Worth learning how to use dreamweaver?

It's worth learning how to code in HTML and CSS. Dreamweaver is crap. I only use it because of its code hinting option.

If you have want to create high class websites, you'll need to learn HTML, CSS, PHP, mySQL, jQuery, Javascript and some other programming languages to create efficient websites.

I would advise you learn HTML and CSS and then get a program like Notepad++ (which is free). WYSIWYG editors like Dreamweaver produce crappy, bloated code which can bump up page loading times, and this impacts ranking and user experience.

Stick with Wordpress until you can build websites yourself, but even a little HTML knowledge can help you personalise a Wordpress theme.

Hm, I may purchase myself an eBook.

Is HTML5 An updated version of HTML, because thats my themes language...

Thanks, so I take it dreamweaver isn't a very good tool? What about for just simply creating things like personalized opt-in forms etc?

i wouldn't bother tbh, i'd stick with wordpress and if i need to do something i don't know how to, i'd outsource it to someone who does know how to do it quicker than me learning it!

It's a good piece of software for sure, if you need it.

I used to use it years ago, more as an aid towards learning HTML/CSS and so on. Since then I've done everything by hand, usually in Notepad 2 which I love because of its simplicity and excellent syntax highlighting.

You can't really make a comparison between Dreamweaver and Wordpress because they're fundamentally different things. Apples to oranges, really. If you want to run a blog, I think it'd be a bit backwards to attempt that with Dreamweaver, which is really for building static sites. That said, I use Wordpress for publishing convenience and the vast array of available plugins but I customise or create all my themes from scratch to make them look like static sites anyway.

If you're used to publishing with Wordpress, I'd say stick with it. And if you want more flexibility with your layouts/designs, then learn a little HTML and CSS if you haven't already.

Edit: If you can't be bothered with the suggestion of learning HTML and CSS, you might look at TypePad. It's not free though, unfortunately, but reasonably priced, and with it you essentially get most of the power of Wordpress with the convenience of a WYSIWYG theme editor to customise your layouts as you please.

HTML/CSS can be learned in a few weeks from w3schools which is a great resource. I learned by using Dreamweaver like software which hinted at the Syntax and then moved onto Notepad++ when I was 'fluent' with the Syntax of both. HTML5 is yes the 'new' HTML but you're best learning HTML first and then moving onto HTML5. HTML5 just has more design elements to it, but I'm not sure on that one as i've not looked at it yet :L

It really depends on your priorities and where you can get the best ROI. In general, a good WP site using the right theme/framework should be more than enough to produce a great looking website IMHO. If you really want to expand your knowledge then I agree with those who've suggested you learn HTML5 (the newest HTML standard) and CSS. If you are feeling adventerous, go for PHP too.

Regards,
jim

Is it worth it?

Look man years ago before I even decided to get into marketing I KNEW how worth it dreamweaver would be.
I must have learned dreamweaver when I was 18 (29 now) and started making websites for friends around the same time too. If I had NOT known dreamweaver, I would have had to give up a lot of jobs that paid very well for me.

People just knew I knew computers so I just knew I needed to learn it.
Same thing with photoshop. But with photoshop I really know every single angle of how to use it. With dreamweaver I never had to really learn too much in depth just the main things I need for website building. Tables, div tags, floating layers and what not. How to make forms, how to size things with pixels or percents.

If you want my honest opinion LEARN IT. You know why?
The one thing I doubt a lot of people will tell you.

ITS EASY. Once you actually play around with them both for a couple of months you will find yourself feeling MUCH MORE confident. In fact with me it only took a few weeks to get going because I did nothing but watch youtube tutorials.

And am I glad I did. It is NOT as hard as you think. You just need a certain amount of base information to get started. After that everything becomes learn as you go. I suggest you learn both you'll be amazed how happy you are that you did imo. Even when I need to make up advertisements now for my mail marketing business I do it all on photoshop myself. I don't have to communicate with anyone which wastes time in translation, I can imagine an idea in my head and just lay it out. Its really a great feeling. And about wordpress themes and such I personally hate them. You will never find me using a template someone else used and I find most the themes boring to look at and far too commercialized for widespread appeal.

