17 {{ upvoteCount | shortNum }}
17 {{ upvoteCount | shortNum }}

Recommendations for *desktop* website design software

by TheForumPeople
14 replies
  • WEB DESIGN
    • |
This is a follow up post from a query I made earlier. O got lots of feedback suggesting that I choose WordPress instead of Weebly, due to versatility.

But I if wanted to have a desktop website design software, what recommendations would people here have? I've found WebStudio, Microsoft Web4 Design, SiteSpinner...

If I have to I'll learn WordPress, but with a desktop package, I can have control of my files on my desktop, and preview published versions before uploading to my provider.

All recommendations welcome, thank you.
#design #desktop #recommendations #software #website
  • Profile picture of the author kamirao
    I would suggest Adobe Fireworks and Adobe Photoshop.
    If you want to go freesoftware way, then choose gimp and inkscape
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[5242618].message }}
    • Profile picture of the author shqipo
      Originally Posted by kamirao View Post

      I would suggest Adobe Fireworks and Adobe Photoshop.
      If you want to go freesoftware way, then choose gimp and inkscape
      uh... Those are all graphic creation programs, not web design.
      {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[5260267].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author Istvan Horvath
    There seem to be some confusion...

    WordPress is NOT a "webdesign" software. It is a CMS (content management system) and the whole idea is that you DON'T have to design anything: it comes with pre-made themes that define the look of your site and you publish your content. You can edit your content (a.k.a. posts or Pages) on your desktop computer as simple text files as long as you want. Then you login to your WP installation and (copy/paste) publish them. You can even 'preview' your posts in WP before publishing them.

    Now, on the other hand if you want to manually code the HTML in every file you upload to your server... that's your choice, however for big sites with a lot of content it's absolutely inefficient.
    Signature

    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[5242696].message }}
    • Profile picture of the author ronc0011
      In my opinion the two big dogs in the game are Adobe Dreamweaver and Microsoft Visual Web Developer and Visual Studio my personal preference is for Visual Studio / Web Developer The negative with VS is no support for PHP as it is geared for ASP and C# VB.net and MS SQL but for straight forward HTML and CSS it is perfectly fine. Frankly I used Dreamweaver for years and in fact I still have the CS2 version here somewhere. It drove me nuts and forced me to finally learn another software i.e. MIcrosoft's VS Best thing that ever happened. DW was constantly reformatting my code and it would throw closing tags way off the screen. This would constantly cause me to screw up my code trying to repair code that wasn't in fact broken. I also have always found DW's FTP functions clunky and clumsy. You're better off with something like Cute FTP


      Once you are used to coding up your own pages in DW or VS creating content for a Wordpress site is a snap as has been noted, Wordpress is not a development or design software
      {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[5242948].message }}
      • Profile picture of the author TheForumPeople
        Originally Posted by ronc0011 View Post

        In my opinion the two big dogs in the game are Adobe Dreamweaver and Microsoft Visual Web Developer and Visual Studio my personal preference is for Visual Studio / Web Developer The negative with VS is no support for PHP as it is geared for ASP and C# VB.net and MS SQL but for straight forward HTML and CSS it is perfectly fine. Frankly I used Dreamweaver for years and in fact I still have the CS2 version here somewhere. It drove me nuts and forced me to finally learn another software i.e. MIcrosoft's VS Best thing that ever happened. DW was constantly reformatting my code and it would throw closing tags way off the screen. This would constantly cause me to screw up my code trying to repair code that wasn't in fact broken. I also have always found DW's FTP functions clunky and clumsy. You're better off with something like Cute FTP
        Thank you ronc001 for your note, someone else said that DW was a little more difficult to work with. Years ago, I worked with InDesign and to me it felt then like I feel now working with WordPress... it just felt like a long haul to understand all the bells and whistles. I'll look into VS/WD by microsoft.
        {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[5245716].message }}
      • Profile picture of the author blogfreakz
        Originally Posted by ronc0011 View Post

