Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => The O' Club => Topic started by: hazed- on January 09, 2002, 09:49:00 AM
-
Hi all im just getting into web page design and learning how to upload etc. As ive been downloading and trying various web tool programmes, and have found some to be poor while others are excellent, i thought id ask you guys what you use and what you'd recommend. :D
remember that I'd prefer 'ease of use' over full professional types that require a lot of learning.
heres the sort of stuff i mean:
Web page editor/design prog
image/photo editor
paint programme
web animation programme
maybe theres a programme that sort of covers all of these in one?
I have used 'hotdog' instead of frontpage but it doesnt like my graphics driver much and crashes now and then but its got good wizards etc and so easy to pick up it made it almost fun!<shock> lol.
[ 01-09-2002: Message edited by: hazed- ]
-
Web page editor/design prog - Frontpage is easiest but Dreamweaver is better, especially if you use Flash
image/photo editor - Lview & Photo Paint 9.0 by Corel
paint programme - Photo Paint 9.0 by Corel
web animation programme - Flash or just animate ur gifs - Photo Paint 9.0 does this too
ftp - WS FTP Pro (I don't use the Frontpage upload stuff)
telnet - Hummingbird
-
Agree with Eagler- Frontpage is easier, Dreamweaver is more powerful. I'd recommend the XP version of FrontPage if that is where you are going. You can also get GoLive!, Hotmetal, and a few others.
Photo editors? Photoshop 6 is the only way to go for rastar images, Freehand or Illustrator for vector graphics. This is professional grade stuff, and if it can be done, these three programs can do it.
Animations should be done in Flash or Shockwave.
WS-FTP is very solid, and is free to students and educators.
-
Web Editor: FrontPage 2000 Its quick and easy, and very flexible. There are a few things I hate about it, but after playing with some of the others, I have more Pros than Cons.
HOWEVER....knowing HTML is a big help. I learned using "HotDog Pro" many many years ago, then went into Frontpage. If you understand the html tags and such, it really makes refining your work a lot easier.
I also use Macromedia Flash version 5. I haven't had a chance to make any real razzle-dazzle sites with it due to time, but its on my "want to really sit down and learn" list :) I bought it and installed it, and have read a few guides on it.
GRAPHICS EDITOR: Paint Shop Pro 7 (www.jasc.com) The power of Adobe with a price the rest of us can afford. PSP 7 can do some amazing things, and has a really nice Animated GIF studio
FTP Program: WS-FTP Get the Light Version and make sure you tell it you are non-government/non profit etc and it will install fine. Great little FTP program. The other I liked for a while was Cute FTP, but WS-FTP is free and does just as much for me
Things to stay away from:
Java. Big, bloated and takes forever to load. I have some friends who love Java, and while it does some cool things, think of your web vistor as having a 2400 baud connection....downloading .jar files and waiting for the thing to load is very annoying.
Keep your pages clean, easy to read, and to the point. Use imagery to empasis your point/thesis as anything more is largely a distraction, and requires more time to download.
Feel free to check my site: www.checksix.net (http://www.checksix.net)
If you need a web host, let me know :)
-
My 2c? Learn it from the ground up with a text editor like MS Visual Studio, or the working man's Visual Studio, otherwise known as 'notepad'. Your pages will work better (especially across browsers), look better, and you will learn what you need to know to have complete control, and be half a step away from learning ASP, and really having some useful applications online.
-
I'd advise getting a good book about HTML and learning to do web pages from scratch. The results are much better, IMO as Kratzer says.
I knew absolutely nothing about HTML until I bought 'Learn HTML 4.0 in 24 Hours' (I got it from amazon.co.uk) and have now created our squadron website (click on the link below).
The only applications I used were Windows Notepad and Picture Publisher for the artwork. I'm particularly proud of the buttons ;).
[ 01-09-2002: Message edited by: Dowding ]
-
Bah, you weenies with the expensive toys
NOTEPAD (HTML)
FLASH
PAINT
Weee! :)
-
Yeah, Notepad is the way to go. Front Page and all that other stuff is great until you want to edit an existing page and try to decipher the gobbledy-gook code that those programs generate. HTML is a very simple language.
For photo-editing I like Paint Shop Pro, but I don't do much image work. The GIF animator in PSP is great and easy to use.
-
Originally posted by Kieran:
Agree with Eagler- Frontpage is easier, Dreamweaver is more powerful. I'd recommend the XP version of FrontPage if that is where you are going. You can also get GoLive!, Hotmetal, and a few others.
Photo editors? Photoshop 6 is the only way to go for rastar images, Freehand or Illustrator for vector graphics. This is professional grade stuff, and if it can be done, these three programs can do it.
