Re: Alternative to Front Page?

[Jill Burgchardt <jburgcha -at- PESTILENCE -dot- ITC -dot- NRCS -dot- USDA -dot- GOV>]

I, too, use FrontPage and find it frustrating at times. Lots of responses
suggest Dreamweaver or Homesite as alternatives. Perhaps some of you who are
using them can tell me whether Dreamweaver or Homesite would be better for the
WAY we're using FrontPage than FrontPage is.

Situation:
We use FrontPage to prototype web applications. Very few REAL forms are used in
the prototypes and no FrontPage extensions or browser-specific stuff are used in
our prototypes (requirement). FrontPage is excellent for this purpose, because
prototypes can be assembled and modified so quickly. Managers demo the
prototypes around the country and they can call in for changes that show up
later the same day. We get lots of immmediate user feedback before programmers
begin to build the applications.

The real applications are then built using Netdynamics or Cold Fusion hooking to
Informix or Oracle databases. That's where we run into a problem. Front Page
throws in so much garbage that very little of the html it creates (except the
help screens) is reusable in those applications.

Once programmers convert the prototype, we're still responsible for interface
look-and-feel and help systems. If we need to modify a page they've done in
netdynamics or coldfusion, we can't bring it back to Frontpage (messes things up
severely). So, we stick with notepad for those changes.

QUESTIONS (at last):
Are any of the other products suggested as good for rapid prototyping? (And yes,
I think that's a techwr-l question given how involved tech writers become with
user interface these days.)
Can any of them be used to edit a page that has extensive Netdynamics and
ColdFusion code without altering sections not deliberately edited?

Thanks for any insights,
Jill Burgchardt
jburgcha -at- pestilence -dot- itc -dot- nrcs -dot- usda -dot- gov


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