Recently I was involved in a discussion about free or paid for software.
Some of the views were eye opening, to say the least. Ranging from “I never buy software unless I have to” to “I would never use free software”.
This got me thinking about the actual software I use now, which software I have tried in the past and discarded and why do I actually use the specific software I am using.
Firstly, here is a list of the webmaster tools I am using at the moment.
- Web site creation. Macromedia Dreamweaver MX 2004.
- Graphics editing. Adobe Photoshop CS4
- CSS building. Style Master 4.6
- FTP. Core FTP Lite
First of all let’s look at Macromedia Dreamweaver for web site construction and editing.
There is no doubt that Dreamweaver is a tremendous piece of software but is it worth paying out this sort of cash for it?
I have tried most of the free html editors and, to be honest, they are ok.
The problem I have found is that, the more proficient you become, the more the free html editors become lacking and consequently, after a time, you will find yourself looking for something better.
I like Dreamweaver because I am used to it, I stumped up the cash and learned to use it. The difference between free editors and Dreamweaver is, you can use it just like a free editor, but when you are ready to go further Dreamweaver will accommodate your needs.
I have been using Dreamweaver for three years and although I am by no means a Pro’, I have not found it lacking or preventing my progress.
This could probably be said of most of the top html editors.
As a footnote on this subject, I have also tried a few of the on-line editors and found them all to be very limited because they are all template driven and, (for me) are very limiting. Most will write a reasonable web site, and for the novice are probably okay, if you fancy trying one, the very best is the Site Sell Five Pillars one run by Ken Envoy.
Graphics editing follows much the same scenario, the free editors though are generally much better than the free html editors and one in particular is on much the same level as Photoshop. This, of course is The Gimp. Completely free with excellent tutorials and users forums, The Gimp offers a good free alternative to Photoshop, it is one of the few free graphics editors that offers the opportunity to work with layers, a feature you will definitely need when working with your web site graphics.
I use Photoshop because I acquired it and got used to it. If I had the decision to make again, I would use The Gimp, it’s free and almost as good, it will certainly do everything you need to do as far as web site graphics are concerned.
Until recently I used one of the free CSS editors or downloaded one of the plentiful free CSS style sheets. I could write style sheets with Dreamweaver but have always preferred to use an external editor and decided to purchase one when I couldn’t find a style sheet to suite my needs for a particular site I was doing at the time.
After much researching I decided on Style master which offered a live html preview, good back up, tutorials and a users forum.,
I have no regrets with my purchase and would recommend Style master for its ease of use, user manual, and customer support.
Core FTP Lite (file transfer protocol) is a free Ftp protocol editor. I could use Dreamweaver for this too but am that used to Core Ftp Lite that I just stick with it. A dedicated Ftp editor also gives more options than using your html editor. You can, for instance, change the cmod file attributes and the dedicated editor is quicker at transferring your files and folders than an html editor. I use the Core FTP Lite version because I have never felt the need to use the professional one, although the cost is minimal, why change something when it’s not broken. The Lite version does all I need.
Ken Trueman
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