Which is YOUR Favorite Web Design Software?

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dangfx

Gawd
Joined
May 2, 2001
Messages
707
Hello Everyone!

Like it says, I was wondering what your favorite website design software is. I am a complete newbie to creating web content, and I'd kinda like to stay that way :D What do you recommend that is super-easy, but also allows you to make things beautiful -- something that can integrate Flash and anything else, but simple enough so that I don't need to know advanced XHTML. Hopefully, I'd like to find something that has a graphics-approach, like Photoshop, for the web.

Thanks for your suggestions :)
 
Dreamweaver is the best WYSIWYG (What you see is what you get) editor. Its the "photoshop" of web design :p

Its pricey though, and many people work with just pure code, using advanced text editors like notepad++, editplus 2, etc.

Something with an ftp program built in is always a plus.
 
dangfx said:
Hello Everyone!

Like it says, I was wondering what your favorite website design software is. I am a complete newbie to creating web content, and I'd kinda like to stay that way :D What do you recommend that is super-easy, but also allows you to make things beautiful -- something that can integrate Flash and anything else, but simple enough so that I don't need to know advanced XHTML. Hopefully, I'd like to find something that has a graphics-approach, like Photoshop, for the web.

Thanks for your suggestions :)
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you've pretty much described Dreamweaver.
 
One more vote for Dreamweaver.:) It';s best and do have inbuilt feature to see how your page will look into internet browser.
You have design as well as code mode view which will give you more flexibility to work on your page.
 
Cobalt2112 said:
Anyone tried Microsoft's Expression (Frontpage replacement)?
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I personally haven't used Expression till now but know one major drawback :(
That it's missing built-in support for automated validation of PHP pages which is of more concern to me.
 
Cobalt2112 said:
Anyone tried Microsoft's Expression (Frontpage replacement)?
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ugh!! after enduring FrontPage for several years, I have absolutely no desire to touch anything with MS and Web Design on the label. That product was so horrible and ubiquitous that even today many a web developer will shudder and assume the fetal position at the mere mention of it.

Yes, Expression may be a huge improvement over FrontPage, it might even be as good as DW, but I still can't forgive MS long enough to even consider it.
 
Another vote for Dreamweaver here. If you are going to go budget then Nvu is also worth mentioning, but it is hardly in the same league.
 
Notepad++, but I've been pretty minimal with graphics. Go with Dreamweaver if you do a lot with Photoshop.

Take out a loan first. :D :(
 
notepad++

noobs use dreamweaver and it makes a mess of HTML code or did the last I saw and no you don't need photoshop to use dreamweaver or vice versa.
 
firebane said:
notepad++

noobs use dreamweaver and it makes a mess of HTML code or did the last I saw and no you don't need photoshop to use dreamweaver or vice versa.
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Don't know what version you're referring to, but Dreamweaver has been generating clean HTML code at least three versions ago.

Does Notepad++ have site management tools? Can Notepad++ synchronize files between two servers? Can it check in/out files when multiple people are working on your site? Can it do a complete link check of my website? Can it validate my HTML/CSS at the click of a button? Can it automatically update all links to a file if I rename it or move it to another directory? Can I cut and paste from other documents directly into it and have it automatically generate clean markup? What about templates?

Sorry, Notepad/Notepad++ might be fine for your small personal sites or for someone who needs to learn HTML, but when you know what you're doing and your job is to manage four websites each with thousands of pages, it's just not going to cut it.
 
Dreamweaver all the way.

Even if you do understand the code- Dreamweaver is a huge time saver. I can quickly format the page the way I want it, and know it will code everything correctly. After the bulk of that is done- simply switch over to code view and get into the nitty-gritty.
 
Oh here is another editor that is nice and has some neat features like DIFF built in:

http://www.pspad.com/

It also auto completes any function, even custom ones which is handy (if you hit the hotkey, not forced on you).
 
HTML = Dreamweaver
Image = Photoshop
Vector = Illustrator

However the #1 of all time....

ADOBE MACROMEDIA FLASH BABY!
 
LBFlashWiz said:
HTML = Dreamweaver
Image = Photoshop
Vector = Illustrator

However the #1 of all time....

