I come from a graphic design background and when I wanted to learn web design I decided to code by hand. I haven't done many sites but I seem to be getting a little stuck. I don't have the practice and experience to pick up my speed by doing it by hand plus I am sometimes relearning things since I don't do pages that often. I've been trying dreamweaver but that takes away some of the control and have to figure out how to use that interface to do what would be a few lines of code.

 

I started one web project by hand, got frustrated at how slow I was so I switched to dreamweaver and got a little frustrated learning that program so I went back to doing it by hand but then had all this code dreamweaver put in that I had to figure out.

 

Just wondering if I should just stick to dreamweaver, try another program or continue it by hand.

use notepad++

 

or use dreamweaver code view

 

but i wud say go with notepad++ .. it helps u learn things especially if u r a starter

I agree with sash. If you want to learn you should only be using a text/code editor and never ever touch the design view.

Also the code generated from Dreamweavers design view (or any other WYSIWYG) is not very semantic and will eventually slow your work down.

By creating your own classes and Ids and style these with your custom made stylesheets you will find that you can work much faster and apply styles to many elements on many pages at the same time.

I originally trained as a Graphic Designer, so can understand where you're coming from. The trendy thing to do would be recommend a text editor, but if you have access to Dreamweaver this will be a big help starting out. You can use code view and then check your work in design view. This will show you the outline of containers. Don't worry about being 'semantic' to begin with - just get it working. Start simple and build from there. Try adding to your skills with each new project. Once you feel confident, make the move to a text editor. If you're a Mac user - congratulations, you can use Coda. And good luck by the way.

For me I use an old Macromedia Dreamweaver 2004 in code view. I prefer it simply because it will colour code missing bits (such as an unclosed div) which saves a lot of chasing down silly errors. It's also great for managing files, synchronisation ftp built in and the predictive text is sweet to save writing every last line by hand.

 

The thing to avoid is using the built in functions ... they are really long winded for small tasks.

The most important thing is to enjoy your work, pick a program you like the feel of as you'll have it open 24/7 soon enough

http://www.sublimetext.com/

dreamweaver is the tool I use.

I like sublime text 3 it's really good when you all the shortcuts etc

There are loads of text editors, the one that is best really is a matter of testing to see what works for you. I have used a different program each year.

 

Notepad++ is okay, Sublime Text 3 is outstanding! I would try something like Brackets by Adobe, it is really coming on well with a beautiful interface. Komodo is what I have been using up until a month ago. I'm now using Coda 2 which I would highly recommend and wins for me as its more of an overall developer tool. Give them all a try and see what works for you.

you could also look at adobe edge including edge code http://html.adobe.com/edge/ (edge code is still beta/development)

Which is the better editor, notepad++ or sublime? Or is it simply down to personal preference?

Edited January 8, 201412 yr by benjwoo

guess it's personal preference but i would vote sublime, as i'm sure would many others.

 

try it out

I used both notepad++ and deamviewer but am very comfortable with the dreamviewer for website design coding.

Edited January 9, 201412 yr by indglobal

guess it's personal preference but i would vote sublime, as i'm sure would many others.

 

try it out

Thanks, will give it a whirl!

Which is the better editor, notepad++ or sublime? Or is it simply down to personal preference?

Sublime is a better editor but it is still down to preference.

 

Before you pay for sublime try Brackets.

Phpstorm. I prefer a real IDE over a text editor.

Thanks for this, started using it with boilerplate. awesome!

coda ( not coda2 )

or a plain old simply text editor.

Notepadd ++ tools is the bset tool for the beginers. Dream Viewer could be quite difficult fro the beginer so according to me I would go with Notepad++