With all of the discussion surrounding the ways in which sites are built, I thought it would be neat to dedicate a thread to development technology. The poll is meant to get a snapshot of the tools people use during actual site building (just site structure, not graphics - another thread for another day) and the thread will give everyone a chance to talk about why and how their tools are the best option for them.

Fire away!

:)

Paul H

BBEdit mostly, and XCode if it's part of a PHP project.

Notepad here for me unless I need to do mass replace of variables then I will load up Dreamweaver MX and use the replace feature. After that it's back to Notepad. I wouldn't have it any other way.

:)

PHPcoder here, but I'm looking into other advanced text editors.

and paul, maybe it should be combined with my mail client. ;) (sorry about the late reply to that email)



Eugene

TextPad here for me. Couldn't live without syntax highlighting. :)

I used to use modified notepad with syntax highlighting. Hand-coding websites is best left to you kids - I'm getting too old and lazy for it and just don't want to forego site-management and templating features. I am getting more comfortable with my commitment to MoreMotion Web Designer, a WYSIWYG package.

Dreamweaver to get the general layout, and a lot of editing from my side ;)

I mostly use Note Pad or Crimson Editor. I prefer Crimson Editor as it allows me to undo changes loads of time, whereas note pad only allows me to undo changes once.

Crimson also has syntax highlighting for barious languages.

Well, these are some interesting results thus far. I guess I expected some results for combo w/WYSIWYG emphasis and templates, and I thought WYSIWYG editors alone would account for about half the results.

But thus far, the voting is heavily in favor of coding or emphasis on code! I guess I have somewhat of a reputation for being a strict coder, and I hope this hasn't deterred anyone from responding - I'm not in any mood to debate GUI v. code today (unless someone really riles me up :) ). I'm just interested to hear what people use and why.

Let's make this post more than a thread bump:
Personally, I hand code, everytime, all the time. I'm a huge proponent of Homesite as a code editor. The real-time validation is an outstanding feature, as is its multi-language color-coding, excellent search/replace features and tag completion. The entirely internalized W3C HTML 4.01 spec is handy as well.

But in the end, I'll take a no-feature text editor such as notepad over any WYSIWYG editor anyday. For me, WYSIWYG editors are much too slow, especially when I factor in the time it takes to clean out the code they generate (especially FrontPage - what a nightmare!). I'll use Dreamweaver in code mode - it's pretty similar to Homesite, but that's about it. I've not seen a single advantage to using them, and most are pretty expensive too. It just doesn't make sense to me.

My .02 - probably nothing unexpected, but it's my thread, so I oughta respond to my own question.

:)

Paul H

i use netscape composer for adding text and stuff, but for scripts i use notepad and when im done add them in to composer

Notepad! allways.

i never really used any "premade" editors, so i dont really know what they are able to do now and days, i use notepad because the code is "pure" and i belive that i can customize the special things better, and if there is a problem with the site i know exactly what part of the code that i should edit.

im not really a fan of programs that allmost build the site for you, kinda takes the fun out for me ;)

I use dreamweaver, but I don't use the WYSIWIG part of it, I still code completely by hand I just find the color syntax helpful

I Use Frontpage to make the basic layout
and then use notepad to fine tune it

Hi -
I usually begin with the free WebCoder5 - an awesome program, although I stay far-far-away from the "Quick Edit" feature. (Which resembles a wysiwyg: in the way it messes with the code! - vers. 4 did, anyway.) You can do regular text editing with syntax highlighting, has good css and validation support, and previews are instant.

Once it's basically done, I view it in Moz./Firefox and IE to tweak with Notepad all the way!

The main reason I use WebCoder first is that it makes adding graphics a breeze - with auto height and width. (But I always have to remove border="" property since I've gone xhtml strict!)

- El

I use the WYSIWYG web editor Adobe GoLive with alot of handcoding on my end. I do a lot of PHP programming and it is really nice because it doesn't try to automatically rewrite some of my handcoding like alot of the others in my experience do :rolleyes:

Dreamweaver all the way. Damn I love that program :)

Textpads the way to go, its my best buddy. ;)

I use TSWebeditor for my coding since it has syntax highlighting, a css assistant, a php syntax checker and also a preview mode .

Presently I do my basic layout on paper, then create a mockup in Dreamweaver to get a visual of what it will look like, then if I like the look I will then switch to TSWebeditor and hand code the page

For myself, I have found this approach is currentlly working the best for me. I find that doing a mockup in Dreamweaver is helping me get a better feel for how things will visually look before spending a lot of time on creating something which will not be visually pleasing.


RCMV- Newbie designer learning as I go, but always looking for advise.

RCMV- Newbie designer learning as I go, but always looking for advise.
Ross? Is that you?

You nailed that one of the very first try, Nice to see you here Paul.

You have certainly been VERY busy helping ppl on this forum. A lot of excellent advise.

