Dreamweaver: User hostile, anti-intuitive?

[William7491]

I am new to web development but not to programming in general. In fact, I've been developing Windows apps for business for almost 18 years. To prepare for my transition to the wonderful world of web development, I read several books on how to use DHTML, CSS, JavaScript, Ajax techniques, etc. It all seemed pretty clear. So I finaly plunged in to Dreamweaver CS3.

After a solid WEEK of frustration, I have never felt so stupid in all my life!

If Satan himself wanted to create a tool tht would baffle and frustrate new users to the point if insanity, he could not have done a better job than Dreamweaver. Please, someone set me straight here: How is it possible that a tool as widely hyped as Dreamweaver, can be so fraking difficult to use? Honestly, it does things that simply defy even the most obvious logic. Just ONE of many examples: I wanted to place a hyperlink to another existing page. I used INSERT > Hyperlink, and followed what seem to be straight forward instructions. The link is placed. Then, when I run the page in a browser (ANY browser), hover my mouse over the link, the little hand shows up just as it should but when I click -- NOTHING happens!

Does anyone have a clue what I could possibly be doing wrong?

 

[vacunita]

Without actually looking at the code, I would say you have directory problems. Relative vs absolute links.

Anyway, before trying to use a tool like Dreamweaver, you should really start by hand coding html so you know how it works. Once you get the hang of it and know what it is you need to insert to make something happen, then you can use a tool to do it for you. Otherwise you don't understand what the tool is doing, and have no way of knowing what to fix.







----------------------------------
Ignorance is not necessarily Bliss, case in point:
Unknown has caused an Unknown Error on Unknown and must be shutdown to prevent damage to Unknown.

 

[lebisol]

I hate to say it but there is two types of answers you will get:
-show the code
-or...RTFM
Knowing HTML doesn't mean you will know DW interface out of the box and vice versa, it is an app with its own procedures and steps that will genrate correct code.

DW help file is actually pretty decent, I would start by doing builtin tutorials and ultimately start with "how to define a site".
If you know the code then np, just use the code view and turn DW into notepad so you could see your code issue.

Take your time and post the code if anything specific is giving you an issue.
All the best!

:--------------------------------------:

All around in my home town,
They tryin' to track me down...
|MostarNetworks|

 

[harrymossman]

Did you get Homesite with Dreamweaver? Forget DW and hand code in Homesite. At least for a while, as vacunita suggested.