Which software, and why?

[MrPaulsen]

Hello,

I’m all new to this site, and i’m really exited about what content it brings, and I cant wait to study more! I work as a graphic designer in print, but have made several web designs. I have never wanted to start coding and developing until I came across this site, today!

I’ve already seen the video about “#6: Tools of the Trade: The Mac Software I Use for Web Design” video, but since i’m kind of a rookie in doing the coding part of a website I couldn’t stop wondering if I really needed Coda, TextMate and all the other programs.

My goal is to get even more familiar with HTML/CSS and then learn to code website that are WordPress compatible.

So here are my questions:

1: So which software do you recommend for me, a rookie, that has basic HTML/CSS knowledge and very little PHP/WordPress skills.

2: Is dreamweaver enough?

3: Do you recommend using Flux3 ?

4: Anything else you would recommend for me? :)

Thanks for you answers. Looking forward sticking around these forums, and learn from the best.

Rasmus, Denmark.

[cybershot]

I love dreamweaver. I use dreamweaver cs4. I don’t think you should stay away from dreamweaver. What you should stay away from is using the visual part of dreamweaver only. You should use the split screen to see the code and the design but you should work on designing your site using code only. The visual part is very helpful in allowing you to see your margins and borders. It also can be very helpful in finding unclosed tags that you might have forgotten about.

Dreamweaver is also great for uploading your files and using as an ftp program. You can set it up to save your file to the server on save. That saves a lot of time. You should watch all of the videos on this site and learn as much as you can.

[Rob MacKay]

It’s about what you are comfortable with – for me Dreamweaver was too heavy.

This is everything I use.

Notepad++

http://notepad-plus-plus.org/

Eclipse

http://www.eclipse.org/downloads/packages/eclipse-php-developers/heliossr1

Oh and Filezilla :)

http://filezilla-project.org/download.php

[TheDoc]

Have used Dreamweaver for the longest time, and it’s still what we use at the office. At home, though, I use Coda.

[jamygolden]

I started off using Dreamweaver in the beginning. I used ‘design mode’ (lol – I don’t recommend using it) and at some point I stopped using it and I never left ‘code mode’. I like how Dreamweaver auto creates a quick and basic HTML document. My two favourite things about Dreamweaver are the colours (Probably because I used it for so long) the way it loads the .js and .css files when you open your HTML document (CS4), the find and replace is quite cool and you can highlight code, press ‘ctrl + t’ and start typing an element name and properties.

I now use Notepad++ because it has find and replace throughout open documents, it’s light-weight and open source. I still miss the ‘ctrl + t’ lol.

So:

• Notepad++
• Filezilla
• Firefox + firebug + web-developer tools
• IE tester is helpful when debugging. It conains IE 6-8 (It claims it has 9, but I haven’t tried it yet).
• IE9 Beta has developer tools and document modes. So when you are having a problem in IE6, 7 or 8 (or 9), you can change the document mode to an older version and use the developer tools to find the problem. The document mode isn’t always accurate, but it’s catches a lot of problems.

[rigelglen]

Free Editors

• Windows: Notepad++, Vim, Aptana ( I Recommend Notepad++ ) Because it’s sooo darn flexible
• Mac: Vim, Textwrangler, Aptana ( I recommend Vim as well as Aptana ) The Vim on Mac is a bit better than Windows Vim…It’s quite powerful. Aptana is a whole Web Development IDE
• Linux: Vim, geEdit, Aptana, Bluefish ( I recommend BlueFish and Vim ) I already said why Vim is cool. BlueFish is quite an awesome editor too

Not-Free

• Windows: e-TextEditor, UltraEdit ( I Recommend e-TextEditor ) Power of TextMate on Windows..What else can I say
• Mac: TextMate, Coda, BBedit ( I recommend Coda as well as TextMate ) Coda is a FTP Client as well as a Code Editor. TextMate well it’s TEXTMATE
• Linux: Vim, geEdit, Aptana ( I recommend Vim as well as Aptana in this too) Well Nothing to say here

Online Code Editors

The Advent of Online Editing is here and there’s some pretty cool editors out there

• ShiftEdit: This one’s the Real Deal with (S)FTP and Dropbox support not to mention Git
• Cloud9 IDE: This one’s getting quite some hip in the Web Development Industry. It doesn’t have DropBox support (But Will be added in a few weeks) Oh..It’s gonna be FTP Positive in a few days

Links

• ShiftEdit
• Cloud9 IDE

[markthema3]

Now trying Cloud9. I’ve used Dreamweaver for a while, and I like the split screen where you just hit f5 and you can see an actual rendering of the page without having to alt-tab over to chrome. However, I no longer have windows installed on any computer I own (Fedora 15 with GNOME3 is amazing), so I’m looking for a linux-compatible replacement. Not having to download stuff on every computer I use would be nice, so I’m gonna try both of those.

[furrball1383]

I believe in notepad ofcourse notepad ++ makes things even better that being said I now also use dreamweaver but only towards the end of the site creation mostly to check for bugs.

[chrisburton]

I got rid of Notepad++. I Just started using Sublimetext 2. I like it 100x more overall and FTP integration might land on it sometime soon.

[jamygolden]

@ChristopherBurton +1

I’ve actually dropped Textmate/Coda on Mac, E-TextEditor on Windows and Scribes/GEdit on Linux for SublimeText2. The only annoyance is that it doesn’t have FTP integration. Besides that, it’s more than perfect.

I may still jump back to Coda and E every so often for the FTP ability though.

[OniLinkCR]

I used a combination of TextMate, TextWrangler, etc, but I should check CODA out though, I used it once and thought it was sweet.

As to the why, it’s simple and doesn’t feel so heavy as Dreamweaver. It has way too many options for my liking when all I need to do is type a lot. :p

[chrisburton]

@Jamy_za I think I was actually looking for a Windows alternative to Coda when I found Sublimetext. If only I had a Mac..

[OniLinkCR]

Okay I started the Demo of Coda again, loved it. I might get it back, I love the autocomplete, something that Text Mate DOESN’T DO.

[markthema3]

We need a list of the best features in a web design software package.
My favorite features:

• Autocompletion of HTML tags AND properties, CSS properties AND values (say, typing an ‘i’ after a box-shadow property suggests ‘inset’)
• FTP integration
• Template system
• Built in page preview
• Easy to manage files
• Code coloring
• End tags – I love when I type in dreamweaver and it finishes it for me.

Anyone else care to add anything?

Also, I tried sublimetext and I love how the tabs make it feel like chrome. Makes me feel right at home and I haven't even started using it yet :P

EDIT: OhMyGod the WebDevelopment and Zen Coding plugins are amazing! *downloads sublimetext2 for every system and puts on flash drive* I now have a new favorite. Thanks @ChristopherBurton !

[chrisburton]

@markthema3 :)

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