CMS Made Simple Forums

I've just completed an HTML Level 1 course at a community college to help hone my skills to make me more efficient using the system. I was told Dreamweaver (I use a Mac & there is a Mac version) was a good tool to use. Does this work with CMSMS or no? If not is it worth getting to just learn how to design, build, etc? I hate always asking website questions and I'd love a tool that can build my skills with a little bit of elbow grease but no need to ask questions or google something.

Thanks!

Dreamweaver edits HTML files, while CMSms' pages and templates are in a database. You can design a site in Dreamweaver and manually convert it into a CMSms template, but you can't use it to maintain the site.

Wishbone wrote:Dreamweaver edits HTML files, while CMSms' pages and templates are in a database. You can design a site in Dreamweaver and manually convert it into a CMSms template, but you can't use it to maintain the site.

The site I maintain now I do through CMSMS and I love the simplicity of it. I just want to be able to design a site myself and knowing that Dreamweaver can do it is all I needed to hear. I also read that Dreamweaver can do HTML 5 so I am pumped about that even though I know nothing about coding in that language unless it's just like html.

Take a look at the Template and stylesheet section of your CMSMS admin page.

If you open some of these templates and stylesheets, you will see they exist of plain HTML and CSS, only the HTML has some {smarty} code in it.

You can easily create those templates using dreamweaver or any other editor. Use some dummy-content and a dummy-menu and stuff, and replace them with the appropirate smarty-tags. (have a good look at the default templates to see which tags you can use)

To make it clear, Dreamweaver is NOT needed if you use CMSMS. There is a subtle but important difference between the two approaches in creating a website. Namely, that Dreamweaver is used to create a complete website in static HTML, and CMSMS allows you to individually edit pages that are going to be a part of a dynamic website, powered by CMSMS.

Wordpress has been a great beginners CMS for me but I'm finding my needs to be a bit more advanced and that Wordpress is holding me back. I picked up a Lynda account and The Missing Manual for Dreamweaver because I hear it's definitely the way to go.

Dear fr0z3ng33k

YES Deamweaver is the best but you need smarty for dreamweaver!!! so you can edit your template with smarty CODE in it!!!