Tools Of The Trade.
By Rik Tairea

If a carpenter or a builder shows up to a job without the right tools, then what's the point? The same goes for us webmasters too. What's the use of expressing your vision or ideas if you don't have the right software for the job?

I don't know about you but when it comes to creating and maintaining my websites there are a few tools I cannot live without. Whether it be creating new designs or animated graphics, having the right tools of the trade can save huge amounts of time and effort.

Here are the two main tools I used to create Groundzero.

My webpage editor of choice is Dreamweaver, created by those masters over at Macromedia. When I first got my hands on this beautiful piece of software I was totally amazed at how I got this far without using it. Up till then I had been using 1stpage 2000 which wasn't too bad because it helped me to learn some HTML, but it didn't have the full functionalism of a WYSIWYG editor.

I did try Frontpage for about 10 minutes and found it to be a complete and total piece of garbage (sorry to the Frontpage fans out there but I just don't like it, I'm not anti-microsoft either).

Dreamweaver has amazing power and I especially find it handy for creating tables for layouts, webpage templates and changing over from a design view to a pure code view to make adjustments by hand. At first the learning curve for using this application was a bit steep, but based on my experience and the testimony of others, once you get the hang of Dreamweaver you won't look back.

For a graphics package I tried Paintshop Pro at first, but there was something about it I just didn't like. I then tried Fireworks and was instantly hooked, it also helped that it integrated really well with Dreamweaver (my webpage editor of choice) because it's also developed by Macromedia.

I mainly use Fireworks to :
- create image maps and slices
- create banners and buttons
- optimize graphics for quick download
- create color or transparent backgrounds
- output images to various formats
- resize image dimensions
- create bevels and shadows

That small list probably only represents about 5% of what Fireworks can do and are listed because that's what I mainly use this absolutely outstanding graphics package for. When I started using Fireworks I found it it quite easy to learn how to use it's tools as soon I learnt the functions of the toolboxes.

Of course I use a bit more software to maintain Groundzero.

On a final note, just because "I" think a piece of software isn't good doesn't mean it's totally useless. A good example in this case is Microsoft Frontpage (not the Express version) and Paintshop Pro. I am totally put off by Frontpage but I know people who swear by it and wouldn't use anything else.

I also know that Paintshop Pro is a good program, and the millions of it's users and websites dedicated to it are testimony to that. I'll put money on the fact that a few of you out there use it too. Each program may not have the tools that I need but it might serve someone else very well.

To each their own.

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The above article was written solely for Groundzero and may not be reproduced in anyway on print or other media. This article was written by the webmaster, creator and owner of this site.
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