Hi guys,

 

I am really confused and would like to have some guidelines about where to go from now on:

 

A LITTLE ABOUT MY SKILLS:

I am good at Photoshop, Flash CS3 and setting up Wordpress... I have some basic Ideas about HTML and CSS.

 

WHAT AM I LOOKING FOR:

I am looking for a way to design nice looking webpages. No need for a CMS. But I would like to have a nice What-you-see-is-what-you-get thing which I can easily use with flash and Photoshop. Wordpress support would be cool too...

 

MY QUESTIONs:

1) What do you guys think about Dreamweaver? Is it worth spending some time on it? Is there an alternative?

2) Which other software would you recommend as a fast layout-creater?

3) How do you guys use the ADOBE CS Package in your workflow? Do you use Photoshop for the templating? Or Fireworks? Or Dreamweaver?

4) Can you recommend any good tutorials?

 

Thank you so much for your tipps

Rassy

1 & 2. If you are an entry level coder, DreamWeaver is worth getting. It has many built-in features that allow ease of integration. However, in my opinion if you are serious about coding your site, I would not use a WYSIWYG editor. At home I have two monitors set up. On one screen I have my favorite code editor (phpDesigner7) and the other, Firefox (then other browsers for compatibility test). This way I get to see what my code is like. Having a preview on an actual browser compared to the editor is very different.

 

3. When it comes to a design project, I always create my templates using Adobe Fireworks. I feel Adobe Fireworks work better for making templates whereas Adobe Photoshop for photo manipulation and other graphics needs.

 

4. What kind of tutorials are you looking for? Photoshop? Fireworks? CSS? HTML?

In general Tutsplus is a wonderful site for a large variety of tutorials. For CSS and HTML starting I would recommend Tizag.

i use notepad++ for coding and photoshop for graphics

 

letting a program do the coding for you (dreamweaver) i think is a bad idea

 

learn xhtml and css, should take couple of weeks if you already have basic idea about it

 

with them skills you should be able to make a elegant website

 

P.S tutplus is brilliant for tutorials and also has some good resources

Edited March 8, 201115 yr by CreativeJunkie

I use Fireworks for Designing the site, then I normally just use one of the most empty wordpress themes (sandbox is a good one) and build it up from there (hand coding html/php and I use stylizer for creating and editing css (it also lets you open your design in any version of ie, ff and chrome)

 

When it is just a simple website (non cms) I just use notepad or text-edit for the html

 

Hope it helps

Edited March 8, 201115 yr by natholas

I used Webuilder 2010!

You don't have to sacrifice an extra RAM just to code a web page with Dreamviewer. A simple text editor will do fine.

almost all sites designed up in Photoshop first.

 

I use dreamweaver to stick it together. god knows what version.

No point throwing away the wheel and dragging all the stuff up the hill on your back.

 

Although I will say that with all the gadgets you can get add to a website now, the PS only design process is faltering..

I use Photoshop & Illustrator back-to-back with all my website designs... once I have a design I'm happy with I put the .jpgs in Fireworks and slice it up and add a couple of effects, once all thats complete I use Dreamweaver and add a spot of jQuery or flash depending on what type of functionality the customer wants to see on their website. Then I present it back to them using a temporary subfolder on a private domain.

 

Pretty standard set up there...Ps, Ai, Fw, Dw, Fl, everyday I find myself using Adobe software because they're a pioneer design/development for the web.

 

Woz

Edited March 10, 201115 yr by Warren Jerzyszek

Always, always, always code your sites by hand. WYSIWYG editors produce messy code that is inaccessible and has buckets of cross-browser issues. Learning (X)HTML and CSS (and a little javascript/jQuery) will get you a LONG way, especially if you learn how to make custom themes in Wordpress.

 

I use Dreamweaver (in code view) for syntax highlighting and code completion. The FTP client built into it is pretty decent, too, but I found myself going to a third-party app for that.

 

Photoshop for design, Fireworks for the odd image optimization job (or simple designs or fast mockups).

 

I do all of my slicing in Photoshop unless I'm creating sprites.

