Which program/s do you work in and why?

Dashing daisies

New Member
Hi,

I am new to webdesign, so I would like to hear from designers with more experience and if you could give a link as well, sp I can see the result of the choices.

I know Photoshop, Illustrator og Indesign very well.

Flash og Dreamweaver are my new adventures at the moment. I have produced one website in Dreamweaver.

Photoshop and Fireworks: When is it an advantage to use Fireworks?

Jquery: I read about Jquery, does it replace Flash for slideshow, easier solution?

Producing the entire website in Photoshop and then slice it up? Why is this smart?

Javascript: what is it and when is it useful?

Flash: Would you make the entire website in this program?

I look forward to hearing from you.

Cheers T
 

ronaldroe

Super Moderator
Staff member
I have essentially 2 tools I use: Photoshop and Aptana. I have used Illustrator on occasion for tracing.

I generally lay the whole page out in Photoshop, and slice the individual elements out that I will need images for. That gives me an idea of how things should be spaced. I spent hours one day making a grid with guides to make it easier (didn't like the built-in grid). The rest is all hand-coded in Aptana. I learned hand-coding with Notepad++, which I definitely recommend. I only use Aptana now to make things faster. I feel the same way about Dreamweaver.

JQuery is a JavaScript library that can replace many of the most common uses for Flash, like slideshows, lightboxes and transitions.

JavaScript is a client-side scripting language (executed on the user's computer). It's useful for a lot of things, like adding effects, dynamically altering content, validating forms, etc.

I would shy away from Flash as much as possible. It has large file sizes, and search engines don't like it. Certainly refrain from making the entire site in it.
 

Phreaddee

Super Moderator
Staff member
Producing the entire website in Photoshop and then slice it up? Why is this smart?
its not smart to do it that way at all.
ONLY use what imagery you need and none of the rest.
definately dont slice and let photoshop "make" it into an html page. that is even worse.

ditto stay away from flash. there really is no point.

flash is great for animation, particularly when you need high quality, I just don't see a place for it in web design. superfluous in every possible way.
 

notarypublic

New Member
I use Dreamweaver, and have worked with/ taught it for several years now (Though the bad habits I was teaching students 3 years ago make me cringe to think about, now).

All of these things are tools, though. Powerful, yes, but capable of doing really awful work in unskilled hands. On one hand it has increased competition for designers, because a lot of amateurs are able to enter the industry, but on the other hand:

* High quality work stands out even more against an increasingly wide sea of mediocrity, and

* There is a lot of business to be made in rescuing clients who are unhappy with the shoddy website they have currently, that was made by their friend's cousin some 4 years ago.
 

DesigNes

New Member
photoshop for all my graphics - there is no substitute.

I use bluefish & filezilla - both free programs because I'm small time & trying to actually make money :D. Plus I really enjoy HTML coding.

NP is right!
 

krymson

Member
Dreamweaver- Use it only after you know how to hand code.
Flash- never use it for web development purposes unless you know how to import the text and everything via XML
jQuery- LEARN IT!!! Great flash substitute for effects and transitions to stay on top of SEO.
Photoshop- A priority in web design, if you dont have it GET IT.
Filezilla- The best (in my opinion) open source FTP client.

Thats basically everything i use.
 

bcee

New Member
Dreamweaver- Use it only after you know how to hand code.
Flash- never use it for web development purposes unless you know how to import the text and everything via XML
jQuery- LEARN IT!!! Great flash substitute for effects and transitions to stay on top of SEO.
Photoshop- A priority in web design, if you dont have it GET IT.
Filezilla- The best (in my opinion) open source FTP client.

Thats basically everything i use.

Pretty much the same here. Some would argue PS isn't for the web and to use Fireworks. To each his own.
 

BMA

Banned
Photoshop is great for creating your website images. The Save for Web and Devices feature of Photoshop let's you experiment with different file types and quality to preview not only how it will look but also the file size for each image.

Don't use Photoshop to make your actual HTML. It makes some pretty funky code.

I only make a website or two per month, because my home health care marketing agency focuses on other media. So I prefer to use Dreamweaver to create my HTML, because it's difficult to remember all the relevant code if you're not doing it daily. However, I agree with previous posters that it's best to learn to code HTML in a simple text editor - even if you don't learn every command. Only with that background can you fully understand and therefore control what WYSIWYG editors like Dreamweaver do to your code. I find that I am constantly going into the code Dreamweaver creates for me and changing it at the code level to get the behavior I want.
 

anna

New Member
Photoshop is great for creating your website images. The Save for Web and Devices feature of Photoshop let's you experiment with different file types and quality to preview not only how it will look but also the file size for each image.

Don't use Photoshop to make your actual HTML. It makes some pretty funky code.

I only make a website or two per month, because my home health care marketing agency focuses on other media. So I prefer to use Dreamweaver to create my HTML, because it's difficult to remember all the relevant code if you're not doing it daily. However, I agree with previous posters that it's best to learn to code HTML in a simple text editor - even if you don't learn every command. Only with that background can you fully understand and therefore control what WYSIWYG editors like Dreamweaver do to your code. I find that I am constantly going into the code Dreamweaver creates for me and changing it at the code level to get the behavior I want.

Agree completely.
 

kayla

New Member
Photoshop, Dreamweaver, Filezilla. I'm not good at Flash so I avoid it, and I've never really tried to learn Illustrator (although I'd like to).
 
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