Kinda like lady gaga which I also hate. =]

LEARN BOTH. =]

ps. I'll tell you what if you go learn dreamweaver right the hell now I'm building another website so can keep my aim box open to respond to questions. I will answer anything you need you will see how easy it really is if you just have someone who can answer questions in real time. Can't think of one thing in dreamweaver I consider "hard" its just knowing where everything is and what it does.

If you can afford it, hire a designer/freelancer. Never do yourself what others can do (better) for you

Dreamweaver used to pretty good back in the day... I knew how to use it back then but forgot...

I was going to relearn it but then I came across WordPress.

Try it out - You will be satisfied!

I love dreamweaver! Although I never use it as a wysiwyg editor, I always hand code in "code view". But the syntax highlighting on php errors alone is worth the purchase. I also really like how I can test all the code right there on my local machine without having to upload it to my server first.

I just use Wordpress... It does everything I need it to do.

James Scholes

It's pretty good.

Of course, as with all WYSIWYG editors, you will have to clean up the code after it finishes.

They're all sloppy.

Honestly I would love to create my own sort of plugin, I always have liked selling my own digital product probably more than blogging, but the only product that I can really sell is an eBook because thats all I can put together easily.

Hm, I would also love to be able to edit my themes well and make them even better than they are. Because there are certain things I would love to change about my current theme to be honest.

It's handy & useful for newbies. However if you want to learn the core bits of it, you'd better take some time to learn about HTML & CSS.

After you have learn the basics structures of HTML & CSS, you can edit them in any of the text editors!

I guess it depends on where you are in life. I have 3 little kids, work full-time, and then run my online businesses. I was interested in learning basic programming and coding, but it just got to the point where I was wasting too much time fiddling with stuff that an expert could fix in 10 minutes.

Now, I just have an expert "on call" that I can use. I have one for my shopping cart, wordpress, and general HTML.

If I was in college or something and needed a course to take, I'd definitely learn as much as possible. But my problem was that I was spending time fiddling around with code while putting off profitable activities.

As above, learn using straight code - a good program is Aptana and this is completely free

Notepad++ and raw programming are all I've needed to make many a website.

The time, money and effort you'd waste using Dreamweaver could be put to use by learning HTML and it's friends.

Dreamweaver just generates the code based on the appearance you create within the application. The more complex the site becomes, the more invalid the code becomes with the W3C. Sticking to this standard ensures maximum compatibility with an entire range of browsers and devices (because this is the standard that browser developers work to). Whilst it doesn't guarentee 100% compatibility and some tweaks will need to be made (people who centre pages using CSS containers will know what I mean) overall, you are better learning the raw coding and doing it from scratch.

I started using Dreamweaver when it first came out and never used anything else since for html sites. I can code in notepad, but just don't see any reason to since I have Dreamweaver. It's not hard to learn Dreamweaver. You should get very familiar with html and css if you plan on building html sites. Don't just use wysiwyg. Learn the code even if you use a program like Dreamweaver.

I would stick with Wordpress until you learn some languages like html, css, php, jquery, and javascript. You can build a much nicer website with your knowledge of programming instead of Dreamweaver. I personally don't like Dreamweaver, but I know several people who love it.... Wordpress is fantastic, and I will never stop using it.

It really depends what kind of sites you are creating. I find that my WordPress sites usually have better ranking and its easier to implement SEO on them. Dreamweaver may take a little more time to design, but you will also need to learn Fireworks or Photoshop, I prefer Fireworks for web design. That being said, you can actually use a tool that will allow you to learn HTML / CSS / PHP and more by editing your own WordPress Themes. Check out istylr.com, really good site and I think it's like 5 Euros or something, but it really allows you to create good-looking websites using wordpress or just html and CSS. I find it much easier to use than Dreamweaver, and it's really cool that you can create your own WordPress Themes without knowing any code. The easiest tool I have found for creating custom WordPress Themes, if you are new to this. Good Luck!

