June 6, 201214 yr Hello everyone! My name is Calvin and I recently began a web design company. I bought the necessary tools (Photoshop, Dreamweaver, Fireworks, etc.), and I am currently in the process of learning how to use them. I'm experienced in Photoshop but Dreamweaver is very new to me. The last week or so has been a mad blitz for gathering knowledge and experience so that I can eventually build sites for my clients. I am designing my own website right now that I plan to use for showcasing completed projects, advertising to potential clients, and showing off my own design talent (Once I develop it). I am joining these forums in order to network with other designers, both experienced and otherwise. I will be asking many, many questions and seeking advice. I would additionally love to network with any designers/developers through my Google + profile
June 6, 201214 yr Welcome to the forums. One suggestion would be to ditch Dreamweaver. The real power lies with knowing code. HTML/CSS for the basics. Visit www.htmldog.com to start. Photoshop will be good for you, as well as Fireworks. As a new coder I suggest Notepad++ (WinOS), TextWrangler (OSX), TextMate (OSX), SublimeText2 (all) Ask any questions you have. We are always here to answer them.
June 6, 201214 yr Welcome to the forums. One suggestion would be to ditch Dreamweaver. The real power lies with knowing code. I don't find anything wrong with dreamweaver, I find the code view is really nice. Anyway, welcome to the forums! Good luck with everything, I too am learning what I need to for my own web work, I'm currently comfortable with CSS and HTML. Getting down with jquery right now!
June 7, 201214 yr I don't find anything wrong with dreamweaver, I find the code view is really nice. Anyway, welcome to the forums! Good luck with everything, I too am learning what I need to for my own web work, I'm currently comfortable with CSS and HTML. Getting down with jquery right now! Design view is horrid and inserts junk code. If all you use it for is code view, then why not use a free editor rather than paying hundreds.
June 8, 201214 yr Author Thanks guys! I appreciate the help. I will absolutely continue to get comfortable with html/css. I want to code in html5 and use that as a selling point to clients, so I will need to learn the newest features. I have used notepad++ before, the layout is smart and easy to use. Thanks for suggesting, I will definitely download it again. I guess I will go ahead and hit you guys with a question: Like I said, I am designing a website to advertise my services on. This website will need to have a contact form, a portfolio to showcase works completed on ( I think I will use this layout for the portfolio: http://tympanus.net/Development/FlipboardPageLayout/), and a well designed info-graph that details the services that I offer. I understand that scripting is a big part of web design, and at the moment I am not very proficient with anything but html and a bit of css. Can my plans be realistically accomplished mainly by getting good with html and css? Or do I need to learn Javascript and other scripting techniques in order for my site to be up to standards?
June 11, 201214 yr I understand that scripting is a big part of web design, and at the moment I am not very proficient with anything but html and a bit of css. Can my plans be realistically accomplished mainly by getting good with html and css? Or do I need to learn Javascript and other scripting techniques in order for my site to be up to standards? Hello Calvin ! You can create a website only with Html and css, but if you want to add special or original effects to your site you probaly are going to need javascript ( And maybe jQuery ). Here is a nice javascript tutorial I followed, its simple and dosen't take you alot of time http://www.w3schools.com/js/default.asp
June 11, 201214 yr I wish people would stop knocking Dreamweaver! Dreamweaver is an outstanding text editor/IDE, with lots of exciting features. It has great syntax highlighting, built into FTP, file manager, and so much more. With that said... Welcome, Calvin. I am new here as well and also very much a design beginner. I'm a software engineer/ coder but am trying to develop design skills so I can do it all. If I could find a good designer to work with though, that would be even better! If you ever need help with anything please feel free to contact me. HTML, CSS, PHP, JavaScript, jQuery, SQL.
June 11, 201214 yr I wish people would stop knocking Dreamweaver! Dreamweaver is an outstanding text editor/IDE, with lots of exciting features. It has great syntax highlighting, built into FTP, file manager, and so much more. The main problem outside design view (which face it... it's bad) is the price. Adobe wants us to purchase their software for $399. That is an insanely high price for what it does. Lets look at what it out there that you can use instead. Coders: TextWrangler - Free BBEdit - $49.99 Coda 2 - $75 TextMate - $51 Sublime Text 2 - $59 NotePad++ - Free Emacs - Free Expresso - $75 E-Texteditor - $46.95 Aptana / Eclipse - Free FTP (some of the coders have FTP in it) Filezilla - Free Transmit - $34 CyberDuck - Free CoffeeCup - Free SmartFTP - $36.95 CuteFTP - $64.99 Clearly there are even more to add to this list but I think I have made my point clear. There is no reason why you should be buying Dreamweaver as a solo application. The options that you could use instead of it are much better choices, especially for people who know what they are doing. I knock on dreamweaver because honestly it is a coder for morons (sorry to offend). It treats you like you have no idea what you are doing and constantly gets in your way. If you do know what you are doing and are only using code view... why. If you like power try something like Sublime which can greatly enhance your productivity. I feel some people feel compelled to use it because it came in their CS bundle and they have to justify their purchase. There is better and cheaper out there.
