Graphical Html Editors. Are they worth it?

So, I'm getting into web design more and more now, and am thinking about investing in a graphical HTML/CSS editor. I'm thinking that it would allow me to to be more of an artist and would let me be able to control more of what I see, rather then coding it all out by hand. I was thinking of either Deamweaver or Frontpage. Has anyone used these programs or has any experience with any other programs? I was looking at some other freeware programs that seem to not offer as many features.Any help is appreciated to help me decide.Thanks!

Well if you mean a WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get editor) then Dreamweaver 8 is outstanding. For actual coding... Dreamweaver 8 is outstanding haha. Really though, Dreamweaver 8 is both a WYSIWYG and coding editor. Plus it has an FTP and everything. Best program on the market i believe. Comes with a price, but you can use the free trial to see if you at least like it. The trial is the real product for 30 days.

What ever you do, don't get Frontpage. Ever. Dreamweaver is good, most likely the best on the market although it is quite expensive. I have moved away from graphical editors, as I can make much better websites when I code it by hand.

I agree with above, dont ever get frontpage, i was making a website with frames by hand coding in notepad but i needed to align something using css and instead of guessing the number of pixels i was going to use frontpage to move it and then copy the code it made and use that. The frameset was with a small one at the top and a larger one under that. In frontpage the top frame was on the left of the page... Not impressed. i havent used dreamweaver but i've heard nothing bad about it. I also dont use WYSIWYG editors because their code can be messy and hard to hand edit. i like a good syntax highlighted editor though. If youre looking into making a lot of websites with content and things like javascript etc...then id say use a basic text only editor because it will be a lot simpler, though if you want to purely make website designs rather than actual complicated websites then go with dreamweaver. Frontpage is a disaster.

I'd recomend Macromedia DreamWeaver 8, its is the ost advanced and easy to use Graphical HTML Editor. It has a lot of advanced features and also easy to understand. You can also try Adobe GoLive CS2

Id recommend Dreamweaver 8 as its probably currently the best for web design. But Microsoft's released a new website editor called Expression Web Designer its like dreamweaver and frontpage combined. All i can say i WOW its probably the best piece of software Microsoft has released.

If you plan to purchase html editor then yeah go for Dreamweaver 8, best part no junk code whatsoever.

But Their are some good free ones out there, but of course that is a matter of opinion of which one you should use.

I do recommend 1st page http://www.evrsoft.com/1stpage2.shtml it's free and is standard compliant. Of course it has been a quite a long time since I used it, so I couldn't tell you of any possible junk code that could come from it. Which includes the free javascripts that come pre-installed with it

I highly recommend dreamweaver. It's an outstanding program. And if you're used to any other macromedia programs you'll have no problem picking a new one up.Frontpage is just substandard.

don't use frontpage

DON'T USE FRONTPAGE

DON'T USE FRONTPAGE!

As you know, WSIWYG editors do the coding for you. Unfortunately, whoever designed Frontpage obviously hasn't learnt HTML. Any code generated in Frontpage is optimised for Internet Explorer. In other words, Frontpage is essentially a non-standards compliant html editor compliant with a non-standards compliant browser.

Try the Validators at http://validator.w3.org/ and you will see that virtually no pages created by frontpage will validate. Not even microsoft.com. I tried it.

Ok fine, microsoft.com probablt wasn't built with Frontpage, but it most likely WAS coded by Microsoft. Which brings me to the topic of Expression Web Design. I had a look on their Website. Microsoft claims it is XHTML 1.0 transitional and CSS compliant. But I've known long enough not to trust Microsoft. If anybody gets a copy of it, can they please run a page created by the program through the W3 Validator and post the results here?

That's if anybody buys Expression Web Design. It will set you back at a cool US$249.69 from amazon.com - one of the few official vendors. Which brings me to another thing - do you honestly need all the features in Expression Web Design? If you don't, all you're really doing is weighing down your computer's resources, adding to the mass of Bill Gates' wallet, and making your own lighter.

In conclusion, I agree with everyone else. Get Adobe Dreamweaver. (some people seem to have forgotten that Adobe bought Macromedia). It's been around for much longer. True, it's slightly more expensive that M$ Expression and M$ Frontpage, but it's much more reliable, encodes better, and gives you features you will actually find useful. And the money doesn't go into the pockets of the world's biggest evil corporation.

For HTML editing I will also recommend Dreamweaver, I used this when I'm still learning html until now. It's easier to create webpages especially when you can instantly see what you are working on in Design view, and manually editing codes in Code view. Or you can have both Design and Code views.

the esiest to use is misc frontpage, if you already to learn more you can use dreamweaver + other macromedia soft to make your site more beautiful.

DreamWeaver 8 is a decent WYSIWYG editor, however it does have it's flaws when you use a generated .html file from Photoshop. Photoshop codes everything in MANY tables, which makes editting a tad messy. DW, when you try to edit in the "Design Mode", will break the tables and everything will become a mess.I'd suggest using notepad, and save the file after every change, before uploading it, just look at it from your folder on your computer. Or have it opened already and just refresh after every save.