Web Design software
Discussion
I have been running my very amateur website in some free web space on Freeserve which is ok but i want to design better pages as i have just been using what little knowledge i have of html.
I have Heard dreamweaver is quite a good package but how much should i pay and is there any alternatives.
TIA
BB
I have Heard dreamweaver is quite a good package but how much should i pay and is there any alternatives.
TIA
BB
Dreamweaver is a fairly high end package I think - a legit copy will cost you around £400, but will produce good results! I don't know how hard it is to learn.
I built my site (www.j-racing.co.uk) using Microsoft Frontpage having had no prior knowledge of web design. I got it as part of Office and I found it fairly easy to learn, but it's not nearly as powerful as something like dreamweaver...
I think that most of the trick in producing a good website is not in how its written but how its designed. I know I had to redo mine more than once to get a better layout as I had overlooked things in my initial design.
I built my site (www.j-racing.co.uk) using Microsoft Frontpage having had no prior knowledge of web design. I got it as part of Office and I found it fairly easy to learn, but it's not nearly as powerful as something like dreamweaver...
I think that most of the trick in producing a good website is not in how its written but how its designed. I know I had to redo mine more than once to get a better layout as I had overlooked things in my initial design.
Hi BB,
I've started with the Composer included in Netscape Communicator or Mozilla www.mozilla.org . The Composer is helpful formatting tables, fonts and colours, but isn't capable handling frames. Since I wanted to try frames, I did code them manually, as you can do with every tag (=function) that is not included in Composer. I've learned more about tags through an online documentation, which is sadly not English; but I've quickly found one: http://werbach.com/barebones/
Coding html isn't very different to formatting codes on PH. html uses < instead of [, and has different tags.
The advantage of this semi-manual method is, that your creativity is not dictated by a certain software package. You don't have to know them all by rote; you only need to browse around the documentation to see what's possible - or, if you discover a feature which you like on another page, just lurk into the source by #View #Page Source in your browser, and copy the bit you need and modify it to your spec
I've started with the Composer included in Netscape Communicator or Mozilla www.mozilla.org . The Composer is helpful formatting tables, fonts and colours, but isn't capable handling frames. Since I wanted to try frames, I did code them manually, as you can do with every tag (=function) that is not included in Composer. I've learned more about tags through an online documentation, which is sadly not English; but I've quickly found one: http://werbach.com/barebones/
Coding html isn't very different to formatting codes on PH. html uses < instead of [, and has different tags.
The advantage of this semi-manual method is, that your creativity is not dictated by a certain software package. You don't have to know them all by rote; you only need to browse around the documentation to see what's possible - or, if you discover a feature which you like on another page, just lurk into the source by #View #Page Source in your browser, and copy the bit you need and modify it to your spec
Ballistic Banana said:
I have been running my very amateur website in some free web space on Freeserve which is ok but i want to design better pages as i have just been using what little knowledge i have of html.
I have Heard dreamweaver is quite a good package but how much should i pay and is there any alternatives.
TIA
BB
Simon
CuteHTML is a good cheap editor, free to download and try out. www.tucows.com/preview/194458.html
It's just a pure editor but by searching on Google on how to do certain things you can crib code and add it in to to create the look you want. It colours all of the code as per the function it does if you see what I mean.
(I still use it although I also use Macromedia Studio MX).
Darren
>> Edited by FourWheelDrift on Thursday 19th June 23:01
I like Dreamweaver a lot, but I came to it from a background of coding everything by hand for years. If you have a reasonable grasp of HTML, you can do various bits of text markup and know how tables work already, then you'll like it a lot.
It produces very clean, readable code and if something doesn't come out how you'd want it's easy to find the bit you need to change. I think of it more as a nice toolbox that saves you loads of time and automates the tedious tasks so you can get more done. Templates and the like are very powerful and it's great for managing a static site - you change something that will affect other pages and it'll go through making the changes for you.
Frontpage seems OK if you're completely non-technical and want to get some pretty words and pictures on the web with a minimum of fuss. It does do some pretty horrendous stuff with the code though.
Might be worth looking at Homesite - seems to do a subset of what DW does, but at a much cheaper price. A smaller toolbox, if you like
It produces very clean, readable code and if something doesn't come out how you'd want it's easy to find the bit you need to change. I think of it more as a nice toolbox that saves you loads of time and automates the tedious tasks so you can get more done. Templates and the like are very powerful and it's great for managing a static site - you change something that will affect other pages and it'll go through making the changes for you.