        In my opinion the two big dogs in the game are Adobe Dreamweaver and Microsoft Visual Web Developer and Visual Studio my personal preference is for Visual Studio / Web Developer The negative with VS is no support for PHP as it is geared for ASP and C# VB.net and MS SQL but for straight forward HTML and CSS it is perfectly fine. Frankly I used Dreamweaver for years and in fact I still have the CS2 version here somewhere. It drove me nuts and forced me to finally learn another software i.e. MIcrosoft's VS Best thing that ever happened. DW was constantly reformatting my code and it would throw closing tags way off the screen. This would constantly cause me to screw up my code trying to repair code that wasn't in fact broken. I also have always found DW's FTP functions clunky and clumsy. You're better off with something like Cute FTP


        Once you are used to coding up your own pages in DW or VS creating content for a Wordpress site is a snap as has been noted, Wordpress is not a development or design software
        Agree, I'm using adobe dreamweaver for coding html and css and for ftp I used filezilla...
        {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[5248034].message }}
    • Profile picture of the author WordPressurize
      Originally Posted by Istvan Horvath View Post

      There seem to be some confusion...

      WordPress is NOT a "webdesign" software.
      Yeesh, can you believe you needed to say that? Where in the world Google would anyone be able to come to that conclusion? :confused:

      @TheForumPeople & @ronc0011 Neither Dreamweaver nor Visual Studio are software for web design. Kamirao is correct... Adobe Fireworks and Adobe Photoshop are the leaders in software for web design. Photoshop was made for editing photos, but was adopted quickly by the industry for web design. Trying to cash in on this, Adobe brought us Fireworks, which is a tremendous tool, though not as widely used as Photoshop. If you're seeking software for web design, those are the best.

      If you're seeking software for web development, that's a different story. Then the leaders are definitely Dreamweaver, which has come a long way since CS2 (I'm using CS5 on PC, though I'm back and forth between Textmate and Espresso on Mac)
      Signature

      "The Dominance characteristic values competency, results, and action. The Influence characteristic values action, enthusiasm, and relationships. The Steadiness characteristic values relationships, sincerity, and dependability. The Conscientiousness characteristic values dependability, quality, and competency... it is necessary to give them the thing they value most." - from Convert, by Ben Hunt

      {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[5243000].message }}
    • Profile picture of the author TheForumPeople
      Hi Istvan, and thanks for the clarification on CMS. And as a newbie, perhaps I am using incorrect syntax. I guess I don't mean 'web design', I guess I really mean 'building a website'. As for building a website, I toyed all afternoon with WordPress today and as a newbie it just doesn't work for me. If it was simply a content management system, then I shouldn't have to worry about figuring out how to get rid of footers appearing on the bottom of each web page. Or about why my "Home" font is not bolded like my other pages. Or how to change the home page from a blog format to a plain web page format. Or why I can't seem to find an easy plug-in that allows anyone to submit a post without having to be registered. For my needs, i.e., a simple 4-5 page website with a simple blog, a few pics, a place to add Google tracking or adsense code, it was much much easier for me to be up and running with Weebly (in an afternoon) compared to WordPress. I can see that there's a lot of help out there for WordPress, and a lot of plug-ins too, but it is the least intuitive application that I've ever used. Just a newbie's perspective.
      {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[5245683].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author DianaHeuser
    Hi TheForumPeople,

    I use Net Fusion for designing my static webpages. It's easy to learn and you can get it free. Once you are familiar with it, it might be worth your while to upgrade to the paid version.

    Do
    Signature

    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[5246506].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author Istvan Horvath
    Hi Istvan, and thanks for the clarification on CMS. And as a newbie, perhaps I am using incorrect syntax. I guess I don't mean 'web design', I guess I really mean 'building a website'.
    Not really... Based on your complains you meant "customizing a theme and learning the basic WP features".

    As I already said a million times: installing WP and publishing content is easy.

