Web design software for "beginners"

Niko91 said:

Yesterday and today I've been using ST2, Coda 2, Espresso 2 and DWCS6.

The worst of these, for me, at the end, I think it's DW.
I find it too bloated and chaotic, even if I come from Photoshop.

I'll go, I think, or with Sublime Text 2 or with Coda 2.
Also Espresso 2 is nice. The CSS Editor in there is wonderful

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Am I an old school guy, if I dont like those "do by click" CSS editors..? I just love working in TM, its so fast once you find out how to use Snippets.

Niko91 said:

I think I've decided.

Coda 2 & Photoshop CS6 (because I already have it)

Thank you all, guys!

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Great choices!

Like you said in a previous report DW is way to bloated. As some would state it's an industry and web standard, it doesn't teach you anything about what you're doing so from a troubleshooting standpoint you'll be on the forums a lot since you don't know lick about code. You'll be happy with your choice I'm in love with Coda!

Niko91 said:

Oh, I have a question and sorry if it is "too noob".
If I need to control my website with a CMS such as Joomla or Drupal, can I develop it with Coda 2 and then manage it with CMS?
And is it a lot difficult?
(I've read now that DW has this option, I think.)

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Yes. Most CMSs are administered via the website but developed via a text editor that supports HTML, CSS, JS and PHP (for the CMSs you have listed).

Niko91 said:

Oh, I have a question and sorry if it is "too noob".
If I need to control my website with a CMS such as Joomla or Drupal, can I develop it with Coda 2 and then manage it with CMS?
And is it a lot difficult?
(I've read now that DW has this option, I think.)

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You can edit the theme files with whatever software you want, but most of them have built in editors via the admin panels to do everything once installed.

BTW how is Espresso 2 for PHP coding? Does the syntax high-lighting work well?

Niko91 said:

I think I've decided.

Coda 2 & Photoshop CS6 (because I already have it)

Thank you all, guys!

Click to expand...

Excellent choices! You will be very happy with these. Coda 2's FTP integration is awesome, to say the least.

web design stuff

One thing that may be important to keep in mind, is how what you have made impacts the viewer. The coding can be perfect, but if the design is not there, then nobody will care to stay. Typeface choice is very important, as is color choice and spacial layout. I have always found that macprovideo.com provides a very complete training system for hundreds of programs. In addition it divides the many uses of larger applications into different courses. If you use a PC, then use askvideo.com for the same library. I don't pretend to know that much about the coding side of things, so this is more for the design, layout and multimedia/interactivity aspect of web design.

I would recommend Dreamweaver but to be honest, I use it in Code View most often and ignore 80% of the other features. BB Edit is another favorite but I haven't used it in years. The hard core code guys used to do it in NotePad
I would steer clear of FrontPage. You may know this already but if you want to learn, use the View Source command to peek under the hood of your favorite web sites. Good luck.

Niko91 said:

Hi all!
I've just started studying HTML and CSS in these weeks and I was wondering which software should I use for web designing. (It's a kind of hobby, I love it)

I want a software to grow up with, that I can learn well while I'm studying the code and will become my "best friend" for making websites

I know that the most "famous" are Coda 2, Dreamweaver and Sublime Text 2. I've also heard about Flux 4, Rapidweaver and Freeway.
So, what do you recommend to me?

Thank you!

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Another WYSIWYG is Sandvox. TacoHTML is a good light weight text editor.

iWeb...oh wait.

the best is a plain text editor.

if you use a plain editor then you actually learn the code.

you an then decide to move on to an editor that does common things for you (like coda, netbeans or even eclipse) and you can then see why noone likes dreamweaver (except for its search and replace everything in a directory tree feature when you have to re-factor something in a 500k line web app)

localhost8080 said:

the best is a plain text editor.

if you use a plain editor then you actually learn the code.

you an then decide to move on to an editor that does common things for you (like coda, netbeans or even eclipse) and you can then see why noone likes dreamweaver (except for its search and replace everything in a directory tree feature when you have to re-factor something in a 500k line web app)

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I would actually go the other way around - coda, netbeans etc first - then (if you need it) a plain text editor, yes they do common things for you but why should you have to remember every little bit of syntax?