June 11, 201214 yr The main problem outside design view (which face it... it's bad) is the price. Adobe wants us to purchase their software for $399. That is an insanely high price for what it does. Lets look at what it out there that you can use instead. Coders: TextWrangler - Free BBEdit - $49.99 Coda 2 - $75 TextMate - $51 Sublime Text 2 - $59 NotePad++ - Free Emacs - Free Expresso - $75 E-Texteditor - $46.95 Aptana / Eclipse - Free FTP (some of the coders have FTP in it) Filezilla - Free Transmit - $34 CyberDuck - Free CoffeeCup - Free SmartFTP - $36.95 CuteFTP - $64.99 Clearly there are even more to add to this list but I think I have made my point clear. There is no reason why you should be buying Dreamweaver as a solo application. The options that you could use instead of it are much better choices, especially for people who know what they are doing. I knock on dreamweaver because honestly it is a coder for morons (sorry to offend). It treats you like you have no idea what you are doing and constantly gets in your way. If you do know what you are doing and are only using code view... why. If you like power try something like Sublime which can greatly enhance your productivity. I feel some people feel compelled to use it because it came in their CS bundle and they have to justify their purchase. There is better and cheaper out there. A coder for morons? I'll get this bit of subjectivity out of the way first, and then we can be civil. I have a 1st degree in software engineering, am I a moron? My coding skills are most likely some of the best on the forum and Dreamweaver is the only IDE I would use for HTML/CSS/JS/PHP. In my opinion it is by far the best and one of the few pieces of software that I would not like to be without. So with that out of the way... Some of the software you've listed is good. In fact, I've used a lot of it and still do some of it, and I would recommend it to other people. I use NotePad++ at work, as we don't have licenses for things like Dreamweaver. I also use FileZilla - it's a good FTP client. These pieces of software are good, but in my opinion, are not even in the same league as Dreamweaver. In regard to the price though, you are right. Dreamweaver is very expensive. That makes it perhaps not the best value, but doesn't detract at all from it's quality.
June 11, 201214 yr I said it was for morons... as in... made for morons. It's also easy to prop yourself up as one of the best coders on the forum... when you only have 7 posts and only joined 2 days ago. Forgive me if you don't instil much confidence in me. Outside the same features that are in other text editors, you have failed to explain why Dreamweaver is better than everything else out there. Or maybe you are talking about how clumsy the UI is. Or how bloated and slow it is (especially when starting up). There is nothing as a coder or designer that I would deem as a "must have" in Dreamweaver. Quite the opposite in fact.
June 11, 201214 yr I said it was for morons... as in... made for morons. It's also easy to prop yourself up as one of the best coders on the forum... when you only have 7 posts and only joined 2 days ago. Forgive me if you don't instil much confidence in me. Outside the same features that are in other text editors, you have failed to explain why Dreamweaver is better than everything else out there. Or maybe you are talking about how clumsy the UI is. Or how bloated and slow it is (especially when starting up). There is nothing as a coder or designer that I would deem as a "must have" in Dreamweaver. Quite the opposite in fact. Do you really think that Macromedia made it for morons? Or Adobe bought and developed it for morons? Or are you now just digging yourself out of the rather large hole you've wedged yourself into with your moronic comment? The UI is not at all clumsy, it's not slow or bloated, and it loads very fast on my machine. Much less time than it would take me to load NotePad++, FileZilla and a few explorer windows; not to mention how much of a better job Dreamweaver does than combining these other tools. Constantly alt + tabbing between windows... now that's clumsy. But can I please ask that we agree to disagree on this one or take our discussion elsewhere, because we are achieving nothing and I don't want to hi-jack Calvin's introduction thread?
June 11, 201214 yr Do you really think that Macromedia made it for morons? Or Adobe bought and developed it for morons? Or are you now just digging yourself out of the rather large hole you've wedged yourself into with your moronic comment? The UI is not at all clumsy, it's not slow or bloated, and it loads very fast on my machine. Much less time than it would take me to load NotePad++, FileZilla and a few explorer windows; not to mention how much of a better job Dreamweaver does than combining these other tools. Constantly alt + tabbing between windows... now that's clumsy. But can I please ask that we agree to disagree on this one or take our discussion elsewhere, because we are achieving nothing and I don't want to hi-jack Calvin's introduction thread? lol ok... so basically you have nothing that it does better than everything else. Especially nothing to justify the $400. And yes, it was made for morons... hence the crappy designer view which spits out crap code. Do I really need to explain this to a person who has a "1st degree in software engineering". lol How funny.