Animations should be done in Flash or Shockwave.
WS-FTP is very solid, and is free to students and educators.
nothing to add, except for: get yourself some good html code editor, the code that tools of dreamweaver/fp2k/etc. produce is always pretty overloaded. i found hotdog to be a useful helper for starters.
[ 01-09-2002: Message edited by: jan ]
-
There's a middle ground between the featureless NotePad and FrontPage...
Try Evrsoft 1st Page (http://www.evrsoft.com/1stpage/).
It's basically a HTML text editor but has many other tools.
-
Go with the best:
Photoshop (includes Imageready for graphic optimization and animated gifs, among other virtues) + Flash 5 (learn to use it!) + Dreamweaver (extensions manager for Dreamweaver and Flash 5 can save you LOTS OF TIME).
Daniel, aka Cyrano
-
editor: HomeSite
images: Photoshop
animation: Flash
ftp: CuteFTP
oh ya ... Frontpage is EVIL!! run away! run away!
[ 01-09-2002: Message edited by: Exile ]
-
While I agree it is useful to know HTML (and believe me, I do!) it doesn't seem to me that was the question. Most people don't have the time or interest to develop full-blown HTML skills- they want a site quick and easy. Couple that with the need to really dig to understand Photoshop and Flash, and one can easily see why web editors are so popular.
FrontPage isn't that bad, especially if you are used to Word. Yes, MS does try to overwrite code, and yes, all WYSIWYG editors bloat the code, but for the most part neophyte users won't know the difference.
-
Originally posted by Kieran:
FrontPage isn't that bad...
<slaps Kieran with a fresh trout>
If you have the time, a real HTML editor is the way to go. Notepad works great...especially the one with Win2k (includes find & replace). An HTML editor that provides color coded tags is even better.
Photoshop for graphics. Paint Shop Pro may be easier, but in the end you'll thank yourself for taking the time to learn Photoshop. (either are easily <cough> downloaded from Kazaa or other p2p system)
Flash is definitely the way to go. I need to learn it myself.
SOB
-
For a beginner or part time web page maker, Frontpage is fine. It's an easy way to learn code as it shows the source tab. So is right clickin, "View Source" :)
-
Dreamweaver rules.
I use PaintShop Pro and Photoshop too.
-
Frontpage has a bad rep cause, like most Microsoft products, it doesn't play well with others. The latest version are a better than old ones, but FP tends to lock you into using FP on your site.
Dreamweaver of Golive are very nice. But I would also urge you to learn raw coding. EditPlus is my favorite code editor.
Photoshop is nice.
-
problem with those editors is the huge, unbelievably HUGE amount of sheer GARBAGE code they have (result of user putting stuff and deleting or moving it in the editor GUI..and the editor not removing the tags!)
A friend of mine sent me a page just so that I could give him a simple FLASH menu for his frames... I saw his html pages... 24 PAGES of pure garbage. All for a mere 4 paragraphs of text and 2 pictures shown. It was much faster to copy/paste the text and pictures off the browser and put the tags manually. HORRIDO!
-
Yup, what Tac said. I used to use a Wizzywig editor but the amount of crap code it pumped out was horrid. Nowadays I stick with 1st Page 2000 cause it lets you do many more things. Automatic CSS converstions, XML conversions, codes in a dozen languages including ASP, PHP, CGI, Javascript, XML, HTML, and DHTML. Includes 450 javascripts, a few CGI gizmos, cleans up your code, and totals a mere 7 megs to download.
www.evrsoft.com (http://www.evrsoft.com)
Did I mention this thing is free?
Graphics I do with Paint Shop Pro 7 cause it works on an old system. Instead of blowing 600 bucks on Photoshop, blow a hundred and basically get the same thing for a LOT less of a resource hog. Comes with Animation Shop 3 for animated GIF's, uses Photoshop plugins without any gripe, and edits any image format. Free trial here, it's 30 megs.
www.jasc.com (http://www.jasc.com)
Frontpage 2k is a joke cause it's a Wizzywig editor, same goes for Netcrap's built-in Composer. Neither likes Javascript all that much from my experience, and they rarely put out clean code. Hot Dog I've tried and laughed at; too simple for my taste. Same goes for Homesite and Dreamweaver; too much money for a program that does the same thing as another one I can get for free.
-----------------------
Flakbait [Delta6]
Delta Six's Flight School (http://www.worldaccessnet.com/~delta6)
Put the P-61B in Aces High
"For yay did the sky darken, and split open and spew forth fire, and
through the smoke rode the Four Wurgers of the Apocalypse.
