recommend some website design software

[_Cypher_]

You may find that Dreamweaver has alot of funky features but to mix, match and get all combined and to work whilst looking good takes 3-4 times longer than it would do than writting plain code into a notepad window.

Dont ever use frontpage its terrible (my opinion)

Goto your local library adnd pick up "HTML for beginners" or similar so that you can get the basics.

You will find that even with these "srubbishrubbishrubbishrubbishy - I can do all the code for you" programs that they can NEVER get it exactly how you see in your mind first. This way you need to know what your doing for "tweaking / customising"

Have a look on the net, see if you can find some basic tutorials too, I think you will find you will be a webmaster in no time

[stytagm]

Textpad,
It's just an editor like notepad (or I suppose editpad) but it's the nicest I've used and the free trial version is fully functioning (and in fact never expires) which is nice.
www.textpad.com (oh yes, and its made in the UK).

Also if you wanna learn a little about html and webpages in not a lot of time read:
www.webmonkey.com/kids
html for the under twelves! When I was still just a biologist I was making webpages in a few hours with this, and now I'm training to make a career out of IT (God have mercy on my soul).

[scottyman]

textpad is great -
I'm just started using phpedit from waterproof.fr - quite handy, and you can apply for a free personal license if it's not being used for commercial purposes.

[bsodmike]

GoLive CS. It's a decent WYSIWYG editor - infact it has a nice 'live preview' when editing html directly which helps. Also handles CSS files nicely!

[Mblaster]

I astarted off in notepad, but i'm not that good at HTML so i use Dreamweaver for my web desing now, switching between the interface and the code window.

[scottyman]

it's worth looking at phpedit - latest version 1.04 is much better - the debugging needs a bit of work, and need just a standard run command - but it's excellent for html also, and the smart highlighting works well - shows you latest tags and which ones you've already declared.
Worth downloading - and if you're non-commercial, you'll get a free license which is nice.
I personally think it's one of the best designed packages out there.

[Vimeous]

Dreamweaver MX
I use it but would only recommendit if you have adecent level of competance and are happy to realise that while it has all the features you might need it's implimentation can be questioned in some instances. It's handling of tables in WYSIWYG is flaky until you force it to refresh as one example.
It is a system heavy app (especially if you use its own sourcesafe - which isn't as safe as it could be) and has a steep learning curve if you just want to spend a few hours quick-genning a site.
Despite all that it is a great tool without getting into deeply commercial apps. The reference tools, java snippets, code editor, DW extensions and analysis tools are all great.

Frontpage
If you want a quick and easy site with a consistant style set then Frontpage is very hard to beat. You won't want to touch the code directly afterwards but it's easy to maintain if a little simplistic at the end of the day.
Watchout for special features that need frontpage extensions on your site host and also features that are IE specific and will not view correctly in alternative browsers like Netscape, Opera and Firefox. This last bit is espeically important if you're doing a site for all your mates and they've switched to an an alternative more '|337' browser.
A good choice for beginners who want nothing to do with code.

NetObjects Net Fusion
Best described as half-way between Frontpage simplicity and style, and DW's full on editing tools. The commercial plugins are great if you want to start a site selling stuff.#

Notepad | XTerm et al
Cheap & cheerfull. But it won't analyse you code for bugs, compatibility, teach javascript, add funky buttons, auto-generate menus or make cups of tea (ok ignore the last bit).
I started in an XTerm as did most home-taught site-admins. However there are better options.
That said some experience of notepad editing will certainly help you decipher nasty issues created by editing packages that should know better and also help you learn that all your code on one line certainly isn't the best way to view it!

Have fun!

[directhex]

i designed my site recently using dreamweaver mx 2004 - a JSP page. i was DELIGHTED when i started hacking dreamweaver's output into bite-sized <jsp:include>'s using notepad, dreamweaver's WYSIWYG view would mostly interpret the JSP I had used, letting me see all the final layout when the actual file I was editing only had a few lines of code in it.

i'll be buying it for real at a later date

[scottyman]

true- I do like dreamweaver - the only major flaw that I can see is that it doesn't support php debugger (and it's a bit of a memory hog!) it's still nice to open it up and get all the templating right. my trial has expired - so I need to ask santa for an early xmas present! if you can afford it - worth buying.
at least with dreamweaver it allows you to render template files as pure html (which is not something I can say for phpedit - the renderer has broken )