WordPress replaces Dreamweaver
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WordPress replaces Dreamweaver

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WordPress replaces Dreamweaver

WordPress is replacing Dreamweaver as the tool of choice for many web designers, and this change is also happening in the digital marketing certificate program offered at American Graphics Institute. Individuals can continue to enroll in public WordPress classes as well as Dreamweaver courses. Public workshops for both will continue to be delivered, but those enrolled in the longer-term certificate programs will focus on WordPress instead of Dreamweaver. This change in curriculum benefits digital marketing certificate participants by providing them with the skills needed to manage and maintain sites created using WordPress.

Why WordPress instead of Dreamweaver

Nearly one out of every three websites across the Internet now use WordPress. With such a large percentage of websites using WordPress as their foundation, from businesses and organizations to individuals, it has reached far beyond its origins as a blogging platform. Companies ranging from Walt Disney to Mercedes Benz have sites running on WordPress, while entertainers from the Ringling Brothers circus and those running the official Star Wars blog also trust their sites to WordPress. Many universities use WordPress to run either their entire website or significant department sites. In short, WordPress is everywhere. As digital marketers need to know how to add and manage content, many of them will encounter WordPress sites.

How WordPress is Different from Dreamweaver

WordPress and Dreamweaver are different tools. Dreamweaver is used for designing individual web pages as well as for editing HTML and CSS code. When websites were comprised of only a few pages that were individual hand-crafted, it was a useful tool. Most organizations and individuals that want to publish content on the web are not interested in learning the details of HTML and CSS, which is where WordPress has an advantage over HTML. WordPress is a content management system (CMS) while Dreamweaver is not. Pages created in Dremweaver are designed individually, while those built using WordPress take content entered by editors and place it into templates known as themes. Each individual WordPress page does not need to be individually designed and coded. The editing interface allows for non-technical users to add pages and content to a website and apply a selected theme based upon the type of page that is needed. While WordPress themes use HTML and CSS to format a page, the themes and code are built once by a designer and then re-used behind-the-scenes for any page where they are needed. The average user does not need to ever see or know how the themes are created, much like the average driver of a car doesn’t need to know the inner workings of the engine.

Wordpress alternatives

For larger organizations that need more flexibility or functionality in a content management system, Drupal is an alternate CMS that can be scaled to a larger level than WordPress and is often a better fit for more complicated needs. AGI also offers Drupal classes alongside those offered in WordPress, HTML, and CSS.

About the author

Christopher Smith is president of American Graphics Institute. He is the co-author of Adobe Creative Cloud for Dummies and more than 10 other books on design and digital publishing. He served as publisher and editor of the Digital Classroom book series, which has sold more than one million books on topics relating to InDesign, Photoshop, Illustrator, After Effects, Premiere Pro and other Creative Cloud apps. At American Graphics Institute, he provides strategic technology consulting to marketing professionals, publishers designers, and large technology companies including Google, Apple, Microsoft, and HP. An expert on web analytics and digital marketing, he also delivers Google Analytics classes along with workshops on digital marketing topics. Christopher did his undergraduate studies the at the University of Minnesota, and then worked for Quark, Inc. prior to joining American Graphics Institute where he has worked for more than 20 years.