Tools |
Here is a list of programs I have used in creating my sites, and which I have found particularly good. Note that I use Windows 2000 so I can only really recommend programs for Windows. All these programs will also work on Windows 95 and later however. I have tried to indicate if there are other versions available, but I don't know how they perform. Your working practices probably differ from mine, so what I find useful may not necessarily appear so great to you. In that case I suggest you try my favourite software site, TUCOWS, to look for alternatives.
HTML editors and tools
Macromedia's
HomeSite is my favourite program
for HTML editing. It has an enormous function list, so I will only mention
a couple of features that make it outstanding. It is a text-based editor,
so some knowledge of HTML is required, but the extensive help files can
assist with that. Previewing the results of your work within the program
is a simple matter of clicking a button or pressing a Function key; it
can use Internet Explorer 3.02 or better or the 'Gecko' engine used in
Netscape 6.x and Mozilla as the previewer. It is also easy to define other
browsers to check the appearance of your work externally, without the
need to save each time. HomeSite has an excellent and fast global search
and replace function, so making changes that affect a whole series of
pages is simple. The interface is highly customisable, and you can write
your own tag dialogue boxes and add them to the toolbars. It is possible
to download these written by others; see The
Unofficial HomeSite Repository. Version 5.0 also has support for scripting
using JavaScript or VBScript, so you can write your own macros.
You can see a screenshot of the program here.
When
I lay out pages I generally use Macromedia
Dreamweaver 4.01. To my mind it is the best 'WYSIWYG'
HTML editor available. Like HomeSite, it is very customisable, and there
are a lot of 'extensions' that can be downloaded to increase the versatility
of the program. Some of these extensions have been written by Macromedia,
but most were written by other users. As well as the windows version,
Dreamweaver is also available for the Apple Mac platform.
A screenshot of Dreamweaver is here
I
am currently testing the preview release of the new version of Dreamweaver,
Dreamweaver MX. Previously Macromedia supplied two programs
for Web authoring, Dreamweaver for static pages, and UltraDev for sites
created with Coldfusion or ASP. The two have now been combined into one,
and the MX version also supports PHP and .NET server models. I find it
excellent; a blend of Dreamweaver and HomeSite. In particular, I like
the way a HomeSite-like interface can be used, although the traditional
interface can be used if preferred.
A screenshot of Dreamweaver MX is here
I use TopStyle from Bradbury
Software as a CSS editor and have been very impressed with the program.
Nick Bradbury is the original author of HomeSite, and this one looks like
another winner. It is also well integrated with HomeSite. Although HomeSite
does include a basic styles editor, TopStyle has many more features. In
fact, with effect version 4.5 of HomeSite, a 'Lite' version of TopStyle
is included with HomeSite instead of its own CSS editor.
You can see a screenshot of the program here.
WebPosition Gold is an invaluable tool to save you time and to
help build traffic to your web site. WebPosition Gold reports your site's
search positions and then helps you improve them. Because search engines
keep changing their search parameters, each time you run it it checks
first with the site of the authoring company, FirstPlace Software, and updates automatically its database of search engines. It then goes to the search engines you choose and finds out your position according to the keywords you tell it to use.
Graphics
When
I tried Xara WebStyle I was blown away by what it can do.
This is quite simply a terrific program. I registered it within a couple
of days. It offers a large selection of types of headers (2D and 3D),
buttons, bullets, dividers and backgrounds, all of which can be easily
altered to suit your needs with a couple of mouse clicks. It will change
colours, text, size, and more in seconds. If you don't use photographs
on your Web pages you probably won't need another graphics program for
the Web. It is a must-have.
You can see a screenshot of the program here.
From
the same stable is Xara 3D. This program creates really great
3D text for headers and the like, but unlike many other 3D programs is
easy to use and fast. It is also excellent at creating buttons if you
use a suitable dingbats font. As well as creating static images, it will
also easily make animated rotating GIFs from your text.
You can see a screenshot of the program here.
The
program I find best for vector graphics is XaraX. The
great thing about vector graphics is that they can be re-sized easily
without loss of quality. XaraX is the easiest-to-use vector image program
I have found. It also has impressive bitmap editing capabilities.
A screenshot is here.
The
most widely used Windows graphics program (apart perhaps from MS Paint)
is Paint Shop Pro. This program really is ideal for Web
graphics. It has 90% of the functionality of PhotoShop, at a fraction
of the price. In fact, in the field of Web graphics, it is probably more
suited to the task. A lot of the professional high-end graphics tasks
at which PhotoShop excels are not needed for the Web, and only serve to
confuse. I certainly find PSP to be much easier to use. The current version
7.0 has a multitude of improvements over the previous version, particularly
for optimising photographs. It supports most PhotoShop plug-ins, so its
feature set can easily be extended. Highly recommended! There is a Win
3.x version also available, but further development has ceased so its
features are nothing like those in the Win 9x/NT version. It still is
an excellent program, though.
You can see a screenshot of the program here.
Irfanview
is a very fast FREEWARE (for non-commercial use) 32-Bit
graphic viewer for Windows. It supports a huge list of file formats. Among
its many capabilities is the batch processing of images, such as resizing
to thumbnails, format conversion, colour depth, etc. It can create slideshows,
and easily browse through the files in a folder. Besides the fact that
it is freeware, the program is also exceedingly small in size, being a
download of less than one MegaByte. Since it doesn't require lots of extraneous
.dlls to operate, it will run easily from a CD or floppy disk. Highly
recommended!