ADOBE MACROMEDIA FLASH BABY!
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Hardly. I'm certainly not the only person who, when confronted with a flash-only site, simply refuses to use it. And even more people get frustrated after moments and go away. I don't want flashy effects, I want information. And I want it fast.

If you're doing site layouts, Dreamweaver is very nice. If you're just writing the functional layouts for other people to style (or even for yourself to style later) get yourself a nice PHP/ASP IDE and go to work. Or just use vim.
 
HTML Kit/Notepad ++ for code
Paint Shop Pro X for graphics
Pen and paper for layout design
 
Based on the OP's comments, I'll toss another vote for Dreamweaver. Give Flash a shot, too. But also try to develop code reduction practices through file includes and abstracting out the pages to separate common template structure from page-unique content.

Personally, I'll use anything from Eclipse, Visual Studio, Homestyle (an old 4.x version I have floating around here somewhere), PSPad, Notepad, and to a lesser degree Adobe Macromedia Flash, GIMP, and Final Cut Pro. It really depends more on the client and the technologies required/necessary.

Nothing better than getting your hands dirty on this!
 
Now that visual studio 2008 has javascript debuggng and added intellisense it's where i spend all my web dev time at work. Of course you can usually tell I'm a programmer and not a web designer by how my pages look :)
 
I just use gedit(A Gnome application), which has (really) simple code highlighting. I've never really liked WYSIWYG editors. I'm sure they're good if you want something done fast, but if you want to know what's in your site, and what you need to do in order to change it, there's nothing like 'hand' editing the html yourself.

It seems Dreamweaver is pretty popular among the graphical editors, and notepad++ for(I guess) hand editing.
 
My favorite COTS web development GUI is Macromedia DreamWeaver MX (NOT MX2004, the version before it). It, IMHO, is the absolute pinnacle of web development bliss.
 
Dreamweaver is nice if you want static sites, sure. In my experience (used the latest version of DW a few months ago), dynamic sites using PHP, JSP or ASP (VB/C#) aren't easy or even practical to design/program in DW.

At any rate XHTML isn't hard at all. CSS is trickier, but depending on what you're trying to do with it (CSS-based layouts are evil. Thanks, MSFT), so in the end it all comes down to what you're trying to do with it :)
 
Elledan said:
Dreamweaver is nice if you want static sites, sure. In my experience (used the latest version of DW a few months ago), dynamic sites using PHP, JSP or ASP (VB/C#) aren't easy or even practical to design/program in DW.

At any rate XHTML isn't hard at all. CSS is trickier, but depending on what you're trying to do with it (CSS-based layouts are evil. Thanks, MSFT), so in the end it all comes down to what you're trying to do with it :)
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In DreamWeaver MX, I do PHP sites all the time. CSS as well. CSS isn't evil. It's wonderful. Maybe you just had a bad experience with it.
 
When I first started off in web design, it used to be Dreamweaver.
As I started doing some programming, then I moved to Homesite. It was pretty old, but it had support for ASP, Javascript and cold fusion. Now I use Visual Studio 05 exclusively.
 
Dreamweaver 8. Hope to get CS3 soon.

Dreamweaver is great for coding and designing. It has built in validation and at least follows some standards unlike Frontpage which is essentially MS Word. Haven't tried Expression. Don't want to. :D
 
maw said:
Sorry, Notepad/Notepad++ might be fine for your small personal sites or for someone who needs to learn HTML, but when you know what you're doing and your job is to manage four websites each with thousands of pages, it's just not going to cut it.
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Oh, come on. I don't know of anybody who deals with static sites with "thousands of pages" any more - anything of that size is generally handled by a CMS these days, at which point you arguments become moot (CMS == handful of designs at most => no need for a design tool with massive project management features). You seem to be implying that anybody who writes HTML by hand is a two-bit cowboy; if that's the case, you should really be ashamed of yourself.

One thing that Dreamweaver doesn't do particularly well is generate good, accessible (ie WAI or Section 508 compliant) HTML, so in those cases where it's necessary (every single business site in the UK by law, believe it or not) there's no escape from editing the HTML yourself.

As a side issue, I know quite a number of people who can knock up a page design in raw HTML as quick as somebody proficient in Dreamweaver (myself included)...and when it comes to debugging inconsistencies between browsers, there's no substitute for knowledge.

