🚀 go-pugleaf

Robert,

 >>I assume I will need to get and learn coldfusion, dreamweaver and 
flash.<<

Well that depends upon the web technologies you choose, which is often 
determined by what is available on the web server you are (or will) be 
using.

My own preference would be for MySQL and PHP rather than coldfusion (as 
that is an open-source solution and available on far more servers).

DW is a good choice for a visual html editor with dynamic content 
support, but to do what you are asking is going to mean getting your 
hands dirty with coding in a sever-side scripting language such as PHP, 
ASP, or JSP.

Here's a workflow I use for one client's price lists:

All product details are held in a MySQL database on the web server. We 
use PHP to create an XML file from that data and then import the XML 
into an InDesign Template. That's it - price list created. It takes 
about 3 minutes total. The same workflow could be used for a catalogue 
although the scripting to create the XML would be somewhat more complex 
to include images etc.

Before we automated the system, it would take at least half-a-day to 
produce a price list, and we still needed to load the data up to the web 
for the website.