    Customizing a theme without in-depth knowledge of XHTML/CSS is not easy. And most people want to do just that right after the installation.

    Most users never take the time to learn at least the basic features in the wp-admin interface.

    P.S. I am not a WP "evangelist" and I don't want to convince anybody to use WP. No matter what kind of tool one is using to perform a task - there is always a learning curve. Even if we would like to skip it...
    Signature

    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[5247776].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author RobKonrad
    Originally Posted by TheForumPeople View Post

    This is a follow up post from a query I made earlier. O got lots of feedback suggesting that I choose WordPress instead of Weebly, due to versatility.

    But I if wanted to have a desktop website design software, what recommendations would people here have? I've found WebStudio, Microsoft Web4 Design, SiteSpinner...

    If I have to I'll learn WordPress, but with a desktop package, I can have control of my files on my desktop, and preview published versions before uploading to my provider.

    All recommendations welcome, thank you.
    You, as many others asking similar question, leave out one important piece of information: What do you want to create?

    - static one-page landing / lead capture page?
    - blog?
    - more of a company homepage that needs slid CMS functions?
    - directory-type page?
    - ....

    Some "development" / coding desktop programs can edit most file types, but would be overkill if you are a newbie and just need to set up a single page.

    So what are your requirements?

    Cheers,
    Rob
    Signature
    ================================================== ===
    This blog is awesome: http://www.robkonrad.com/blog. Read it.
    ================================================== ===
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[5259174].message }}
    • Profile picture of the author hmurray2011
      If I may add to this, Artisteer is excellent (IMO) for creating templates that can be installed in WordPress and Joomla (plus others). I can't remember the price off hand, but it was under $100 and I've been using it successfully for the past 2+ years. They are continuously improving it.

      I also use Dreamweaver to make any further tweaks to the HTML and CSS and Photoshop to create my graphics.

      Heather
      {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[5260028].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author ItWasLuck3
    Originally Posted by TheForumPeople View Post

    This is a follow up post from a query I made earlier. O got lots of feedback suggesting that I choose WordPress instead of Weebly, due to versatility.

    But I if wanted to have a desktop website design software, what recommendations would people here have? I've found WebStudio, Microsoft Web4 Design, SiteSpinner...

    If I have to I'll learn WordPress, but with a desktop package, I can have control of my files on my desktop, and preview published versions before uploading to my provider.

    All recommendations welcome, thank you.
    Like someone mentioned earlier, Wordpress is a CMS, not a design software. Chances are that if you're in this forum, asking for help, you probably aren't too familiar with online programming languages, such as HTML, CSS, PHP, and Javascript.

    If your looking for a CMS (now that we understand what that is), understand that Wordpress will probably be the easiest CMS out there to "learn". And I say "learn" like that because I'm only 17 and learning WP came naturally. Now if you are prepared to branch out and try other CMS's, understand this, the more complicated = the more powerful. Now I don't know what your trying to accomplish, so I don't know how simple/ complex of a website you need.

    Anyway, here's some more CMS's, including my top 3: Wordpress,. Joomla, Drupal, Silverstripe (never used it, but looks incredibly professional), Cushy CMS, Frog CMS, MODx, TYPOlight, and dotCMS.

    Now let's totally shift away from CMS's and take about custom made websites. These involve coding, like all those languages I mentioned earlier, if you don't know any of them, but you'd like to, hit up w3schools.org for a crash course in any internet programming language you want to learn. Now once you've decided you want to learn, get some software! On a PC, for free you can pick up Nvu. It's free and gets the job done. Or drop some money and pick up Adobe Dreamweaver CS5. Now on a Mac (what I have), I personally use a piece of software called Coda. Cost me about $30 I believe, but works wonders.

    Let me know if you have any questions.

    Cheers.
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[5260531].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author ronmeffi
    I prefer Wordpress or Joomla
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[5262403].message }}

Trending Topics