Easy web design program?

Kathryn69 · 11-20-2007

I am new to this site and see it has a lot to offer. I need help

, I have been a Graphic Designer for many years and still I do not have a personal web page yet. I have looked for easy programs (I am a Mac user) to teach myself. I want to have a great page and what I have seen out there and tried isn't working for me. Does anyone out there know of a easy web design program?

**tamlin** · 11-20-2007

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but most "easy" web design programs won't automatically guarantee you a "great" page (although your definition of "great" may well differ from mine

) - usually the opposite, in fact.

Unfortunately with web design (as with so much else in life) the more you put in, the more you get out. You say you're a graphic designer so you've already got an advantage over some web designers (who may know all the code but have no idea of what constitutes "good" graphic design) - take the time to learn HTML, CSS, PHP etc. rather than relying on some "website-by-numbers" package to write the code for you and I'm sure you'll end up with a truly "great" site.

PS: Welcome to BioRUST, by the way!

turvas · 11-20-2007

Welcome to Biorust.

I saw that you posted questions on Photoshop before and thereby guess that you probably have it. Well... Did you know you can design webpages in photoshop?
Here are some tutorials to help you along the way:
BioRUST.com :: Tutorials >> Imageready Interfacing (Made for Imageready users, but principles are the same)
BioRUST.com :: Tutorials >> Fixing the PNG Color Problem in IE
BioRUST.com :: Tutorials >> Creating & Using Favicons
BioRUST.com :: Tutorials >> Remote Rollovers

*unleash* · 11-20-2007

There are two programs I can recommend,

Flash
Then you should use AS2.0 or AS3.0. Depends on the amount of time you want to put into it, AS 3.0 is designed to program al sorts of things while AS 2.0, the older version, was more user friendly. If you start AS 2.0 is quite easy to catch while 3.0 is hard to start with, at the other hand when you "understand" 3.0 you can do way more cool things than those can be done with 2.0.
Flash is also great as it understands photoshop and illustrator formats...so you don't have much quality loss really. Then it is also handy because you can actually see what you are doing. One thing though, never ever make an flash intro page...as said before it is seen as the most horrible thing by most of the internet users!

Notepad!!
if you are going to make websites that are not actionscript based I can only recommend notepad ,it may sound strange but it really is the best html tool there is(in my book). That in combination with this site is the best way to start. Do save you're files as "all extensions, sitenamehere.html" otherwise it would be plain txt!
I think you should then try to start with HTML and javascript, maybe later on when you understand those two you can start learning PHP, ajax, CSS and that kind of scripting. The hardest thing of this version is that you don't see what you are doing, which is pretty tough if you ask me

If you are going for the Notepad version, you could use imageready to slice and dice up you're images for you so you don't have to completely code you're site, imageready will do that for you...then the only thing you should do is add rollovers and stuff with javascript...

damn that was a lot of text

I truly hope it helps!!

*MoodsR4Cattle* · 11-20-2007

You can also go the Wordpress template rout. WordPress › Blog Tool and Weblog Platform and get a "theme" here: Wordpress Themes

The themes are easily changed to suit your needs - just pick one that is close to what you're looking for and you can add a gallery and various other nifty things. It's all handled through your browser so you don't need a web design program. And it's free.

Wordpress was originally designed for Bloggers, but it's been used by businesses, photographers and artists too.

Just a thought.

Ps: Mac User

Tony_photoplus · 11-20-2007

Just a quick note try this link, its an open source software and it will work for most OS's.

NVU

Its a good start, but you can use a lot of software as stated above. Try this for starters any way

aparizzi · 12-01-2007

for html use WEBPAGEMAKER 2
for flash use SWISHMAX 2

thats simple

*notjustgraphics* · 12-03-2007

I think we've discussed this before in other threads, but 'Graphic Design' and 'Web Design' are truly different skills/talents.

One person could be a graphical genius and have no knowledge of how to turn their creation into a functional website, or vice-versa.

Very few are talented in both. Though i'll admit that the latter part (making a functioning website) is more of a learned skill and less based on raw talent.

My suggestion is that if you're a graphic designer with little or no knowledge of website design, use your talent to create the visuals and seek out a web coder to create the site for you.

If you insist on doing it yourself, there are no shortcuts. WYSIWYG Web Page Creators cannot come close to a properly coded website and you WILL pay a price in the end whether it be functionality, search results, cross-browser compatibility, or making changes at a later date.

The basic skills you will need to create your own website with or without a WYSIWYG editor is a strong knowledge of HTML and CSS aswell as a mastery of images for web (.JPG .GIF .PNG)

The worst thing you can do is use Microsoft Front Page (my opinion) but I highly recommend Dreamweaver, Adobe GoLive, or even plain old 'Text Editor'.

These tools also have some built-in 'make it quick' features, but again, the code will suffer.

In short, if your site has to make a big impression, get it done right!

That said, if you're keen on learning HTML or CSS, dive in... you'll learn very quick by doing!

Mike.

Gjbphp · 12-04-2007

I agree fully with Mike, the best web design (which is essentially a variation on programming) is best done by hand coding. The great thing is that if you are just starting out, you can get straight into CSS, there are many handy guides and layouts ready available to help you. Such as the well known W3Schools Online Web Tutorials website. Personally I prefer Dreamweaver for editing / creating websites and web based programming. If you need any pointers feel free to ask.

ecntrc · 12-07-2007

She is so right, I am all code, love it!! Gets fustrating sometimes but theres always help around. As for graphics, I am ok with it but not the greatest.

Quote:

Originally Posted by tamlin

You say you're a graphic designer so you've already got an advantage over some web designers (who may know all the code but have no idea of what constitutes "good" graphic design) - take the time to learn HTML, CSS, PHP etc.

As for your web design program, Ive used front page, go live and dreamweaver, also Ive coded my own sites in notepad which was time consuming. I recommend dreamweaver. It can get complicated for you if you want to put out amazing things or it can be easy if you want to be a little simple. It all depends what you want. Go live is just as good but I think dreamweaver is a little better. Front page I used when I was in college, we practiced with that and then moved on to dreamweaver. Welcome to biorust!! its the greatest web community Ive joined. I belong to alot but I dont pay any attention to them anymore once I found biorust.

kushi1up · 05-25-2008

One of the best programs to use is flash. I've used it only a little bit myself but it has proven to be quite sufficient.

*unleash* · 05-26-2008

kushi1up,

thanks for adding to the biorust post count

But this thread is a bit out-dated, try to find a more recent thread if you feel the urge to post!

Opening up these old threads, is not recommended as you will probably wake the TAMLIN!! xD The only time you can/ should reopen a thread is when there is absolutely no other option. Or when the thread was created by you, and you are going to update it....

**tamlin** · 05-26-2008

Phew! Go unleash! And I thought I was a badass!

Maybe I'd better close this thread before unleash bites someone's legs...