How Do You Make Your Designs?

rrinc

In an effort to spice up this forum section, I have a poll. I'm curious how everyone creates their web designs. I usually create my designs in Notepad++ (a text editor), it lets me have greater control and cleaner code.
Feel free to post your reasons for doing one or the other.

AbyssUnderground

Notepad and Photoshop :)

rrinc

Cool, looks like many people still do it the old way (text editors).

AbyssUnderground

rrinc wrote
Cool, looks like many people still do it the old way (text editors).

The old way? You mean -the- way ;-) You can never beat hand coded sites, not in a million years.

madman1337

I mainly use Dreamweaver, but half the time I am using the text area instead of the design area. I just like to see the effects of everything right away, especially when applying css.

jibbajabba

i use open web designs.. i do however use notepad when editing them and adding stuff.

aprelium

Aprelium.com's HTML/PHP/CSS files are "manually" coded using standard text editors (SciTE, TextWrangler, Windows Notepad, Smultron, mcedit, GEdit - it depends on the platform used by the coder).
To tell the truth, we do not code HTML by hand. We have an automated generation system based on XSLT templates. Pages are described in a special XML form, then they are processed by XSLT according to a given template, and HTML/PHP pages are generated.
The system is the result of 5 years of small incremental updates and enhancements. Today, it can with a simple script invocation build the site contents from a new template and upload everything to the web site without any manual assistance.
The site graphics are designed using Inkcape, GIMP, and Irfan View.

easytec

Click here for information on setting up your site (generated by Yahoo! Answers).
But I use the following tools:
Visual Studio 2008 Professional Edition (Beta).
Frontpage 2003.
Abobe Dreamweaver CS3.
My PHP Editor 2005.
Unwind Web Professional Edition 2007.
Notepad.NET 2008.
XML Editor 2005.
Java Runtime Enviroment suite.
Java Virtual Machines suite.
Java Commercial Developer Enviroment Engine Suite 2007 (JCDEES 2007).
All fully purchased!

abyssisthebest

I use dreamweaver, but I dont use the design view, I only use it because it has the drop down menu with all of the code items in :D

Tom Chapman

AbyssUnderground wrote
You can never beat hand coded sites, not in a million years.

-This topic lacks sarcasm. It is my honor.-
*COUGH* = ]

madman1337 wrote
I mainly use Dreamweaver, but half the time I am using the text area instead of the design area. I just like to see the effects of everything right away, especially when applying css.

Dreamweaver uses.. its own broswer or it just makes IE look realllllly bad see as though it doesn't render your code like IE nor Firefox. =

abyssisthebest wrote
uot;]I use dreamweaver, but I dont use the design view, I only use it because it has the drop down menu with all of the code items in :D

Genius imo. ;D

ChrisM2

Dreamweaver, and Paintshop pro 7. However, that might change in a year or so. Right now I don't know how to just sit down and write a bunch of code and have a page up. But, I start my bachelors degree in "web design" at DeVry University tonight...we'll see what happens.

Tom Chapman

ChrisM2 wrote
Dreamweaver, and Paintshop pro 7. However, that might change in a year or so. Right now I don't know how to just sit down and write a bunch of code and have a page up. But, I start my bachelors degree in "web design" at DeVry University tonight...we'll see what happens.

Good luck! Sounds exciting
Forgot to mention anything about my own habits...
Macromedia Studio 8 (i.e. Fireworks, Dreamweaver), Notepad/Wordpad (Wordpad does indenting/word spacing properly, Notepad does not - Grrrrr)
P.S. Tripple eigth post!

Vahn

Programmers Notepad for the win!
i can't get a feel for it slideing the things arround and for all the kick azz features ( such as just about anything useing Scripting, CSS, or comenting, you'd have to edit the code in the WYSIWYG editor anyways, so why waste the time?
i take it mose people use some sort of leveled up Notepad right?
-Vahn
p.s. imagine trying to edit a phpBB template in frontpage? -shutters-

Tom Chapman

Vahn wrote
p.s. imagine trying to edit a phpBB template in frontpage? -shutters-

I can. it seems quite simple. People complain of Frontpage for the code it generates is neither standards compliant or easy to read. I learnt with it and although it wasn't a great starting point it has propelled me further than I would have imagined. Editing something such as a phpBB template in any program including Frontpage is not difficult as long as the program itself is designed to an acceptable standard. Frontpage is.
Anywho, Microsoft dropped the whole Frontpage thing and got moving with Microsoft Expression.

HeLoC

I started with save as... in WordPerfect. Later I used Frontpage.
Now I use PSPad to write my pages. Wysiwyg just can't beat handwritten pages.
Greetings,
Henrie

rrinc

HeLoC wrote
Wysiwyg just can't beat handwritten pages.

I agree and the understanding of HTML it gives you is a huge plus.

pkSML

HeLoC wrote
Now I use PSPad to write my pages. Wysiwyg just can't beat handwritten pages.

Welcome to the forums, HeLoC. I use PSPad a lot as well. It has syntax highlighting and a tabbed interface for projects. It's saved me hundreds of times on syntax errors and since it finds the ending tags when you click on the opening tag (like for div's, tables, php function braces, php parenthesis...). Very highly recommended FREE program!
URL: http://www.snapfiles.com/get/spad.html
Notepad rules! :)

aprelium wrote
The site graphics are designed using Inkcape, GIMP, and Irfan View.

Freeware is the best!
I used Inkscape+GIMP to create the logo at http://baptistinstitute.org. The logo is made up of two clipart objects. The gradient light beam and BBIB were added with GIMP. The encircled text was from Inkscape. I wish I knew how to use Inkscape more!

rrinc

I'm using Notepad++, Notepad2 , MS Paint, and Paint.NET

NuccatheWarrior

I use Dreamweaver, Photoshop, MSpaint, Notepad, and Wordpad. Yes i use these very much.

Toasty

Notepad++

I started out using Windows Notepad, and I tend to "nest" the HTML correctly, as in using tabs on "sub tags". That way a TR is over a tab from the TABLE, and TD is two tabs away. Well, tabbing and newline (enter) in Windows Notepad left a lot to be desired. Also, with Notepad++, it helps me align my curly braces when doing conditional loops.
I highly suggest it for any programmer.