Favorite programs for webdesigning?

[WeBStE]

Hello, I'm a new user and a n00b if it comes to website designing. At least I guess you think that of me.

Let's come to the point, which program for designing a website is most used? DreamWeaver?

Thanks in advance,

Stefan

[stlewis]

Stefan

Welcome to Talkgraphics.

I would make a distinction between 'designing' and 'building'. In designing, I think the first step is to play with colours, layouts, furniture and fonts. A tool like Dreamweaver is not really flexible enough for this. So instead, I use a vector graphics tool - my preference is XaraX but most of the others will do - you don't need fancy effects in most cases.

Once the client has decided on the design, then you need a tool for building. And I am happy with DW - the MX version is excellent but the earlier ones were good too.

Needless to say - that is not a complete list of the tools used. You will still need XaraX or whatever, and you need a bitmap graphics tool too, and a good text or code editor. And then add the other things as you need them...

www.bricksandbrass.co.uk

[gidgit]

Hi and Welcome to "TG"

to answer your question...

I would have to say that DW is certainly the most popular WYSIWYG editor on the market... though there are several that will do the job... I suppose it is personal preference... [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif[/img]

[dalel]

I use DW, and am satisfied with it, but you may not need all the functionality of it, and it is expensive.

Check out NetObjects Fusion MX. Its a great WYSIWYG website building program for quite a bit less than DW.

WYSIWYG - What you see is what you get. Refers to website building programs that allow you to build websites without HTML or Javascript coding skills.

http://talkgraphics.infopop.net/1/Op...&ul=1101906325
Why, I’m afraid I can’t explain myself, sir, because I’m not myself, you know...
- Lewis Carroll

[WeBStE]

Thanks for the info so for. I'am a shamed to say that my current wd progam is Frontpage by Microsoft. Grewing up with this program made me stick with it. But now I want to expand my skills and move up to a more proffesional program. Here you can see one of my website (although it is not completly finished, i'll keep you posted )
http://www.de-ellekoot.nl/site.htm

It's in Dutch so just look at the design
Please go ahead and post any other comment...

[Egg Bramhill]

I had a look at your site and it loads nicely (56k modem) but the fotoflash.swf took an eternity to dowload. As a casual visitor I would have given up long before it finished down loading. Check the swf file size. Apart from this the site looked good. The only other niggle I would have is the tables, which are almost the same on every page do in fact resize in each new window.
Hope this helps.
Egg

[WeBStE]

Thanks for your replies. Let's make some things clear; it's not that i'm ashamed of using such a standard program. It's just that i think that a program like DW is more proffessional. Therefor i would like using DW...This is another site of mine
it's the website of my webdesign company
http://www.creartiv.nl/creartiv%20nieuw.htm just testing it...

[Egg Bramhill]

Aren't you putting the cart before the horse? If your designing a site for a client, it's the design that matters and not the program you designed it in. Don't become P.C. by following the "Industry Standard". If you can create a great site within your current program and you and your client are happy with it......continue.
Egg

[lithium.design]

One vector illustration program, one raster graphics editor and one html editor. With that set you will be able to rock out the net. If you ask me I would say: Xara X, Photoshop 7 and Dreamweaver MX.

Why not Macromedia Studio MX only? It have Firework which can edit raster, Firework/Freehand which can do vectors and DW for assambling the pages... sure, but IMHO Xara is way more efficient on producing web graphics, specially with its interactive transparency and fill tools. Wide more better than FH... and Photoshop, well, Photoshop is the only professional raster editor that have been around enough to have 7 versions now [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif[/img]

NetObjects Fusion really rocks but notice that it is very very rigid about hard coding pages, and tends to generate too complex page implementations with too much code, almost impossible to tweak.

[gidgit]

While I do agree that the apps you have mentioned here are very good apps, I would suggest that there are more options to choose from than what you have stated... I suppose it all depends on your preferences...

I totaly agree with the small footprint and large steps that XaraX allows in the vector area of things... it rocks

but... have found in my experience that Photoshop 7 while being a very powerful solution is also very ram intensive... and, though this may not pose a problem to many Pro setups, this certainly will affect those home setups that only yesterday, were more than adequate to produce stunning graphics and fx... I have 192 megs of ram and can see this app requiring at least the 384 megs that would top out my small processor's ram curve limit... Great app though, I am just ticked because it was only very early this morning that I lost some very cool worx (eyeball and socket )because I was so wrapped up in the thrill of creation that I did not save along the way... and ... bam... ram crash... uggggg... [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif[/img] [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif[/img]

Lesson 1) ...save along the way, you can always go back in after the fact and delete those xtra files, but if you don't save and the system crashes...well... you know... DOH

Lesson 2) IMHO, PS7 really requires a 533(.18) or above processor, with at least 512 megs of ram in order to move along without too many worries... Yea, it will work on lesser systems, just be sure to keep in mind Lesson 1)... [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif[/img]

but... yes, it goes without saying that PS is important enough to make an upgrade most nescesary... [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_wink.gif[/img] I have only recently started to really work with this app and I love it... though I also love several other apps in my tool box as well... [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif[/img] ( there really is no one solution so thank goodness for options )

as for DW, well, we have hashed this topic around many times... oranges vs apples sort of stuff, when the important fact remains... fruit is a good thing... pick a few and enjoy... nobody will care if ya likes one over the other... when I visit a website I am not looking at which app was used, but rather how the page looks, what info it contains... and, as long as it loads the way intended, cross browser friendly like, then I could really care less whether it was done in DW, FP, Namo, Notepad or what ever... they are only tools... it is the end result that counts... [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif[/img]

Hope we havn't missed anything here... [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif[/img]