Comments on: Essential Tools According to Design Adaptations

By: eve

eve — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 19:31:32 +0000

I use PSP alot, and Dream weaver is almost always open! I also really like the Web Developer toolbar, it helps soooo much when editing themes!

I will be checking out the others you posted today!

By: Jerry Gartner

Jerry Gartner — Tue, 31 Jul 2007 06:37:40 +0000

There are things that I really like about Dreamweaver that really make it hard to give up – I don’t use it nearly to it’s capabilities either. I don’t really use the design mode though, other than to get an approximation for element layout. For open source/free editors tsWebEditor is nice – but my favorite has to be BlueFish. I’m not sure if there is a Windows port but it’s got most of the features that I like about Dreamweaver without most of the stuff I don’t use.

Mr. Lauder’s advice about includes is certainly worth looking into. I’ve taken it to the point with osCommerce that the customizations for different customers consists of changing css and then writing the design elements which get pulled into the program via includes. It’s worth learning even a little php to be able to modularize your design backend while maintaining the unique and thoughtful design that goes into the sites that we create. (btw I use a php function to give the ever-accurate copyright date but javascript will do the trick too.)

By: Stephen Lauder

Stephen Lauder — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 21:56:00 +0000

Aaah, the CSS naming strategies piece served as a nice reminder to use semantic markup instead of pure layout positional naming.

To Jimson Lee: Check out using SSI’s. Server Side Includes would allow you to build the footer once, then in 1 line of code insert it into all your pages. Make one change and it changes everywhere. What’s even better? It can automatically generate that copyright date (year) to being the current year! It’ll even allow you to set a ‘page last updated’ field that autoupdates as well. Definitely worth a look.

By: Lifesperspective

Lifesperspective — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 10:24:06 +0000

tks for recommending 2 new tools that i need to check out. I use dreamweaver all the time to improve on my blog design and to add plugins. I use several stats analysis program concurrently like awstats, statscounter, etc. Think this is one aspect many bloggers fail to account for, the technical know-how to maintaining, upgrading and tracking their blogs.

By: Char

Char — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 03:21:51 +0000

Jimson – I have been using Dreamweaver for years and I probably use it every day (along with Fireworks and WordPress). Find and Replace is a great feature.

David – another Google Reader here, too. I am so glad you found my site because yours has become a daily read of mine!

Charity – so glad you shared your favorites with us this week.

By: Charity

Charity — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 00:31:30 +0000

Hey Char, thanks again for the feature spot this week! It was tough to select only a few when I started really thinking about all the tools I use daily.

@Jimson – I love Find & Replace. It’s useful when working with style sheets as well. Changing colors or font-styles site-wide is a snap. That feature alone has probably saved me more time than any collection of tools I could list.

By: David Airey :: Graphic Designer

David Airey :: Graphic Designer — Wed, 25 Jul 2007 21:09:44 +0000

Hi Char,

Nice to get a little insight into Charity’s design tools. Google Reader plays a big part in my social networking, and I arrived here through my reader.

I probably wouldn’t have started blogging had it not been for WordPress either, and wrongly started out using a WordPress.com blog.

By: Jimson Lee

Jimson Lee — Wed, 25 Jul 2007 16:19:10 +0000

Dreamweaver made my life easier last January when I had to change over 100+ web pages that had the footer “Copyright 2006″ to “Copyright 2007″. A simple Find… Replace All.. did the trick. Sounds simple, yes, but every minute saved on menial tasks help!