A question about using Fireworks to build a website

To get the look and integrity I need in a website, I want to use Fireworks to
design each page of the site. I'm used to creating navigation panes in
Fireworks and then importing them into Dreamweaver as .htm files. My question
is this: Do I build and upload the entire site to the remote host form
Fireworks, or do I export the Fireworks pages as htm files tinto Dreamweaver?
When I do that, I lose control of the text areas. Help

[q]Originally posted by: paulkirtley
To get the look and integrity I need in a website, I want to use Fireworks to
design each page of the site. I'm used to creating navigation panes in
Fireworks and then importing them into Dreamweaver as .htm files. My question
is this: Do I build and upload the entire site to the remote host form
Fireworks, or do I export the Fireworks pages as htm files tinto Dreamweaver?
When I do that, I lose control of the text areas. Help[/q]

Fireworks is not a Web development environment and it has no file uploading
capability. It is a Web graphics program. The HTML Fireworks produces is
for making prototypes and mockups. It is fragile and next to impossible to
maintain. The FW code is a table-based replica of your design, which means
that it is not flexible and you can't modify anything without it breaking.

For production code, you should export your graphics (slices) out of
Fireworks, then re-build your design in Dreamweaver. Don't just import
Fireworks HTML, re-create the HTML using a program that's meant for the job.

As for "lose control of the text areas," HTML is intended to be flexible,
allowing for different browsers, different monitor resolutions, different
window sizes, and also for users to change font sizes. You need to design your
HTML with this flexibility in mind (usability and accessibility). If you want
rigid control of your look, then you're going to have to learn quite a bit of
HTML and CSS or you might want to go with a Flash site or just make .pdf files.

What I recommend you do is do a search on google for free tutorials on html and
css. You could also get some books from your favorite book store or a web site
like amazon.
Your text areas need to be contained so you can add width and/or height
properties so that it won't push other objects down the page when they are not
meant to be.
Since you have dreamweaver tables can be fairly flexible and editable without
breaking. However they can on occasion break (ex. accidently removing one of
the tags in the code editor) which is why its best to know what the table tags
look like and how they work, so you can fix them if needed.
I also recommend that you access w3.org website and 1)use their validator 2)
read up on the html and css specs. This will tell you what will work, what
won't, what used to but is being removed, etc. This organization is the company
that writes up the specs for the web.
Also don't forget to check out mozilla (firefox) and microsoft (Internet
explorer) web sites as they both have primers on html and css.
Below are a few sites I have used in the past.

http://alistapart.com/

http://css-discuss.incutio.com/

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/de.../dhtml/howto/S
hortcutIcon.asp
http://www.htmlbasix.com/
http://www.htmlgoodies.com/
http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/html-spec/html-spec_toc.html
http://www.lissaexplains.com/
http://www.robotstxt.org/
http://www.thesitewizard.com/
http://www.killersites.com/
http://www.how-to-build-websites.com/
http://developer.mozilla.org/
http://www.yourhtmlsource.com/
http://validator.w3.org/
http://www.robotstxt.org/wc/robots.html