By now, I'm guessing you've realised that I prefer text editors ;) Eclipse (combined with an assload of plugins) is my tool of choice, because I code in Java/Ruby, so it gives me one place where I can do it all. It doesn't do WYSIWYG, though....nor would I want it to, for the reasons above.

On the other hand, if you have no inclination toward learning HTML/CSS and you have somebody handy who can tidy up the nitty-gritty, Dreamweaver's not a bad tool...if a little pricey.
 
I haven't used a WYSIWYG tool for a long time, this was way way back in the days of Dreamweaver MX before I bothered to learn CSS.

I currently use Eclipse with a bunch of plugins (PyDev, Amateras, svn) since I code in Python and hand code the CSS and HTML templates for my site. I'm also doing a lot of JSP/Apache Struts debugging/coding at work right now, so it's good I have an environment I can use at home and at work.

Otherwise, Dreamweaver.
 
:LJ: said:
Oh, come on. I don't know of anybody who deals with static sites with "thousands of pages" any more - anything of that size is generally handled by a CMS these days, at which point you arguments become moot (CMS == handful of designs at most => no need for a design tool with massive project management features). You seem to be implying that anybody who writes HTML by hand is a two-bit cowboy; if that's the case, you should really be ashamed of yourself.
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no offense intended here, but i never implied hand coding is for cowboys, hell, i hand code all the time. you do realize a CMS is not the solution for a lot of websites, right? ever try installing a CMS on an IIS machine that you only have FTP access to and doesn't support PHP? How about a company with such strict security policies that anything that doesn't have an .htm or .shtm extension is considered a "security risk" and therefore must undergo a security review, which can take several weeks if they're backlogged. How about when all your content is provided to you only in Word or Excel format because that's all they know how to use, and you must quickly convert it all to standards-based HTML? Believe me, if I had the power to change these things i would in a heartbeat, but, I don't, so i have to find solutions that fit with what i have to work with.

Try going through that a few times and you'll quickly see why I said hand-coding (or a CMS) is not always to best solution.
 
Dreamweaver produces good end results. I've not used it (too much $$$ for my taste) but the code from it looks to be in good order and it's got some nice management features.

For anyone looking to dig into the code, PHP Designer is nice. It's got some basic project management tools and good coding features.

It all really depends on what you're doing, and how you want to do it. I'm the type of person that if I'm going to build a site with a thousand pages (I'm not up to that level yet, still much to learn before I do this professionally) I'm going to center my design around a database and server-side code that I put together myself rather than trust it all to an application like Dreamweaver. But that's a matter of personal preference.
 
PopeKevinI said:
It all really depends on what you're doing, and how you want to do it. I'm the type of person that if I'm going to build a site with a thousand pages (I'm not up to that level yet, still much to learn before I do this professionally) I'm going to center my design around a database and server-side code that I put together myself rather than trust it all to an application like Dreamweaver. But that's a matter of personal preference.
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This sounds good in principle, but not all sites have content that is well-served by being database driven. It all depends on the content and the needs/restrictions of the client. As mentioned previously, some clients will explicitly forbid server-side code unless it goes through a lengthly vetting process.
 
Another for DW. :D

I've been using DW for the past 3-4 revisions. I'm currently using DW CS3.

I work with ASP, PHP, XML, XHTML pages on a daily basis and have had no issues. DW makes things nice and easy. DW does NOT produce invalid code like FP.

I've created simple pages to highly complex websites within DW. DW can handle everything I throw at it.
 
Basically every firm or individual designer I have worked with in the Minneapolis area over the last 6 years or so has used Dreamweaver. There are obviously other more specific tools of the trade that are used in their respective roles (such as Visual Studio, Word/Excel/Frontpage('Expression'), etc) but every single one has had Dreamweaver and it was the tool of choice. Take that as you want it, a general poll or just an FYI.

Personally I really like Dreamweaver as of the first release of the MX series and now with the versions released by Adobe. It's not without faults, but it is an excellent application with support for almost everything I've ever needed, particularly with the inclusion of certain 'plugins'.

With that said, if it wasn't for being supplied with a license, the price would probably keep me away from it because I don't do enough work any more to justify it. I can get just about anything done in notepad++, quanta/kdevelop, bluefish, etc but since I have access to Dreamweaver and view it as the best, it's what I use almost exclusively.
 
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