This seems to be an excellent resource forum. I just lucked into this site while surfing one night.

It's a very good resource Ross, and I'm enjoying my time here quite a bit. Stick around and become a standards evangelist with me! Some very interesting discussions come out of it :)

I use EmEditor (paid) for coding. It loads in under a second, is simple, and has loads of features/plugins if you need to do anything. Then it has psuedo-tabs, which are also nice. Overall: everything by hand. :)

I also occasionally use VI. :P

I started out with dreamweaver.

Now though, I use Textpad for css and html code and photoshop for image creation. :)

Dreamweaver is more than enough for me. :)

Dreamweaver can do anything from simple websites to advanced db driven websites, so it's more than just a WYSIWYG application. Going in and editing code on your own is usually necessary ;)

Just plain Notepad, but people sometimes complain all my layouts are too samey cause I use similar methods each time. :P

The only other thing I use is a Hex editor (in psp), so I can get some nice colours.

notepad/wordpad is the best for me. I can't stand dreamweaver or whatever you call it, I like coding the stuff myself, so I can edit it easier in the future!

Ya I agree people should learn to use notepad before they go straight to a helper like dreamweaver or frontpage, since both tend to add unneeded code. Although both are very convient tools. Also dreamweaver is great for displaying code colors, making editing a breeeze. You can even directly connect via ftp, and open files in dw directly from the server, even create new folders on the ftp. Makin the ftp program obsolete, xcept for uploading in ascii/binary and setting permissions.

dreamweaver and it's code option. I used to use notepad alone, but now i prefer dw, works a lot faster, easy to customize the code and eventually all you have to do is clean a little up when you finished. And if you use it right it doesn't create the mess everyone always talks about, a little edit will do when using it the right way.

Originally posted by ic3d
dreamweaver and it's code option. I used to use notepad alone, but now i prefer dw, works a lot faster, easy to customize the code and eventually all you have to do is clean a little up when you finished. And if you use it right it doesn't create the mess everyone always talks about, a little edit will do when using it the right way.
If you are exclusively or almost exclusively using Dreamweaver's code view, seriously consider using Homesite instead. It comes on every Dreamweaver CD (you have to go through file explorer to find it). It is even more robust than rhe code editor in Dreamweaver, which was modeled after Homesite. They just kept some of the best features for the pure text editor.

I use 1st Page 2000, it's free and does everything that HomeSite does. It's a very practical tool and free (hard to beat that) :)

ya 1st page is great ill back u up on that, a great free alternative to DW and FP

Discovered about two days ago that the editor built in CuteFTP has syntax highlight. Nice to know :)

I use notepad for html , programs in php
and photoshop for web graphics

yes, as simple as is

:)

I use dreamweaver here. Generally, I stick to the WYSIWYG editor until I'm having trouble telling Dreamweaver what I want, and then switch to editing the code. I don't think I know enough at the moment to code a complicated layout with tables and all that stuff without Dreamweaver.

Originally posted by Mark Raven
I use dreamweaver here. Generally, I stick to the WYSIWYG editor until I'm having trouble telling Dreamweaver what I want, and then switch to editing the code. I don't think I know enough at the moment to code a complicated layout with tables and all that stuff without Dreamweaver.
How about coding an uncomplicated layout without tables? ;)

Well, I technically know how to do that, but most of the time I still use dreamweaver, even if it's "cheating". Cheating saves time.

even if it's "cheating"

I don't think it could be seen as cheating per se, I rather think that all those FrontPage-like editors usually are getting too smart and start adding so much useless code to the page it weghts like an elefant but works as a lazy cat. That's the main reason most people who "dig" don't use editors - it saves time on cleaning the code after editor. Ofcourse, if you just starting your own lemonade stand online using front page maybe a good idea, but if you doing something serious - you probably would want a total control over code. Just my 2 cents...

I'm Notepad certified! I'm kinda suprised how many people use this route.

For larger websites I see no shame in using dreamweaver. I'm sure its the same for most, but I started with notepad and frontpage in my grom years and then started moving towards notepad only. But then the pages I was making got more and more complex, so I started using Dreamweaver to better organize things and haven't turned back.

I'm seeing a lot of people clinging to Notepad as if they are going to be called newbies if they using DW every once and while. Of course we can all code, so there's no need to think that if you say you use DW or some other editor it will be looked down upon.

(now if you use frontpage still.... JK!) (no i'm not)

I think DW is much faster then straight up notepad and when I have deadlines DW is my savior.

My vote - Free/Open source text editor (Notepad, SimpleText).
I'm using programs witch colorize the code because its easy to see who, where and why...

I use Dreamweaver and Notepad as they are the best for me. i like the features that dreamweaver has and the colour coding helps. Dont want anyone else do do it and dont want to try open source text editors.

I hate Dreamveaver.... I hate, but i don't know why... probably that's too big program for me... I would better use free software - Maguma Studio.

VIM for html and php.