If you're new to making websites, learning how to create one requires more time then actually build one.
• Not being knowledgeable enough with websites and different browsers could lead to errors that seem to be harmless on your own computer, but are actually fatal on other systems.

Frontpage
When you buy Microsoft Office for Windows, you get Frontpage. Most people that are starting to make websites start with this application because they don't know different or they already had it. Frontpage works, but I won't recommend you to use it. When it comes to the source code it's a mess, the "Preview"-button should preview your website like it would in a browser, but it doesn't look even close to that. In addition to all this Frontpage puts emphesis on elements that are better not to use, such as the marquee-element and frames. In this way you have a big chance your website is incompatible with many browsers and/or browserversions.
Rating: *

iWeb
Every new mac comes with iLife, a suite containing many easy-to-use applications. One of these applications is iWeb, a program which allows you to create websites in minutes, with just a few clicks and drag-and-drops. Altough possibilities are limited, the result itself is usually good enough for small websites. But be warned, small website only! Large websites are really slow on the internet since iWeb is not very intelligent in exporting websites. In addition to that, iWeb generates PNG-documents of all images and objects used in your website, a format Microsoft Internet Explorer cannot always read.
Rating: ***

Notepad++
Notepad++ is the better version of Notepad, and for Windows only. It is a great program, because it allows you to be free in whatever you want and it recognizes a dozen of codes and colorizes them if you want. Unfortunately it is no WYSIWYG-application (What You See Is What You Get) so you are completely depending on your knowledge of the source code. You can download Notepad++ free at notepad-plus.sourceforge.net.
Rating: **

Dreamweaver
In the Adobe Creative Suite you have Dreamweaver, before belonging to Macromedia. Dreamweaver is the program for making the most advanced websites, and it is both for beginners and professionals a powerfull tool. Just like Notepad++ it recognizes all elements, attributes, and properties in the source code and colorizes them. The source code and the life preview are working really smooth together and you can split the workflow into half design, half code. Adding JavaScript was never been this easy with Behaviors, but it will also recognize your own scripting. The best of all is that it works great with Fireworks, an application to create images. It is quiet expensive, but if you're considering buying it, I'd sure recommend you doing so.
Rating: *****

GoLive
Adobe GoLive was the webapplication from Adobe when Dreamweaver still was from Macromedia, but they recommend you to use Dreamweaver because it has some great tools that GoLive doesn't have. Such as easy creating Flash buttons, Flash text, and a lot more without the need of being a Flash Expert. In addition to that Dreamweaver is way more stable when it comes to the relation between the source code and the design view. If you're still using GoLive, don't let GoLive do the scripting and coding for you! It creates layout in HTML, the old fashion way. Almost all elements used for this are nominated "depricated" by the W3C. Nevertheless, GoLive is very usefull for making websites because the design workflow shows your website like it would in Internet Explorer, and the preview shows your website like it would in your current browser. You can also convert your website to PDF with a click, and just like Dreamweaver all elements are placed as buttons in the panels around your workflow. If you're a Pro Webdesigner, using GoLive is no problem, but being a beginner it is way better to use Dreamweaver.
Rating: ****
 

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