And on their canopies was tattooed the number of the Beast, and the
number was 190." Jedi, Verse Five, Capter Two, The Book of Dweeb
(http://www.worldaccessnet.com/~delta6/sig/lie.gif)
-
Vim and notepad are the way to go. Building skills from the ground up benefits. Also I'd like to point out that clarity and ease of navigation are very important in a site.
-
It all depends on what you're goals are. If you just want to make a webpage for yourself that no one else will have to fiddle with, and you don't have any goal of making a career out of it go ahead and use somthing like Dreamweaver etc. But if you have higher goals use a html text editor and learn the code, I've allways favored Homesite it's easy to read and has good tools.
The problem with the visual editors like Dreamweaver and Frontpage as others have mentioned is the spit out a ton to junk code and also do stupid things like nesting tables inside of other tables and such which can increase the load times on Netscape (at leat the older versions) and crap like that, and it's a nightmare to disipher it later.
-
Do you a favor and dont use Frontpage. Its changing ur own HTML code. So if u dont like to know HTML and use an Editor for HTML like ahm Word for DOC-Files than ... OK take Frontpage. But if u like to program ur own HTML than use a free HTML-Editor like Arachnophilia (hope i spelled it right). A HTML-Editor is better than Notepad because it highlights the tags and attributes, lets u see what u do and validates ur HTML.
-
I teach web development at our high school; I understand where you guys are coming from when you say use Notepad, believe me, we do that too. The fact is most people will never want to do it that way. Those of you that have learned Flash or Photoshop realize the learning curve to get up to speed in those programs is light years ahead of what it takes to write HTML, and in my mind are far more useful ways to spend one's time.
I do have to clarify one thing though; just because you use FP or Dreamweaver doesn't mean you are "locked in". I think you'd find most people actually use a mix of items, an "anything that works" approach. Yes, the code can be bloated, but you learn how to use the parts that save you time and use Notepad for the real stuff.
-
VI! ;)
Ultraedit32 for the editing part.
And what you're looking for the picture part, take a look at macromedia's Fireworks. it's also integrated to Dreamweaver (html editor).
If you're looking for graphic goodies, go to www.guistuff.com (http://www.guistuff.com) and if you're wanting to learn a bit more about it...
http://www.w3.org/ (http://www.w3.org/) http://www.w3schools.com/ (http://www.w3schools.com/)
-
Aye aye Kieran. I took an HTML course in college just to get an easy A+ to boost my ..umm... average GPA :D
I had a girl in the class who really had no clue what she was doing, and the teacher was using a lot of frontpage and using a textbook for "teaching" the html tags. Basically, the whole course was using editors and then seeing the code and identifying what was going on. It was horrible. People were facing 2 page long garbage tags with their text in between them with no spacing..and they were supposed to guess wtf was going on in there..lol.
Near the end of the course this poor girl was so incredibly confused (as the majority of the class) she was going to fail. In the library I gave her the 1-page list of the most common html commands and spent 6 hours making her make her own web page with those tags in NOTEPAD. She passed the course easily after that.
NOTEPAD is the best HTML teacher. If you have the list of tag commands, a sample website (done in notepad) that uses most of those commands, and 1 or 2 free days, you will learn it in no time.
Its fun too! :)
-
Notepad works great, but visual interdev is nice because it color codes tags, and remembers your indents, so it is faster, and easier to see when you screw up. It's also expensive, and if the company didn't buy it, I wouldn't use it. :) In any case, I'm sure there are some of those other editors that do the same thing for cheap/free.
-
The trick to successfully teaching students to write web pages in HTML is to bring them into it in stages. You start with basic tags, then begin to draw in other elements. Once the student can lay out a page, add a sound or video, and make hyperlinks you can move to more advanced concepts like frames and tables. Understanding tables in particular is essential. Once you understand how to write a Notepad HTML page that includes complex tables you have mastered the pure "HTML" part of HTML. After that you can introduce CSS, DHTML, JavaScript, Java, or whatever other scripting language you prefer.
The thing FrontPage, Dreamweaver, GoLive!, and similar programs do is to allow a person who is not web-centric to put information on the web with a minimum of fuss. Witness AKDejaVu's stat pages. He initially popped those up there with FP- so what? They worked, and I would rather him spend his time perfecting his database (far more complicated than HTML) than to waste time with skills he doesn't really want or absolutely need in the first place.
No, a person that only uses FP or Dreamweaver isn't really a web developer. These are still valid tools in the home and workplace nonetheless.
Edit for clarity.
[ 01-10-2002: Message edited by: Kieran ]