I just aquired Macromedia MX. I'm wanting to build a webpage. My friend only uses flash, but I was under the impression that you had to use dreamweaver to actually build the page structure? My web page is going to be for my wife's small home buisness, not very complex, but eventually adding a shopping cart, and paypal ordering form. Could someone explain to me the difference in these the two programs and which one would better suit my needs, if they are both applicable? BTW, I've built sites before, always in Front Page, so I have a little experience, but Macromedia is all new! Thanks so much.........Bryan

Dreamweaver is a very good WYSIWYG editor for creating and managing web pages and entire web sites. Flash is a separate technology altogether and is intended purely for multimedia-related applications. It is generally best practise not to use Flash unless you really have to. So, to answer your question: Dreamweaver is the tool you should use.

You don't need MX anything to build a website. Flash is used sometimes as an interface, but more often to "spice up" webpages. Personally I'd suggest only using it someplace where it is not *required* for the visitor to see the page. Doing otherwise is bad design. You can use Frontpage if that's what you're familiar with. Then, if you want to add Flash, just embed the SWF file you created in the page. Or if you want you can learn and use Dreamweaver. As pointed out the programs (Flash and Dreamweaver) are pretty much unrelated.

Thanks to you both. I am going to look at dreamweaver to build my page. Like I said, I do know Front Page, but I'm wasn't real happy with my last page I desinged in FP. Plus, I'm always eager to get into new software! Thanks, Bryan

btm, I'm a newbie to web design myself. I needed a site but couldn't afford to hire someone : )... so, I taught myself some html, a little javascript, tried a few web design programs, and eventually wound up using Dreamweaver. It's a great program! Not only is it really good at organizing and maintaining a site, it's a good learning tool in the respect that you can view the code and the design of a page simultaneously in a split sceen. So you can highlight something in the design and it highlights it in the code as well. That way, you can see what specific code makes up the part of the design. I've learned so much using DW. Another thing to point out is... you can create a page... save it as a template, then any page you create from that template will change when you update the template. That way, if you later decide to change your menu bar... you change it on the template and DW automatically updates all your other pages. Just start with the tutorials... it's not hard to learn. I've only been using DW for about 2 months and I'm not an expert by any means, but I'm familiar enough to assist you if you run into trouble. email me if you need some help. Good luck! SullyD Experience is what you get when you don't get what you want...