Free Web design software

redsnappa

redsnappa

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I'm in the process of creating my website and I found a great piece of web design software. Its called Expression Web and is available free from the Microsoft website.

http://www.microsoft.com/expression/eng/
 
Just install Wordpress and let that do all the heavy lifting...
 
redsnappa said:
I'm in the process of creating my website and I found a great piece of web design software. Its called Expression Web and is available free from the Microsoft website. http://www.microsoft.com/expression/eng/
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I would avoid. MS are not known for making the best and most open web development tools that they stick with!

As suggested, look at one of the Content Management Systems such as Wordpress, Joomla or Drupal. Alternatively, it is is a photography site, look at Zenfolio or SmugMug.
 
Actually do take a look!

We have just switched from Joomla to Dot Net Nuke which is a windows based CMS system. We use the free community edition.

We were really interested in Orchard which is from Microsoft themselves.

Then there is Umbraco and sitefinity.

You can be blinkered and stick to pho stuff or expand your horizons and not limit yourself. Look at everything and make an informed decision.

Windows hosting is making a lot of headway against Linux based hosting. The top end sites are often aspx, it is now the smaller sites that have traditionally been php are investigating aspx as an alternative.
 
This software is aimed at those who do not need templates to build their website and also those who do not want to use CMS systems like wordpress & joomla because of their long history of security problems.
 
redsnappa said:
This software is aimed at those who do not need templates to build their website and also those who do not want to use CMS systems like wordpress & joomla because of their long history of security problems.
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Which is great if you're genuinely a talented programmer.

But for ordinary mortals, I'd rather rely on Wordpress closing security flaws than have to do it myself.

And I always thought that if you're a genuinely talented programmer you only need Notepad to build a site?
 
Phil V said:
I always thought that if you're a genuinely talented programmer you only need Notepad to build a site?
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True, though there are other text editors that are better suited to the task - I've stuck with BBEdit as my weapon of choice for most of the last 20 years. :)
 
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I always thought that if you're a genuinely talented programmer you only need Notepad to build a site?
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I know, I've seen websites built using only using notepad and I do not want my site looking like that.
 
Notepad? coda2? pfff... There is only one edit program: emacs - the one editor to rule them all.....

I have built websites from scratch, I have built them from code generation tools such as Dreamweaver and I have built them from Wordpress. Wordpress is the only way to go if you value your sanity.
 
arad85 said:
Notepad? coda2? pfff... There is only one edit program: emacs - the one editor to rule them all.....

I have built websites from scratch, I have built them from code generation tools such as Dreamweaver and I have built them from Wordpress. Wordpress is the only way to go if you value your sanity.
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Not strictly true. Joomla is a great cms also. Koken is another good alternative if you don't want to mess too much
 
What you use will depend on the complexity of the site.

Wordpress is king of the brochure site, but as the site gets complicated Wordpress starts getting harder to work with. This is where Joomla comes in and others
 
OK... what I meant when I said "Wordpress is the only way to go" is "An appropriate CMS is the only way to go"....

Haven't you lot heard of do as I mean, not as I say :D
 
It's not what you got, it's what you do with it.

I read the page linked in the OP and it made 0 sense to me. A quick Google shows some nice templates available to use with Expression Web.

All of these tools are manipulating the same technologies that the rest of the web is built on. Past experience has found that apps that make it easy to produce pretty websites still mean lots of getting your hands dirty to either make the do what you want them to do or produce SEO friendly content.

I used to be a .NET developer/integrator and it's powerful stuff. It makes more sense of web applications with teams of multiple developers/designers. It's clear that Microsoft are vying for smaller businesses and home developers. Makes for an interesting space to watch just now.
 
You could use web editing software to edit your wordpress template so it does not look the same as the thousands of other sites that use the same template.
 
redsnappa said:
I know, I've seen websites built using only using notepad and I do not want my site looking like that.
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Don't think you understand how the internet works :p

Using a visual editor doesn't change the design you produce....it usually produces less efficient and maintainable code though. All the biggest and most popular websites will have been crafted in a text editor.
 
Don't think you understand how the internet works
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Your right, then again I don't think very many people do.
 
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