Web Hosting Talk : Web Hosting Main Forums : Web Design and Content : Whats the best Web Development Software?

[Scout]

Hello,

I am trying to find a software that can really increase the speed of my web development. I am currently eyeing Adobe's tools...

What are your personal recommendations? and why?

Thanks
Scout

[Rich2k]

Dreamweaver MX 2004 and photoshop 7.0

[LightningWeb]

I agree with Rich.

Although PS7 is very good, it's also very complex. I saw in another thread where someon recommended www.designsbymark.com for tutorials, and I bought his CD. VERY very helpful....over 20 hours of instructional videos. Well, worth the $$ IMO.

[Rich2k]

I suppose I should have said why

1) They are both industry standards. That means there is lots of support, tutorials, books and downloads for them.

2) Again industry standards. If you want to get a coding/design job you will NEED to know them

3) Very powerful. They both can do as little or as much as you need. The downside is that DW was made harder for newbies to pick up with the MX line and well photoshop has never been newbie friendly. To get started with photoshop I recommend Photoshop elements at a hugely discounted price and easier interface (just less features).

[bainesy21]

I use Dreamweaver MX and Fireworks MX. I am a graphics imbicile and find Fireworks to be very newbie friendly.

[Rich2k]

It's quite funny with designers.

Some swear by photoshop, others fireworks. Rarely do you find someone who uses both regularly.

I do have both (as I have studio MX) but I rarely use fireworks, don't like the way it operates.

I guess old school designers (or print designers) tend to opt for photoshop. When I say old school designers, I mean ones from '96-'99 on the Internet before fireworks was mainstream

[bedlam]

I haven't upgraded to Photoshop 7, but Photoshop 6 at least is not up to the Fireworks 4 standard when it comes to optimizing gifs for the web. Try optimizing a gif with both intricate line work and broad, flat areas of colour in PS 6 and in FW 4; the PS file will frequently contain antialising in the areas of flat colour, while the Fireworks sample will be a single colour throughout.

Having said that, if you're producing for both print and web, you will eventually need Photoshop, and need it bad...

The Macromedia studio package is awfully good though... between Fireworks and Freehand you can come close to doing away with Photoshop.

B

[Rich2k]

Next version of photoshop due out in November.

The one feature that they are talking about it editable text along a path.

[chris3125]

Designers are very picky about the tools they use. I am speaking from personal experience. I use Dreamweaver MX and Fireworks MX for all my full time work. I use photoshop 7 for most of my freelance template design simply because people seem to prefer a PSD file over a PNG file.

If cost is a factor in your decision, Fireworks MX 2004 is only $299 on Macromedia's website.

[Kauzlaric]

Hmm,

Well, I am a newbie at graphics. I have PS7, PSP, and Fireworks MX (6.0)

I find Fireworks to be the best. It is easier to understand. And the built in tutorials, really teach you alot.

I also, like frontpage and dreamweaver for the Coding part. I use both.

-David

[Rich2k]

*cough* frontpage? *cough*

[bainesy21]

*cough* sux *cough*

[Maxplayer14]

I use Dreamweaver MX and PS7. I have use Fireworks every blue moon, when am just making a minor modification to a graphic in Dreamweaver, because I do admit I love the "Edit in fireworks" option then when your done you can just hit "done" in works and thats it.

But, I am a PS7 man at heart. I get sick to my stomach when I try to use Fireworks MX to much, I feel like a newbie. Also I know it has a lot of the same features, but I can't ever find them. PS7 ALL THE WAY!!!!

[geobop]

I greatly prefer DreamWeaver to FrontPage, partly because it's a vastly better program and partly because I hate Microshaft.

However, I will say that you can get a lot of service out of FrontPage if you use it as a Dreamweaver accessory. Dreamweaver is famous for its bugs and lack of guts; I think it uses a lot of memory. So I often set up my pages with Dreamweaver, use FrontPage to do the grunt work, then go back to Dreamweaver to fine tune it.

I think there are also a few things you can do with FrontPage that you can't do with Dreamweaver. (Though there are far more things Dreamweaver does that FrontPage doesn't.) There are also a variety of tricks you can implement. For example, opening a Dreamweaver page in FrontPage lets you override the Dreamweaver templates.

I've been using Photoshop for years and love it. I have Fireworks but haven't learned to use it yet. Based on the numerous discussions I've seen, it sounds like Photoshop is probably better overall, but Fireworks is better for optimizing images for the web. Some people say it's easier to use, too.

I anticipate using both. I'm also fascinated by scaleable vector images and would like to learn to work with those. Adobe Illustrator handles them, but I don't think FIreworks does.

[Bullschmidt]

NoteTab Pro
http://www.notetab.com
NoteTab Pro is an HTML editor that has search & replace for DISK files and highlights HTML tags and costs about $19.95 (as of 8/2000).
NoteTab Light is freeware and doesn't have the features mentioned above.
The editors have the capabilities to use "clip libraries" which one can generate so the user can for instance doubleclick on Response.Flush (or some other item in a list that one can control) and have that or something similar instantly placed on the page.
Also one can control what is placed on the main toolbar.
The editors are made by Eric G.V. Fookes (Fookes Software) in Switzerland.