Niko91 said:

Oh, I have a question and sorry if it is "too noob".
If I need to control my website with a CMS such as Joomla or Drupal, can I develop it with Coda 2 and then manage it with CMS?
And is it a lot difficult?
(I've read now that DW has this option, I think.)

Click to expand...

Whilst you can learn a bunch from CMS systems, honestly so many of them are so large and complex that you may benefit from starting from scratch and learning from there.

Last time I looked there are some decent tutorials available from Lynda.com on PHP and the like so these are a good way to get started and help you follow what a CMS is actually doing.

For a beginner i will always recommend dreamweaver, Adobe Photoshop, CSS and Html because these are so helpful in website designing.
__________
http://www.webframez.com

I would recommend learning with a simple text editor. It develops speed and an intimacy with the code you don't get with the WYSIWYG tools. I began with NotePad and BBEdit way back when. Now I use Dreamweaver a lot but mostly in code view. Use View Source frequently to study the HTM, JS and CSS at your favorite web sites.

I use Coda, Safari(developer), Chrome(inspector), MAMP, PS, AND SourceTree.

Did I miss it? The most important tool to learn?

Version Control!

Git will save you hours and hours. SourceTree is extremely simple, changes appear, drag and drop, commit, comment, Commit. Back to coding!

Web design software for "beginners"

Dreamweaver is the best software for the beginners and also for the experience.
It the most popular. It is very light weight and easy to use.
Most of the website designers uses the Dreamweaver for website designing.

coda 2 or sublime text 2 . I can't stand Dreamweaver, but I'm not into the wysiwyg editors. Dreamweaver is a bloated turd in my opinion. I use it at work because I have to.

Sublime Text 2.0
Emmet IO+ plugin for Sublime Text
CSSEdit

Chrome or Webkit nightly for Developer Tools

GIT

First off let me say i bloody hate windows, i typed up a lovely post for you guys and my browser crashed!!! so here it goes again...

I would suggest you download Sublime 2 / MAMP / Photoshop / FileZilla / Github - These are the apps i use on a regular basis:

Sublime 2 is an awesome text editor (and its cross platform) there is a great link for videos on how to master it which you can find here

MAMP allows you to run your websites locally, meaning you can test things such as PHP and other backend stuff.

Photoshop well we all know what that does.

FileZilla is a great FREE ftp client, I havent used any others but filezilla does what i need it to do.

Github version control which has come in very handy for me in the past. Its mostly used by programmers working on projects together, but its a great tool and very handy to know. Download the git gui for mac which is easier than learning the terminal commands, but you should really learn theses anyways you can do so here.

Im am all self taught so for training i use TreeHouse & Code School which are both awesome resources. DONT use W3Schools!!

Once you have a good understanding of HTML & CSS - Id suggest you move on to something like JavaScript! Anyways i hope this post helps you out

Thanks for the very informative thread (credit to the OP for starting the discussion, and to everyone posting).

I used Dreamweaver back in the day (when it was Macromedia) for very basic webpages, HTML back then and some Javascript. I wanted to get "back in the game" and wasn't sure where to start.

Just curious has anyone used Flux (aka MacFlux) Freecode mode? Does it compare to Coda 2 or Espresso? The only reason I ask is it's on sale at the moment ($35), but I'm now thinking I should just skip it and get Coda 2.

https://stacksocial.com/sales/macflux-4
(+$1 dollar each passing day, not sure what time zone though because it already went up $1)

praetorian909 said:

The only reason I ask is it's on sale at the moment ($35), but I'm now thinking I should just skip it and get Coda 2.

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Personally Id go for Coda2 simply because Panic are on top of things, and seem to release regular updates for it. To be fair Coda 2 is pretty awesome, and I would suggest anyone moving from dreamweaver or similar to give it a go. However if you just want a text editor id say Sublime 2 hands down