Frontpage seems OK if you're completely non-technical and want to get some pretty words and pictures on the web with a minimum of fuss. It does do some pretty horrendous stuff with the code though.
Might be worth looking at Homesite - seems to do a subset of what DW does, but at a much cheaper price. A smaller toolbox, if you like
dreamweaver is excellent to use and much better than frontpage - designed my first website with frontpage and have since moved to dreamweaver. If you don't understand hmtl coding, the tutorials are very easy to follow without resorting to coding, but it's worthwhile learning html, etc to do more techy stuff.
Hi !
I will list a good commercial program and then a free alternative. Obviously some free programs may be a bit more tricky to learn, but what you put in you get out
For websites you need three things -
**************
Web site editor - produces the html pages.
Dreamweaver - excellent saves time. Great for large sites or pages that need constant updating. I can do things in a third of the time. useful for repetitive tasks. Change one image name on one page and all 150 pages on my site will use the new image name.
You can download a 30 day fully functional trial from here: www.macromedia.com/uk/software/
An alternative is Amaya.
www.w3.org/Amaya/Amaya.html
( w3.org is responsible for common standards on the web, so pages will work for everyone. An ideal team to produce a website editor ! )
*******************
Graphics program - produces /optimizes images.
I would recommend Adobe Photoshop for editing images from Digital Cameras and hi-end work.
Macromedia Fireworks for Web images and fancy page layouts /custom designs.
A free alternative is The Gimp (which opens photoshop .PSD files and has a huge range of filters)
Download the windows version from the links on www.gimp.org
**************
FTP Program - File Transfer Program
This moves your complete pages/images from you computer (local) to your website host ( Some free space on freeserve or a professional business host )
I use Filezilla , Its fast and has a wealth of features !
Available from :
http://filezilla.sourceforge.net/
Click Downloads on the left menu.
Then either download a zipped file or a .EXE file.
Once downloaded click file to run/install.
If you use it you may want to donate to the team. Read the Projetc page for more info.
A good site for beginners
www.webmonkey.com
(Works today June 20th 2003 - if your reading this some time in the future and you get something different I'm sorry ! Hopefully you like monkeys )
*Design TIP*
Finally try not to use frames for your websites. Most professionals stopped using them in 1998 - they are a very lazy way to design pages and search engines have difficulty indexing the pages. All my web sites are in the top ten of google and none have ever used frames !
Enjoy !
I will list a good commercial program and then a free alternative. Obviously some free programs may be a bit more tricky to learn, but what you put in you get out
For websites you need three things -
**************
Web site editor - produces the html pages.
Dreamweaver - excellent saves time. Great for large sites or pages that need constant updating. I can do things in a third of the time. useful for repetitive tasks. Change one image name on one page and all 150 pages on my site will use the new image name.
You can download a 30 day fully functional trial from here: www.macromedia.com/uk/software/
An alternative is Amaya.
www.w3.org/Amaya/Amaya.html
( w3.org is responsible for common standards on the web, so pages will work for everyone. An ideal team to produce a website editor ! )
*******************
Graphics program - produces /optimizes images.
I would recommend Adobe Photoshop for editing images from Digital Cameras and hi-end work.
Macromedia Fireworks for Web images and fancy page layouts /custom designs.
A free alternative is The Gimp (which opens photoshop .PSD files and has a huge range of filters)
Download the windows version from the links on www.gimp.org
**************
FTP Program - File Transfer Program
This moves your complete pages/images from you computer (local) to your website host ( Some free space on freeserve or a professional business host )
I use Filezilla , Its fast and has a wealth of features !
Available from :
http://filezilla.sourceforge.net/
Click Downloads on the left menu.
Then either download a zipped file or a .EXE file.
Once downloaded click file to run/install.
If you use it you may want to donate to the team. Read the Projetc page for more info.
A good site for beginners
www.webmonkey.com
(Works today June 20th 2003 - if your reading this some time in the future and you get something different I'm sorry ! Hopefully you like monkeys )
*Design TIP*
Finally try not to use frames for your websites. Most professionals stopped using them in 1998 - they are a very lazy way to design pages and search engines have difficulty indexing the pages. All my web sites are in the top ten of google and none have ever used frames !
Enjoy !
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