In previous posts I have given some idea of what the website is, what is web design, and who the web designer is. At this opportunity, I try to give a little review for a web design tool that usually be used by web designers expert. Web design tool that I will present here some of them are free and some of them are paid well. Which one should you choose? All depends on your needs and budget.
FREE or OPEN Source
There are several web designers take into account between the cost and the income. The high cost of software or editor for designing websites sometimes become obstacles. Therefore, many of them have to decide to switch to open source or free editor and design tool. So no need to prepare a large fund to purchase supporting software to create web pages.
Here are several web design tool you can use for free. But it's good you read the licenses before using these products:
1. GIMP
GIMP is one of the open source image processing that very well to use for designer. With a simple interface and resemble of Adobe Photoshop, GIMP is often used by those who are lover open source software as a mainstay in image editing. GIMP has many capabilities such as a simple paint program, for photo retouching, an online batch processing, image renderer, an image converter, and others.
Because of the open source, many developers who want to participate in the development of GIMP. The way of developers for helping GIMP development is to build some plug-ins and extensions for certain purposes. Advanced scripting interface allows everything from the simplest task to the most image manipulation procedures to complex scripts can be easily done.
GIMP is coded and developed under X11 on UNIX platforms. But basically the same code also runs on MS Windows and Mac OS X.
2. Brackets
Brackets is editor developed by Adobe team. This editor is quite new, but the enthusiasts continues to increase until today. According to a review of DeEleven , bracket can be used as the primary editor for you who want to learn or have some faith in a web designer or web developer.
Brackets are very easy to use. It seems like the developers want to prey on a wide market so that brackets developed in a cross platform (Windows, Mac, and Linux). What makes Brackets is the right choice for you is the extension feature, where you can install several extensions which if you think necessary for the purposes of your code process.
Brackets have several other advantages. One of the most different from the other code editor that Live Preview. So later when we are coding in Brackets, then we edit. In the browser can directly change without refresh. Similar with Mozilla Thimble, but Thimble is works in all browser. Live Preview as I know, is only work on Chrome or Chromium browser.
3. Notepad++
Notepad++ is one of the Text Editor tool that famous in the world of coding. Notepad++ can be downloaded and used for FREE. Notepad++ can support several types of coding languages such as C++, Java, PHP, etc. The initial goal was created as a replacement for Notepad (the default text editor in Windows). Notepad++ developed by C++ and pure Win32 API and STL that ensures that Notepad++ has a good speed performance and the smaller size.
Notepad++ has a very good performance. In terms of language support coding, Notepad++ practically complete! It could even make custom Language. But sadly, this Notepad++ is only available for Windows operating system. You should use 3rd party application such as Wine if you want use Notepad++ in Linux or Mac.
4. Inspect Element (Chrome and Mozilla Firefox browser)
This is mandatory tools you should know. Basically, when you install Chrome or Mozilla Firefox web browser, this feature is already there in it, but maybe you do not know. So what the Inspect Element is?
Inspect Element is a menu on modern web browsers that allows you to inspect the script of your web page that being access. You can do the inspection, but only at the user level script (HTML, CSS, JavaScript), not at the server level script, but for you guys that actually is a web designer, this feature is really helping you out.
Me myself always use this feature in the Chrome web browser to learn CSS or HTML structure of the other website that I want to learn. The result is very good, I can apply the newest technology interface design, CSS or JavaScript from that website and put it into my own website.
PAID
There are also several web designers that already have a large enough initial capital to be able to buy software or editor to design websites with ease. Surely there are several advantages from that software where the price can be said to be very expensive. Some professional web designers that choosing paid software must have a reasonable excuse why they chose the paid software.
Here are some review of the paid web design tools that you can use as reference:
1. Adobe Creative Suite
Who is not familiar with adobe? A very large company that creates some of the tools to create visual and communication design needs. We can say that the long journey Adobe in providing and developing software for digital design is extraordinary. Even now for the product Adobe Photoshop already inherent in every human mind.
Adobe Creative Suite is a bundling of Adobe issued which contains some of their excellent products for the design purposes. Up until now, the 6th edition of Creative Suite Adove is already incurred. Adobe Creative Suite bundling consists of several software such as Photoshop, InDesing, Illustrator, Dreamweaver, Adobe Premiere Pro, affer Effects, and Flash Professional.
For those of you who just want some of the software, Adobe has prepared several packages such as Adobe Creative Suite Design&Web Premium, Creative Suite 6 Design Standard, Creative Suite 6 Production Premium, and Creative Suite 6 Master Collection. For more details on pricing and product bundling this can be read clearly in the adobe official website.
The price we have to spend to get licenses this product is very expensive, but it cannot be denied that this software is very powerful with superb features to complete your design needs. If you have more funds, would not hurt you to buy this software.
2. Coda
Perhaps for those of you who use windows, CODA will seem strange to hear, but for those of you who use Mac OS to develop a website, you must be familiar with CODA. CODA is a text editor that is highly desired by those who career in the field of web design. Not even a little bit that makes CODA as an excuse for some developers moved into the Mac OS.
CODA license price is quite expensive, but PANIC (Company that publishing CODA) provides all the features you need to develop a website. One of the quite powerful features of the CODA is remote editor, where we can do a remote hosted server directly to our website using FTP or SFTP protocol and direct editing on the file.
CODA also has an interface that is quite interesting and some plug-ins developed by another person or community who can make you interested in coding. But unfortunately this tool is only available for Mac OS, and there seems no plans by the developers to develop on Windows.
Others web design tool
Actually there are many tools both PAID of FREE/open source that could be used to develop a website. Tools that my review above are some of the tools I've ever tried myself.
Conclusion
Assessment for a web design can be said to be good or bad actually very relative, depending on the personal taste of each lover of the website so it does not matter what kind of web design tools you use to build the website. The important thing is, you build the web in accordance with the demands of your user.
For those of you who have sufficient capital and are able to purchase paid software, simply take advantage of the software and create better. For you who loves open source, doesn't mean you quit your hobby (web design), but it should be able to motivate you and show them that with the open source software you can also create a masterpiece
Best Regards