Should every thing in my sight be with in tables, do not want to use frames. What i mean is does every bit of text graphic etc in my site need to lay within a table or can some lay out of a table. would it cause problems

Well generaly No because desgining is all about being origanal right?
I know a few pages that use frames and dont use tables at all and still look deasent.

But thats not to say that you shouldn't...
Because tables make things look pretty and most everyone uses them because it is the best way to efficiently use your window space (you can crame more in with *tables*).


Yay I love contradicting myself and onfusing other members.

*Edit: Changed Frames to Tables... lol stupid me mix up my words.

LOL. I've used both and found that frames are ok, but I use tables now as it will give me a half-decent looking site. If ur in a rush though, use a bit of both (menu on on side, main info on the other etc). I used to do that in my early early days

I have read lots of different material about website design which all say frames can cause lots of difficulties and tables are better. Is this true?

I have both dreamweaver and front page have basic knowledge on both which is the best to use? and which program is best (easiest like an idiots guide) for designing graphics?

yeah, it's true. Tables are a lot more efficient too. Frames are ok for basic sites. Frames are troublesome if you have a site which has loads of pages. I'd say used table if your site has more that 5 pages. (search engines normally pick the seperate page on their own so they don't come out in the frames). if you are using tables, it doesn't have this problem.

Thanks... I think it may be best to use tables then... Im a java programmer... I hate coming accross problems they are hard to put right (specially as I dont really know what im doing..)! think its best to spend a bit more time in the first place to save time in the future.

Do you know of any really good tutorials that would help me along the way i have been doing a couple... i know basic html.. and jsp but the site im designing does not need to go down that route i hope...i don't want to set up a web server at home!
Front page or Dreamweaver??

frames are ok for certain things - for big budget sites whos traffic is solely generated by advertising and for admin panels etc

other than that frames arent reccomended - the only page that will be spidered is your index page which means that your se traffic will be non existent

better using ss includes

I always thought the debate was between divs and tables. I wasn't aware that frames were still an issue.

http://www.useit.com/alertbox/9612.html

That should explain why frames are not good design.

As for divs vs. tables, css-discuss covers it rather well.

http://css-discuss.incutio.com/?page=TablesVsDivs

Front page or Dreamweaver??

Being compulsively unable to do anything but open up notepad when I'm working on a site, I'll preface this as all second hand information (but information from people I think to be competent!)

Anyway, Frontpage is generally thought of as more userfriendly than Dreamweaver. When Dreamweaver first came out, it was a vastly superior program. Frontpage (at the time) was generating really horrible code. Now if you have the latest version of Frontpage, that problem has been much improved upon. I think that Dreamweaver is usually thought of as the serious web designer's choice, even though FP isn't as bad as it used to be.

I don't know about designing graphics in these programs. You'll have to keep asking around about that.

Good luck,
AmyD

I found that it was quite confusing how to open up my frames and framsets with the content info displayed in the browser, it did not appear. But looking at everyone’s advice thankfully it looks that the better way to do it is without the frames and stick to tables, that seems the general consensus. However I’m a little stuck on how have the frames and content are linked together to show in the same browser window.