How do I build the site? (software)

Most people use website design software to build their site. These programs take away most of the difficulty in building a website by allowing you to build the website from the visual side instead of from the code. This means that almost anyone can build a website if they have even the most basic word processing skills. In fact Microsoft's FrontPage is a lot like Word and so was very easy to pick up.

The two most popular software packages are Microsoft FrontPage and Adobe Dreamweaver.

Dreamweaver is the industry standard and the better of the two packages but you do have to pay for this. Dreamweaver costs £393 RRP or $399 RRP (for some reason it cost twice what it does in the US. I would buy it from the US for approximately £210)

FrontPage made by Microsoft and is a lot like all Microsoft applications and thus anyone familiar with Word should have no problem with using FrontPage. FrontPage costs about £113 which is a lot less than Dreamweaver.

I personally use front page as this is what was available for me. There is little that it cant do but as I have no experience with dreamweaver I cant recommend either one. I am planning on trying out Dreamweave soon so I will get back to you on this.

For more detailed information about features

Microsoft - FrontPage

FrontPage made by Microsoft and is a lot like all Microsoft applications and thus anyone familiar with Word should have no problem with using FrontPage. FrontPage costs about £113 which is a lot less than Dream Weaver.

There are three ways to view your page in front page

1. Design view – This always you to edit your page while seeing what the page will look like. Its just like writing in word. You design it and the program writes the html code.

2. Code View – This view allows you to edit the code. You will use this feature more and more as you become more adventurous in you web page design. You will also need to use this when doing anything that cant be done through the design view.

3. Preview – This allows you to view the page in action as it would be displayed when it is put live on you web space. For example any picture or text animations will work. I would however recommend you test view the page in internet explorer and fire fox to be shore your page displays properly. For some features the page has to be uploaded to the site to work for example using databases or server side scripts.

Macromedia - Dreamweaver

Dreamweaver is the industry standard and the better of the two packages but you do have to pay for this. Dreamweaver costs £393 RRP or $399 RRP (for some reason it cost twice what it does in the US. I would buy it from the US for approximately £210)

Free Site builders that come with your hosting.

These are the software packages that come with your hosting which make calms like "they are easy to use" and/or "you can make a good looking website in 5 minutes".

I will be testing out some of these software packages shortly.