It all depends on what you want to achieve.
Without disagreeing with any of the other posters, who had the time and endurance to attain their infinite knowledge, why not check out:
http://www.serif.com/web-design-software/
Free to start. If it works for you then register and sit back and wait for the cheap special offers.
I've used their software for many years. But then ... my requirements are quite simple without bells or whistles.


James

But for a rotating image gallery you'd need Actionscript (Flash) or PHP, maybe it is just even possible with JavaScript. And as far as I know, web shops are programmed with PHP...

I would recommend you to search for a good hosting service from a provider. They often offer (for a small monthly fee) even Flash applications (like rotating image galleries) or small Web Shop applications which you easily could integrate on the web site.

You can't create rotating image galleries or web shops with a simple HTML/CSS-WYSIWYG-editor...Xara has some "widgets" (maybe even a rotating image gallery), but you couldn't create web shops with it...

damn PHP dust!
at the end of thday, I'd like to build something simple (haha!) like this:
http://shop.stancenation.com/

Perhaps I should design it, and then take the design to a coder, then?
D/l'ing some software demos now (just like DAWS ).

I think someone suggested that early on. :-} I'd suggest designing in cooperation with the coder, though, so you won't expect things that can't (or ought not to) be done. Two minds can work better than one but they must work together for it to happen.

It depends on how much money you want to invest (for a coder)... There are also some web shop applications available online - some are free (or open source), others claim for a monthly fee, and a few ones cost one one-time charge only.

I have searched for web shop applications one or two years ago, so I don't remember them (as I haven't found what I have been looking for...) - but I know that there were MANY applications. Maybe someone out there knows some good ones...

But only in the premium version...

True. Unfortunately the free options will take you 'more' time to achieve what you're after, I'm saying this very politely.

To skin and learn CMS frameworks (like Drupal, Wordpress or Joomla) you're looking into 70+ hours, based on you have a good knowledge of PHP, Javascript, CSS, HTML and maybe additional javascript frameworks (like MooTools or JQuery).

Still, the premium MX version is only 100$ and it has some nice examples with Paypal. That falls into the realm of do-able

Another vote for Wordpress. Choose an existing theme from a reputable source, or hire someone to make modifications.

Adobe Muse looks like a promising new WYSIWYG editor, but the code isn't clean enough yet.

i made my site myself using MAX's HTML Beauty++2004. i'm not a coder,just a musician.
i tried some free/opensource wysiwyg's (this was one i tried,komposer),but it always looked so confusing when i looked back at it.
i think this page is a bit like the one you mention.?

yeah, that's gettin close, spacedad, thanks

maybe its been said before, didn't read the whole threat..

http://www.artisteer.com/
I can recommend it.

If you want to build a webshop:
www.prestashop.com

I've spend quite a long time searching for the right one..and this one
is free and modular and recommendable.

My Hero > been there done that.

Yesterday's browsers were crap. things worked in one browser that didn't in another. Today's browsers are crap things that work in one don't work in another including the magic fairy dust called html5 Of which no one can agree on a standard. At least dhtml had some things going for it but dom support was a bear.


If you are not going to code all from scratch visit the garden
http://www.csszengarden.com/

Steal the webpage find some nice styles and replace the text.
Notepad will do fine for replacing text.