June 12, 201214 yr Design view is horrid and inserts junk code. If all you use it for is code view, then why not use a free editor rather than paying hundreds. One very good reason, it's an industry standard. If you ever intend to move on to working in established design houses or media groups then you'll need a working knowledge of Dreamweaver, it's already part of many companies workflow. But I do agree that you should learn code rather than Dreamweaver at first.
June 12, 201214 yr One very good reason, it's an industry standard. If you ever intend to move on to working in established design houses or media groups then you'll need a working knowledge of Dreamweaver, it's already part of many companies workflow. But I do agree that you should learn code rather than Dreamweaver at first. If simply having the design view button on your screen is enough to prevent someone from learning to code... then there's something wrong. I really don't understand this logic. Why not learn to code in Dreamweaver?
June 12, 201214 yr If simply having the design view button on your screen is enough to prevent someone from learning to code... then there's something wrong. I really don't understand this logic. Why not learn to code in Dreamweaver? You misunderstand me. I'm not saying "don't use Dreamweaver to learn" I'm saying "learn the language not an IDE". Having said that, I have mixed feelings about whether new learners should use any IDE while they're learning or not. On one hand a good IDE will help the readability of the code, on the other hand it can detract from the core job at hand which is the code. I use Dreamweaver on a daily basis, I work for several agencies where I don't have a choice and if I did I would still use it, I also useit in all my freelance work. I find a lot posts on here saying that they don't like the way Dreamweaver does this or that and can someone recommend a new IDE that does do it that way, generally you can point these users at the settings menu in Dreamweaver and they realise what they wanted/needed was there all along. CIB above obviously isn't a fan but your coding environment is as much a personal choice as how you dress and luckily, especially for CIB in this case, there are a wealth of other choices out there, some of them excellent.
June 12, 201214 yr Design view is horrid and inserts junk code. If all you use it for is code view, then why not use a free editor rather than paying hundreds. I personally just use it (code view obviously) because: 1. It comes with the CS Collection (I need Photoshop and Fireworks anyway) 2. I love the autocomplete on it 3. I am so used to it now If I didn't need to buy Photoshop and Fireworks, then I'd use CODA all the time, but it isn't all bad
June 12, 201214 yr I dont know how it is in the UK, but Dreamweaver is not the standard in the US. Not anymore. Serious web shops use things like Textmate and Sublime. I find its the place that has no focus on the web that uses Dreamweaver.
June 12, 201214 yr Author Guys, please...take the debate over the usefulness of dreamweaver elsewhere.
June 12, 201214 yr Guys, please...take the debate over the usefulness of dreamweaver elsewhere. Quite right and there are many more threads on this forum regarding the issue so any one feel free to dig up one of those! Please accept my apologies and most of all WELCOME TO THE FORUM!
June 12, 201214 yr i think there is generally a certain amount of snobbery when it comes to how different web designers/developers etc code. Some will stress an awful lot about how they code everything themselves in notepad with no help from bright colors or plugins because they think it makes them sound like some sort of hero. I personally think that using any wysiwyg tool, be it dreamweaver or one of these online options is bad if you want to convincingly portray yourself as a webdesigner, coder or whatever. However, using Dreamweaver for its coding featured is absolutely fine. As said, there are many great features in Dreamweaver for the code side. I have always used notepad++ its free and is a great code editor. But the other day i decided to try Dreamweaver, and now find myself using that for code. In the end its all about preference. If you have Dreamweaver installed then why not use it to code and take advantage of its features. But i personally would not pay £300 or whatever for it just to use as a code editor. I also agree that it is vital to learn HTML and CSS. HTML is like a decease, it spreads through your brain and embeds itself there forever. With things like JavaScript, php etc its only really necessary to understand it. If you look at a piece of php and see only jumbled letter and rubbish, then you cannot sufficiently make non static websites. You have to be able to look at a piece of code and atleast understand to a certain point what its doing other wise as i said before, you are screwed if you want to look at things like joomla or wordpress in the future. WELCOME TO THE FORUM Edited June 12, 201214 yr by person4659
June 12, 201214 yr i think there is generally a certain amount of snobbery when it comes to how different web designers/developers etc code. Some will stress an awful lot about how they code everything themselves in notepad with no help from bright colors or plugins because they think it makes them sound like some sort of hero. QFTW.
June 12, 201214 yr Guys, please...take the debate over the usefulness of dreamweaver elsewhere. 'least you got people posting in your introduction thread!
June 12, 201214 yr Author @Mike, Person: Thanks for the welcome! @cvsouth: Haha true that. @Everyone: Cheers!
June 20, 201214 yr Thread cleaned yet again. This is the OP's introduction thread not a disscusion on IDE's.
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