How to design visually with CSS?

Frontpage guy wants to grow up

[wanderingmind]

For someone like me who has always designed visually in Frontpage, what is the best tool to get into CSS-based design? In other words, design visually and look at the code and learn later! WOuld appreciate any help.

[decaff]

Hi..

I am looking at a tool called "style master" ...
Looks pretty comprehensive...and very affordable...

I have just downloaded the demo (fully functional for 30days)...

Now that I have stepped hip deep into some web design projects...I am looking to upgrade some of my tools with some specific solutions..

type in WYSIWYG CSS Editor at any of your fav search engines....plenty of choices to look over...

[Marshall]

wanderingmind,

What version of FP are you using? FP2003 allows for CSS designs and does a pretty good job of it with cross-browser compatibilities. And from what I've read so far MS's replacement for FP which is Expression Web, is suppose to be very good. I know MS offers a free trial download which upgrades FP. I think the upgrade price is $99.99, and the full version is $299.99 (I think). Anyway, I've been using FP2003 to create CSS without any problems.

[mettled]

I would recommend Freeway 4 Pro. As with anything new, there is a learning curve, but Freeway allows you to design visually and totally forget about the coding. I've been teaching myself to code on a per project basis, working in Dreamweaver switching back and forth from design to code view. But I recently did a project completely in Freeway and I'm glad I did. The project turned out to be very heavy with graphics, rollovers, hidden layers...Freeway made the repetition a ton easier.

[decaff]

Freeway Pro looks like a great tool..
guess I'll have to fire up my MacBook Pro (as this tool appears to be only Mac).. thanks

[jimbeetle]

I'll second Marshall's comments, if you use FP 2003 you already have one of the better code editors around and the WYSIWYG handles CSS quite nicely. Just keep in mind that in FP it all depends on how you start off: If you set all of your authoring preferences and such at the git go you shouldn't have any problems at all.

[thecoalman]

Coffeecup offers a free version of their text/WYSIWYG editor. Not sure how well the WYSIWYG component works because i never started from scratch with it. You can switch back and forth between the two.

Not sure what the limitations are for the free version but from the screenshots it appears to be quite similar to the full version, Full version is fairly cheap and you get upgrades for life, painless upgrades I might add.

[netchicken1]

Topstyle lite!

Its free and great. I use FP2003 and TSl to desgn my sites. FP just holds the page, while I work in TS at the same time to create the CSS.

I like the visual aspect of topstyle, instead of having to remember all the varieties of css and colors, just point and click from the options.

Once you have the styles made you can then use them back in frontpage, by selecting them from the style list.

The two programs work very well togheter, and mean that you don't ahve to start from scatch witha new program to learn.