Hi,

I'm still learning to become a Web designer/developer. Getting to grips with the coding, etc., is not the hard part. I'm mainly unsure as to what software I should use to create websites. Out there in the real world of work, is it normal to use templates, photoshop, wordpress and other WYSIWYG programs? Or could I get by with hand-coding everything?

 

I know there are millions of ways to build decent websites, but what are the 'normal' ways of doing it nowadays? With so many different ways to go about things, it seems a bit daunting trying to figure out which programs, etc., I would be better off using. Any advice?

 

Thanks in advance,

 

chrisjf19

The basics:

 

1. A decent code editor (search these forums for suggestions as there are many!)

2. Install all popular browsers for testing (IE, Firefox, Safari, Chrome, Opera)

3. An image editor for image creation, editing, manipulation

 

If you want to get more advanced then you could install MAMP/WAMP on your system so you can run PHP/MySQL locally.

photoshop and about every browser you can find lol

Pretty much what has been said already...

 

Here's what I currently use:

1. Code editor: Sublime Text - yes, it's a little expensive for just a text editor but it's well worth it. Looks great to code on;
2. I only have 3 browsers currently installed - Chrome (to cover the Blink rendering engine - this also covers Opera), Firefox (which covers the Gecko-based browsers I think) Safari (Which covers every webkit rendering engine - like Maxthon 3 & the older versions of Chrome) & finally the IE which is preinstalled with windows;
3. A photo/image-editing software like Photoshop. I use this for logo's, design mockups and just general image issues.

The truth is that there are no 'obvious tools' most the time it's about personal choice

 

An example would be coding, some state that using dreamweaver is a bad idea and no professional would eve dream of it, well I am a professional and I have worked with professionals who are quite happy to use it but it's not about what program you use, not all e time anyway, it's about how you use it.

 

I would never dream or using dreamweavers wysiwyg, I always hand code, I simply use dreamweaver because it has the odd feature that I like to use just to be faster.

 

As for design, that is simply dependant on what you are creating, if you are creating an image that is vector based, illustrator is the best program, let's say icons for your website. If you are doing photo manipulation images for your site then Photoshop is the best in my opinion, but when it comes to designing the website itself both are just as good as the other so I tend to use both depending on what type of website I am creating, if I am making something that has a lot of vector graphics I may use illustrator but if I am creating something that already has the vector graphics ready made I would probably go for Photoshop.

 

It does not boil down to our opinion, although the are standards of quality to be considered with the program's you use, with the better ones it's really up to you, there are times it's proper to use one there are times it's proper to use the other.. I even use indesign for typography layouts sometimes but again it's up to you.

 

Everything else you have mentioned (apart from the templates -professionals don't use templates) is up to you and what you find is the best for your users based on what you know.

Edited April 7, 201412 yr by Fuzzy Logic

Frankly, I find it important to have good programs at hand. They don't have to be big and expensive like Adobe Photoshop or Adobe Dreamweaver. Personally, I find that the free programs are often the best. That being said, I usually code everything by hand. I don't want some program coding things for me. So, let me go down the list of what I find to be important and why...

 

1. Code Editor
   Personally, I prefer Notepad++.
   It's free, easy to use, and colour codes everything to make looking at millions of lines of coding easier to read and see through. It's not a real big program either which I really like. So when my computer is throwing a fit and not acting right, it will still work just as great! When it's running, it doesn't slow down your computer either. To me, these are very important things in any program!
   
2. Graphics Program
   For me, this is Gimp.
   More freeware! Gimp has been my favourite graphic design program for... ever! It's a great program and though it can sometimes take a little bit to start up (depending on how many fonts you have installed on your computer), it's still well worth it. The best part is that it does everything that Adobe Photoshop does, except that it's free! In my opinion, it's also considerably easier to use and less complicated then Photoshop and other programs I've tried. That being said, there aren't a lot of tutorials of the program. However, I have found that if you check out Photoshop tutorials, you can usually adapt them to work with Gimp as well. Things might be in different places in Gimp compared to Photoshop and might be called some different, but with some patience, it's not hard to figure it out!
   
3. Web Browsers!
   I use multiple. I believe it's the more the merrier! I have Google Chrome, Opera, Mozilla FireFox, Cool Novo, Comodo Dragon, Safari, Wyzo, Torch, and SRWare Iron. I used to have more, but I haven't yet re-installed them.
   I believe that multiple web browsers, especially those of different styles and set ups are very important. You need to remember that your coding might look different in all web browsers. So it's very important to be able to test run your website on as many browsers as possible. Now, the one problem though is that if you only have (say) a Windows computer like I do, then you still only have only previewed your website in one operating system. You'll need to remember that just because it looks okay in Chrome on a Windows operating system, doesn't mean it'll look the same in Chrome on a Mac operating system.
   That's why I also recommend this website : Browsershots.
   This website takes screenshots of how your website might look in other browsers on different operating systems. You can even see previews of your site based on the browser version, which can also be very important!

I hope that this helps you out! Below, I have listed other programs that I have installed. Though I do like them, I recommend the ones above before any others! However, I really love using different programs because different programs can do different things and I like that variety!

 

1. Graphic Programs
   - ​Paint.NET
   - Adobe Illustrator CS6
   - Sai
   - Adobe Photoshop CS6
   - Adobe Photoshop Elements 7 & 10
   - Adobe InDesign
2. Code Editor
   - Notepad++
   - Adobe Dreamweaver
   - Notepad

I wish you the very best of luck!

Edited May 1, 201412 yr by Lovelessly

Nobody has mentioned it but a command line tool for using GIT and SSH.

 

If you're not yet using version control such as git and using FTP for file transfer rather than SSH then you're missing out on some great tools that really help with group projects and fast deployment.

 

Also Grunt is probably the best automated task manager out there, you can use it to automate literally everything - file concatenation, minification, preprocessor compiling , auto prefixing, lossless image compression and loads that I have not mentioned.

Edited May 2, 201412 yr by rbrtsmith