Edited March 13, 201115 yr by porkchops

For all the help you need I suggest you dig deep in to this website and my companies blog! some really great resources there.

 

CSS Tricks

Creare Blog

 

Goodluck.

Photoshop,

Illustrator

Corel Draw

Fireworks

Flash

Homesite

Dreamweaver.

Edited March 14, 201115 yr by Lev

paint and notepad

I use AdobePhotoShop and Dreamweaver.I think both are the best software for web design.

paint and notepad

 

That will explain a lot Kingy.

Hey, Here’s my personal answers

 

1) I use dreamweaver as a tool but i hand code everything in dreamweaver and just use the split view so i can see how it looks as i code. I also use it to keep track of all my FTP accounts so i can quickly edit and upload files to sites. I don't use the built in dreamweaver tools for creating HTML/CSS elements as they are sometimes wrong or not best practice methods of writing code

 

2) I firstly design my sites in photoshop or fireworks which ever takes my fancy on the day i then slice them up and code them in dreamweaver

 

3) I think my above answer also covers workflow question

 

4) If your still learning I would recommend you go to site like template monster, grab a template you like the looks off, screen shot or grab the image, dump it in photoshop or fireworks which you prefer then start layering your own design on top replicating the parts you want to learn how to do and build up your design this way. This may not be the most chosen way to do things as I now like to do everything from scratch but at the learning stage it helped me to learn different parts of design elements and how to build up layered designs in a way which was workable for slicing at the next stage before coding.

In my opinion;

 

If you are starting out, coding from scratch can be daunting. Using dreamweaver is a great starting point but it's also expensive for a new up to date version. I first started using HTML-KIT which has a free version and is really good as a basic tool for coding. Once you're setup and getting into more sites and need something more powerful switch to dreamweaver and then eventually to coding by hand if you want to.

 

What I started doing a while back was creating a series of layouts that worked for different clients and I now use these as a starting point for body, navigation layout etc, saves me a lot of time. I then build up around this layout with anything that is tailored specifically for a client. As mentioned above, don't try to reinvent the wheel everytime.

 

Why do your think China are so strong in manufacturing? Because they streamline parts production and flow. My philosophy, keep it simple - no one ever comes to you and says "I want a really complex design built from scratch for only me".

 

For learning Youtube is still one of the best for free support.

Front Page é muito bom, o template você pode criar usando o fireworks.

I needed a website for my business and decided to learn dreamweaver, took me almost 6 hellish months to get a grip.

 

Now I understand the basics and will use dreamweaver forever, i like the mix of visual and code editing, as an oldskool printed media designer I need that visual aspect which hand coding does not give me.

 

Forums are equally as important, forum users told me my dreamweaver code was dirty, sluggish and made my site an irritating experience to browse...

 

With help I learned to clean up most of the code in NOTEPAD++ which I now use to manage page consistency which gets difficult in dreamweaver which tends to make a mes of my design view by throwing divs in all directions.

 

If you go for dreamweaver I recommend "the missing manual", this is a massive 800+ page book which when I got it through amazone gave me an instant headache, but after a few days following the tutorials I got the hang of it.

 

Another great tutorial site I thought is www.tutvid.com, simple well articulated video tuts on most adobe software.

 

But I also agree with earlier statement that if you only want to do this for your own companies site than your better of paying a developer $1000.- and get it running asap, everyday without a site you potentially loose money.

 

Good luck

P.

Front Page é muito bom, o template você pode criar usando o fireworks.

 

Voce quer dizer o MS FrontPage?

I use PHPDesigner7 for PHP coding , really powerfull software , can do anything !

 

and of course my friend DreamViewer !!

Woo... thanks for the tips. I am trying PHPDesigner7 as we speak

+1 for that lovely text editor webdesign7!

I working on

Photoshop, Illustrator, fireworks, gimp, nexusfont,

notepad++, phpdesigner 7 and aptana studio 2.0 (never work on Dreamweaver)

Windows Notepad... The original and the best

Learn HTML and CSS first as this is the standard for creating great website design templates