DH Templates

What would be the best software solution for a newbie trying to design top class web pages?

I know a bit about HTML and have been reading on CSS and PHP. I want to design my own website, but I don't want it to look like I'm new at web design. Is Dreamweaver a good idea, or should I steer clear of that one for the sake of preserving my sanity? I want to be able to drag and drop, create my own templates and layouts and generate the necessary code. Money is not a limiting factor. No matter how much I spend, I want to be happy about my investment when it's all said and done. I'd basically like to create with ease at my skill level and learn new things at the same time.

Public Comments

1. I guess you could try dreamweaver, or Microsoft's new program ( i forgot what it is called).
2. To be honest you can't go wrong with Dreamweaver, it can go from complete newbie WYSIWYG right thought to high end web applications Integrated with PHP SQL ASP etc... If your going to but a piece of software, start with the best, learn it and stick with it.
3. Dreamweaver is probably your best solution for drag and drop web sites with any decent complexity. PHP is the way to fly for complex web sites that are very fast and bandwidth friendly but that requires a fair amount of coding experience.
4. First off, lose the "drag and drop" mentality if you want to create *real* webpages. Dreamweaver is fine if you use it as a text editor, and not as a WYSIWYG editor. There is no WYSIWYG editor that can compete with hand-coding. So any text editor (including Dreamweaver) is the only software you need to make stellar sites. Now if you just want to make "okay" sites then you can use the WYSIWYG features in Dreamweaver. You'll be mad at yourself later if you ever get serious into web development if you go the WYSIWYG route. Matt @ www.mattcoddington.com
5. Learning to code and learning to design are two completely different things. I code well. My designs, unless it is something relatively simple, are pretty sucky. Having said that, you might do well to see what other people have done. There are some great websites out there which offer a variety of interface designs, some of which are slick and others of which are less so. All of the designs are customizable to your specific needs, assuming you know a little about HTML and CSS. The people who typically contribute their designs for such projects are big believers in open-source software. I'm sure there are others, but I'd recommend checking out the following for starters: http://www.oswd.org I hope this helps.