I cut my teeth for web design on Dreamweaver. I took a night class at a local college to learn it. It was a good intro into html and css for me. But as soon as I learned Wordpress (shortly after ending the class), I've rarely touched Dreamweaver.

Wordpress is much easier to quickly set up a site because it is theme based. With thousands of the plugins available, the flexibility of the platform is enormous. I do a lot of my WP design myself, but I'm not an expert coder. So I'll outsource coding jobs to vworker.com.

- Stacey

I personally use dreamweaver for coding my websites - but I don't do much editing in the design (WYSIWYG) view, but I find that view handy to check at a quick glance whether the change I made had the desired effect. Dreamweaver's code hinting option, as I think I saw mentioned earlier, is also a nice feature.

That said, I would not use dreamweaver solely as a WYSIWYG website editor, or any other software for that matter, because the resulting site code is usually a mess, and makes tweaking and fixing elements of it a pain. So once you learn the code, you can knock together a webpage in just about any text editor - just find one which has a feature set that makes your life easier

It is so sad to see a bunch of otherwise intelligent people saying so many stupid things in one single thread...

I don't even know where to begin to clear up the darkness in the heads

- Stop comparing Dreamweaver and WordPress (go back and read those posts saying they are apple and oranges and don't ever mention them in the same sentence. Above all: read before you start typing your narrow-minded opinion)

- In WordPress you need PHP only if you mess with the programmatic part of it (the engine a.k.a. the core files); the themes, i.e. the visible output is all HTML and CSS - not PHP! Which means to create your own design = your own theme in WP, you do NOT need PHP but you need HTML/CSS. If you say otherwise you have no idea...

- with WordPress you do NOT 'design' anything - you just publish your content with a system created by others; so don't lie to yourself: being able to install WP doesn't make you a "web designer"!

- just because you are familiar with ONE single program, it doesn't mean that's the best in the world... be it DW or WP or PSPad (<-- the one I use now)

- we all have different priorities and inclinations: while personally, I can write a HTML site from scratch as well as code a WP theme from scratch - I prefer not to touch any image editing software! I could do it if my life depends on it but I never enjoy it, so I hire people to do it for me. Would it be "worth" learning it? I don't know, it depends on what do you want to do with your life.

- if you go into business to provide webmaster services for the rest of the world - you need to know DW and a lot more to perfection! if you go into the marketing business, get the basics and learn marketing

- finally, as business people making money on the internet and on WWW, I guess we all should have some basic understanding of the underlying technology: html, hosting, protocols, database etc.

I think its a great tool. I use it for my website. I think it depends on your website though and what kind of content you have. If you have many pages and a ton of content I would recommend using WordPress. I think it would be a good idea to learn HTML and CSS. With those two things you can go off that and expand on it into basically anything.

I use just Adobe Dreamweaver beacause it is esay to use and give the hint of code.So I like to use of Dreamweaver.

It's a time saver and it's easy to use. I've been using it since version 2, it's come along way and gives you more than enough scope to go way beyond simple html and css.

But it's not the only tool you'll need if you plan on building sites or themes from scratch.

I don't create many HTML-only site anymore, but I've used editors like Dreamweaver and Frontpage, etc for years. My advice is YES, learn how to use Dreamweaver so that you can work faster in wordpress sites. Learn to create and edit basic HTML code correctly in DW and copy/paste to WP and you will be able to work a lot faster.

Yes, it is worth to use Dreamweaver, but, there is an upgraded tool which you can use TemplateToaster Wordpress theme generator and Joomla template generator -TemplateToaster. You can design a complete website without having to write a single line of code, design separate themes (or templates) for mobiles, tablets, desktops, it supports bootstrap 3 and many more. You may try this fully upgraded tool.

Use Programming languages to learn for coding than useless Dreamweaver. The Software is too old and never tried them myself to design any site.
There are free themes to play around for designing great themes.