but flux was not happy. so am gonna just go with dreamweaver, which, at least, i can manuever comfortably in.
...that's probably the sensible option if you have an existing site created in Dreamweaver and want to maintain it with minimal effort - and can afford $$$/year for Dreamweaver.
However, I used to use Dreamweaver and in the version I used, the files it produces
are straight HTML, CSS and Javascript - with specially formatted comments to indicate which bits are generated from templates and which bits are 'contents'. The actual templates are kept in a separate folder - when you change a template (i.e. you want to change a heading or layout that applies to all pages), Dreamweaver goes through all the html files and just updates the template bits - the templates aren't used by the server at all. So its perfectly possible just to use a text editor to make minor changes to text, add links, images etc. - and if you take heed of the template markers in comments (they're not hard to understand) you won't even "break" the code for future use in Dreamweaver. Caveat: various versions of Dreamweaver added various bells and whistles that went beyond HTML so this might not apply to every Dreamweaver site.
But still - Public Service Announcement for others: WYSIWYG HTML editors are a dead end for the modern web where 50% of the effort is getting your sites to work across multiple browsers, tablets, phones without locking out screen-readers. Basically there's no single "what you get" for you to "see". If you don't want to learn HTML - and/or want non-tech colleagues to update their parts of the site - use a content management system or site builder. If you've learnt HTML then you'll probably find that WYSIWYG is like washing your feet with socks on, and can't cope with the more advanced things you want to do. Anything beyond the trivial and your site is 'locked-in' to that particular editor. Chrome, Safari and Firefox all have powerful developer tools for 'debugging' HTML, CSS and Javascript.
You're not actually going to get very far with Dreamweaver without learning HTML and CSS to understand what's going on, so at best its a labour-saver.
Personally: I like Visual Studio Code for web development (other text editors/IDEs are available
) - there's a live HTML preview add-on if you really must but in reality if you don't, at times, have Safari, Chrome and Firefox running alongside your editor and your iPad, iPhone and at least one Android phone logged in to your test server then you're holding it wrong. At least we're getting to the point where Internet Explorer isn't such a priority (and far better-behaved than it used to be).
