My dad is working on some websites for our church and he's been doing some research regarding Web Design tools. He has a very basic understanding of HTML but other than that, knows basically nothing about web programming.

Through some research he's done, he's discovered Evrsoft First Page, which has a free download version. Have any of you used this software before? If so, how does it stand up, and are there other programs that might be better?

When making a reccomendation keep the following in mind.

1) It must be easy to use, with good help files. Again my dad's knowledge of actual programming is very limited.

2) Professional quality.

3) Must have a free version with good overall functionality.

(He's got a site up already which is kind of a beta. http://spcfnetwork.com ) (I just noticed there's a typo in the title on the page.. Should read Solomon's Porch. I'll mention it to him.) Feel free to make suggestions regarding the design of the site here.

I'll make the site for him, for free. No tools required, and it'll work a lot better.

I'll even use a CMS so that he can edit and work on the site in a nice browser-based control panel. Joomla, likely.

He may prefer to do it himself, to keep his "creative control" in... control.

But feel free to whip something up using that site I linked as a template, and I'll pass it on to him. Thanks for the offer.

(and what does CMS mean?) (and Joomla?)

Actually, message me on AIM or MSN:

xone009
JediKirby007@Hotmail.com

I'm pretty sure I'll be able to give him absolutely full creative control. I can build different "parts" of the website that he can then assemble in the control panel to fit his needs.

Try this: http://www.nvu.com/index.php

Brian, the problem is that he wants PHP control and functionality, as per a CMS. The sorts of things he's attempting to impliment in the current design aren't going to be possible with a WYSIWYG.

Also: This site is helpful.

Dreamweaver is awesome. Expensive, but its amazing. Dreamweaver

Thanks for the links so far guys. Kirbs, I'll talk to you on MSN sometime, but I'm getting ready to walk out the door right now so it won't be till later.

To the rest of you, feel free to continue making suggestions.

For graphics, Adobe Photoshop or Fireworks. There's nothing more suitable

For code, any text editor with syntax highlighting, I use notepad++. If you use a Mac, then TextMate is the editor of choice.

Dreamweaver is ok but you have to mess around with it quite a bit to get anything good and the WYSIWYG preview isn't very accurate. I don't really trust anything that writes my code for me.

For actual visual development I use Firefox with Web Developer toolbar, Firebug, CSSViewer and HTMLTidy (not sure that's the name, but it adds full validation tools into the view source window and provides options for cleaning up the source).

I'm always on the lookout for tools to improve my workflow and so far this is the best set of tools i've used.

When it comes to CMS's, i can't recommend anything more highly than Expression Engine for combining ease of use with power, strictly speaking it's a blogging engine but other sorts of pages are really easy too. There's a free version for it.

If for some reason he gets a CMS, just make sure he steers away from PHPNuke. Period. That thing is a security hazard waiting to happen.

OOO. Notepad++ is really cool. I googled it. I've always used plain old notepad to build my sites... which WORKS... to a certain extent. Thanks for mentioning that, its really cool. Nice and organized... pretty.

kirby, he didn't say anything about wanting a cms, as far as I can see....