What program should I use for website design?

[radioshackkid]

I was just wondering what programs are best to design websites.

[fimmel]

if you know the code (html) and you dont mind not having color coding or auto complete.....notepad. thats how i started web coding. now im using dream weaver because it has allot of time saving things like auto complete and code snippets.

/forest

btw theres also things like syn text editor and the like.

[Christian]

Originally Posted by radioshackkid

I was just wondering what programs are best to design websites.

Well, there is no "best program" to design websites. Windoze' simple notepad is more than capable to design high quality websites, just ask Matt Keller of 108. However, you get no features. Notepad 2 is another good program to use, it is the simplicity of Notepad and the features of Dreamweaver. The, I guess, industry standard, is Macromedia (Adobe) Dreamweaver. It is above all, a very good program. It can easily code XHTML, PHP, CSS, JS, everything (not saying that Notepad(2) can't, just Dreamweaver has templates and extension auto-formating). The bad thing is that it costs money- more than pocket change. You can get a 30-day trial from the website, just make your website early. My team uses it because our school spends money without knowing what it is spending it on, so we have labs filled with Studio, Photoshop, et cetera (and yet no money for robotics...).

There is good news though. There is a program called HTML Kit, and it's completely FREE. It is very similar to Dreamweaver and has some features that Dreamweaver doesn't.I think that it is very cool. It is also good for people new HTML and web design, so if you don't know the coding, it will assist you. I would give that a try before downloading the Dreamweaver trial from Adobe.

[Drake250]

Like the post above me said there are many great programs for designing a website. Many of those programs in the list are great.

NVU is another free alternative to Dreamweaver, but I don't like how it formats some of its HTML code. Besides that it's an incredibly powerful WYSIWYG editor that is on par to Dreamweaver.
Notepad++ is my favorite text editor, it can color code HTML, CSS, PHP and many other non-web programming languages. I'd only recommend using a text editor if you know HTML already.

[65_Xero_Huskie]

If you are looking for a way to do a basic webpage without to many fancy things, i would suggest MS Frontpage. I found that to be the easiest to work with if you dont know much about it and there are lots of tutorials for it online.

If you are going for professional and detailed i would go with everyone else and go Dreamweaver.

[Billfred]

As I'm using a pre-made template for my website work (as is the policy of the University of South Carolina), I use TextWrangler on OS X. Find and replace across multiple files, nice interface to work with, and just generally a good call for such tasks.

[JohnBoucher]

If you have not done this before, you may want to look at a CMS (Content Management System) like Wordpress or Durpal.

It will get you up and running faster. The look can be modified quite a bit so it may be a good choice.

If you look at the awards section of the rules, you will see that the website award is all about content. Get your content up and running.

[esquared]

Where are the vi vs. emacs people?

gvim
emacs

Syntax coloring, recognition of HTML tags/attributes, etc.

--Eric

[Michael Hill]

You generally get the most efficient coding with notepad or notepad++. Dreamweaver can be helpful if you're only doing HTML with CSS. If you do php, you can forget about Frontpage and Dreamweaver (also, I don't like how they render pages).

[Drew]

My two cents says, for HTML editing use NOTEPAD. but for webdesign I like Golive from adobe and dreamweaver. I have used both and are both industry standards. you can use places like tutorialized to read about how to use them. They are very much like drag and drop applications with some tools to use for links and other things. both are very strong. If you are using photoshop got with GoLive since it is interchangable with photoshop.

[Drew]

Originally Posted by Michael Hill

You generally get the most efficient coding with notepad or notepad++. Dreamweaver can be helpful if you're only doing HTML with CSS. If you do php, you can forget about Frontpage and Dreamweaver (also, I don't like how they render pages).

Our page is all PHP and has direct load for the gallery. Dont forget if you check it out were still in progress so its not all finished. actually most isnt finished. www.team302.com

[jakk]

I use Dreamweaver 8, Flash 8, and Photoshop CS2 to design our team's website. About 1.5 months ago I was told that our team needed a webmaster so I decided to take a swing at it, but I didn't even know what HTML was. Through some intense online training I learned the basics.

Dreamweaver is heavy with CSS (cascading style sheets) that make your website consistant. I haven't used any other Adobe or Microsoft programs but I can say that Dreamweaver is "easy" to use. I know it's expensive but it might be worth investing in. I don't know with Adobe is going to release another Macromedia Studio so version 8 might stay a while longer. (By the way, Adobe released Photoshop CS3 beta and you can try it for free if you have a PS CS2 cd-key. I heard it was good.)

[Drew]

to get a little off topic but to carry on with cs3 for photoshop. Its good, but i dont like the immediate setup. It can be transformed to fit CS2 layout but it comes with the tool bar a single line of tools unlike cs2's double line of tools. the layers and everything are all collapsable with a click of a button to give you more veiwing room but why not just hit tab instead. I currently use a wacom 9 x 12 tablet for all my drawings and photoshop pays off. when the upgrade comes out for cs3 you might want to get it (March) but not to much diffrence. Does anyone know what RAW feed is ? I never figured that out. I may go search google for it

[jakk]

It might have to do with the 'camera raw' feature. I don't think it is 'unlocked' in PS CS3 beta but it is a new feature. You can edit raw camera images without importing it fully into PS.

For me the camera raw feature is a waste since our team's sony Cybershot takes pics in .jpg format. It compresses it before i get a chance to compress it! What camera do you all use to take pics what what format is the image saved as? I want to take professional looking pictures for our team and the Cybershot just isn't cutting it.

[Michael Hill]

I love the Camera RAW format (also, adobe's universal digital negative format is amazing). My dad got a Canon Digital Rebel XT, and using RAW gives me a lot more power than .jpg's. I had a camera that just outputted a jpg picture; I loved it until I tried my dad's. With RAW, you can do a lot more with light values and still keep the same detail.