The layout and design of any web or portal page(s) is done by professional web designers. Web designers are comfortable with tools such as Dreamweaver, Microsoft FrontPage and so on. Most portals at present, provide a web based user interface to create, design, and theme a portal. So, it would be better and an advantage, if portals provide a method by which a web designer is able to use professional web design tools to create an elegantly designed portal.
ViewDesigner makes it possible for a web designer to create a well designed user interface for a portal in the Project WebSynergy. ViewDesigner aims to provide plugins for popular web design tools, which enables a web designer to easily customize, design, and theme a portal page. For more information on ViewDesigner, see https://designview.dev.java.net/
At present, Project WebSynergy provides a plugin for DreamWeaver that works in conjunction with the Desktop Design Tool (DDT) feature.