Visual Web Design Software for PC and Mac
03/12/10 13:37
Web design has changed a lot (like pretty much everything else related to technology) over the past 18 months. HTML5 and CSS3 have almost made Flash irrelevant, Designers are more aware of the value of simple layout and colors schemes, and more importantly the software is so robust that more people, and businesses, are doing a lot of the design and programming themselves. While I don't consider myself an expert in any programming language, I can certainly get around in many. HTML is a fairly easy language and one that continues to grow in capabilities. New browsers are essentially doing the work that computers once had to do for video rendering and animation. Enterprise use of cloud and web-based applications are the norm, and for good reason. Creating these kinds of apps and media intensive sites are often far beyond the capabilities of the average individual or business owner and in-house web designers are a luxury. Many people out-source this design and hosting to companies, such as Omrinet, who have experience in graphic design, layout, SEO, and stable hosting platforms that have virtually zero downtime.
I could spend a lot of time, and space, covering various web editors. They range from the incredibly complex and robust to absolute base, with output to match. Regardless of the website design software you must have some degree of creative intelligence. Anyone can upload a busy, if not ugly, site with any editor. To create a decent site you still need to know some graphic design basics and the software to create graphic elements. This is far beyond the scope of this post. I am concentrating on those who have this capability and some knowledge, or desire to learn, of website design and the inner workings.
For the PC user, I suggest CoffeeCup Visual Site Designer. Many may think that this software is on the cheap side, which it is in terms of cost, but it is definitely capable of some excellent sites and is VERY easy to use. Spend a little time on the CoffeeCup website and you will see that many a successful site has been developed using VSD. It is easy to learn and has good support. The best part is definitely the price. For $49 you can get an excellent WYSIWYG editor. You don’t ever have to see any code (unless you want to, and it can do that too), makes updating your site incredibly easy, and works with pretty much any domain hosting site. Take a look at this if you must use a PC.
Mac users definitely have an excellent choice of software in the creative realm. It's hard to pick out just one application, but I am going to have to give away a secret of my web design success and tell you about RealMac's RapidWeaver. It is a template based website builder, but don’t let that scare you. There are some amazing templates out there that are incredibly customizable. You do need to know a thing or to about the application to take advantage of it, but once you watch the tutorials (especially the videos available at rapidweaverclassroom.com, not free by the way but well worth the cost) you will be able to make a website using the newest technologies and code that is to standard. It makes integrating blogs and stores very easy as well.
To keep the length of this post down, Ill stop here. I just want to answer a very common question I get asked, "What web designs software could I use if I just want to build one myself?" To those who want to take on the challenge, i say CoffeeCup and RapidWeaver. Have fun. If you'd rather me do it, thats fine too!
But there are still a few folks out there who insist on doing it themselves, and to those I would like to offer my advise: Get good software.
I could spend a lot of time, and space, covering various web editors. They range from the incredibly complex and robust to absolute base, with output to match. Regardless of the website design software you must have some degree of creative intelligence. Anyone can upload a busy, if not ugly, site with any editor. To create a decent site you still need to know some graphic design basics and the software to create graphic elements. This is far beyond the scope of this post. I am concentrating on those who have this capability and some knowledge, or desire to learn, of website design and the inner workings.
For the PC user, I suggest CoffeeCup Visual Site Designer. Many may think that this software is on the cheap side, which it is in terms of cost, but it is definitely capable of some excellent sites and is VERY easy to use. Spend a little time on the CoffeeCup website and you will see that many a successful site has been developed using VSD. It is easy to learn and has good support. The best part is definitely the price. For $49 you can get an excellent WYSIWYG editor. You don’t ever have to see any code (unless you want to, and it can do that too), makes updating your site incredibly easy, and works with pretty much any domain hosting site. Take a look at this if you must use a PC.
Mac users definitely have an excellent choice of software in the creative realm. It's hard to pick out just one application, but I am going to have to give away a secret of my web design success and tell you about RealMac's RapidWeaver. It is a template based website builder, but don’t let that scare you. There are some amazing templates out there that are incredibly customizable. You do need to know a thing or to about the application to take advantage of it, but once you watch the tutorials (especially the videos available at rapidweaverclassroom.com, not free by the way but well worth the cost) you will be able to make a website using the newest technologies and code that is to standard. It makes integrating blogs and stores very easy as well.
To keep the length of this post down, Ill stop here. I just want to answer a very common question I get asked, "What web designs software could I use if I just want to build one myself?" To those who want to take on the challenge, i say CoffeeCup and RapidWeaver. Have fun. If you'd rather me do it, thats fine too!
0 Comments