Web Development Tools

I am new to web development and I want to start developing websites what are the best web development tools I should be using to develop my websites.
Thanks

Notepad++. No need to get “fancy” with things like Dreamweaver. Anything that precodes stuff for you is usually bad code.When you get in to server side programming such as PHP or equivalent, you may want to look into Eclipse.

There are no real “best” tools, just those that suit your need. There are lots of good code editors, FTP clients, graphics editors and so on, but really, the tools for web design are very simple.

Web development is the most crucial process of enabling a website.It is the process of providing interactivity and enabling navigation between the web pages.The most important web development tools are PHP, Dreamweaver,j Query and Ajax.

Why would you say that? I would say that the most important web development tool is HTML. Without it, we wouldn’t have a web at all. However, I don’t look at any programming or markup language as a ‘tool’ just as I don’t look at spoken language as a tool, although perhaps all are in a very broad sense.

I also wouldn’t add proprietary WYSIWYG’s as important tools to Web Development, especially since the advent of many, many free web development platforms such as WordPress, Joomla, ModX and others.

Notepad++ seconded.
For graphics, I use PhotoImpact X3, FastStone Capture, Colorpic, and Colorschemer.
If you want to learn CSS and HTML, I strongly recommend the book ‘CSS: the Missing Manual’, that’s how I learnt. I’d read a few other CSS books before, they were rubbish (and expensive, and much smaller than CSS: the Missing Manual).

I use Dreamwear MX to coding and designing. And I use FTP Cutepro to upload files to server. But I recommend that you should use Wordpress templates. There are a lot free templates on Wordpress. They’re easy to use and custom coding. Have fun :slight_smile:

No (unless you are coding it by hand), Ok, and No (unless again, you are coding it by hand).

find your self a good template and use Dreamweaver it is really nice…

Oh boy, no. Start here: http://www.sitepoint.com/forums/showthread.php?47900-A-Beginner-s-Guide-to-Anything-and-Everything

Begin to learn to do table-less design with CSS and HTML, preferably in something that doesn’t generate code for you so your not drawn into the dark side of bad code supplied by WYSIWYG editors, such as Dreamweaver. When you need to add functionality (forms, etc) then head on into something such as PHP or ASP.

You can also add some forms with javascript (which for me is easier to understand than php or asp) and there are many sites where you can find pre-built forms from good plugins or code that will start you off in the programming language of your choice.

Notepad++ is a good start. Just have your other tools for your graphics such as Photoshop or other Adobe products. All depends on what type of “content” you put in the site also. Heck, if you wanted you could just create a Wordpress site and pick out a great template. It is almost a shortcut for creating a site but it WORKS! Wordpress works great as a CMS. Once again, just depends on what type of site and majority of content.

No need to get “fancy” with things like Dreamweaver

As far as i am aware people dont use dreamweaver to precode stuff for them. They use it because its wysiwyg and its way easier to code when you see what you are getting. Especially if your page doesnt consist of just 3 rows of text.

You an do that with your browser. And it is vastly easier to type the code for some things than to try to do it with a wysiwyg editor. I’ve seen graphic designers struggle for hours to get a layout right using that method, and I can come along and tweak the code in ten seconds.(It makes them really mad, too. :lol: )

not gonna argue cause i code like 2 times a year :smiley: but for some reason our coders insist on having a dreamweaver and refuse to use notepads, maybe they like shinies, dunno.

You’ll never get a high paying job using Dreamweaver. At least one where you work on medium to large scale web applications that actually matter. Maybe a design studio or something might tolerate it but most software engineers dismiss people who use it. Unless there is a font-end engineer to clean up the mess and merely have the designers creating mock-ups or prototypes in Dreamweaver. I have not once seen someone who uses Dreamweaver as just a text editor. The tools within it that create terrible mark-up and promote poor practices are always relied on to some extent… always.

To be fair, it’s an excellent code editor—one of the better ones, IMHO—with lots of handy tools. The code editor tools that I’ve used don’t add any markup, but just make it handy to work with the code, like hiding sections of code while you work. I know plenty of people who use Dw as a code editor, and there’s no reason that would stop them getting a job.

If you’re new to web development, then you’ll need more than a tool. You need to know what web development is. And because this field is so very huge, I suggest you get a few books first.

As for tools, I can wholeheartedly recommend Sublime Text 2. There simply isn’t a better editor out there currently and it works on all platforms: http://www.sublimetext.com/2

Nettuts+ has released a series of video tutorials for beginners for it as well: http://net.tutsplus.com/articles/news/perfect-workflow-in-sublime-text-free-course/

To start developing websites I believe hand coding is the best way to learn each and every details of a technology. So to code you can choose either Traditional Notepad in Windows or NotePad++. These tools will help you to go deeper in the technology and it will help you to become an expert.

I use bluefish web editor in linux. I think it is also compatible with Windows. The linux text editors (I use pluma) also have a few code-editing capabilities. I do like bluefish though because it has a color chooser, code folder, and auto complete features as well as drop down lists of different elements and attributes besides colors for the syntax, line numbers, etc. …and it’s free unless you choose to make a donation to the project.