Lay My Hat

Alan,

Well, I'm actually a really old-school web designer so I typically use plain text editors and photoshop/PSP to edit graphics, but I've just started to use some parts of this package and I'm liking it so far. I haven't used everything, though.

Macromedia Dreamweaver MX is a code editing/ftp program that lets you update remote websites in a much easier way than using a text editor and a separate ftp program. You give it the connection info to your site and it maintains a connection for you; when you want to edit a remote file you double-click on it, and it downloads the file to your computer and opens it for you. You edit it and save the changes, and it uploads the new version. This is the one I'm using the most now and so far it's been great. It does other useful things like color coding of text for certain programming languages (I use php and html, but it does it for asp and jsp and stuff too).

Macromedia Fireworks MX is a graphics editing tool that I haven't personally used, but my husband (who makes his living as a web programmer, whereas I just do it for fun and for friends and family) absolutely loves it. He considers it much more intuitive than even Paint Shop Pro, which I personally find very easy to use.

I don't use Flash at all (I have never seen a site where flash was absolutely necessary, and for years I have used Linux, which didn't always support flash easily). But I'm pretty sure that Macromedia Flash MX lets you create flash content of all kinds.

I think Director Shockwave Studio is used to create self-contained multimedia stuff like DVDs and presentations done at kiosks. It can create flash stuff but also can create stuff for windows media, realmedia, quicktime, etc.

As to Dreamweaver UltraDev, you've got me. If I had to guess I'd say it's a more/less advanced version of Dreamweaver MX, e.g. one can integrate with SQL servers and the other can't, but I could definitely be wrong. I don't have that one on my machine.

I'd say that most web designers could easily get by using just Dreamweaver MX and Fireworks MX. (I'm not even using Fireworks... I'm still stubbornly using Paint Shop Pro and, where needed, Photoshop.)

Cheers!

Brooke,

Thank you very much for all of that. I now have a very clear idea of which product does what. Looks like Dreamweaver and Fireworks are the two normal ones.

Thanks again

Alan

Just to say that Dreamweaver UltraDev is a pretty old version of Dreamweaver & has been superceded by Dreamweaver MX & then by Dreamweaver MX 2004 which I've just upgraded too. Basically Dreamweaver is a very sophisticated Web tool which generates HTML code for you - similar to FrontPage but much, much better. The latest version is particularly good at integrating & displaying CSS stylesheets (for those who know what they are).

I don't use Fireworks, although I have it, as I use Photoshop a lot being into photography & digital photography. It really depends on what sort of graphics you want to produce.

Thanks folks.

I haven't done any web development for two or three years and, in those days, I used HotMetalPro up to v6, but it seems to have gone out of favour now.

On first glance it looks as though Dreamweaver and Fireworks will have very steep learning curves. Maybe I should stay with what I know, HotMetalPro, Photoshop & PSP? Maybe not? Any thoughts?

Alan

Alan,

I don't know Fireworks, but Photoshop does everything you will need for a website.

Dreamweaver is very good and reasonably intuitive to use. If you have already done some web development I'm sure you'll get into it quickly.

I am putting together a couple of new websites, using Dreamweaver and Photoshop, and I can't think of anything else I could need.

Paolo,

I'll probably take the same route. It seems to be the most popular way.

Alan

Have to put my vote in for the dreamweaver / fireworks combo ..... the mx versions are very similar in layout so if you use one, you will very quickly find your way around the other.

The best thing though, is the ability to launch fireworks and edit / crop / optimise images directly from the dreamweaver screen. Invaluable.

I only ever use photoshop for 'image manipulation' and 'print work' now, it really can't be beaten for the 'heavy' stuff.