I primarily use Adobe GoLive CS and Dreamweaver MX for the layout work, however I do quite a bit by hand as well.

For the graphics, I use Photoshop CS and ImageReady CS

Tried dreamweaver once, could NOT get used to that at all lol, so stuck to hand coding with Max's HTML Beauty, a damn fine program if ever there was one, and free too :D
Irfanview for the most part image wise, if needed I'll use PSP7 with a 'problem' set of content :)

PaintShop Pro for the few graphics I have
UltraEdit for the main coding
NotePad for tweaking

Tried FireWorks and DreamWeaver, but could not get on with them and ended up cleaning the DW code by hand afterwards |sad|

depending on the site , but i use a combination of these.



photoshop 7.0 (graphics & thumbing)
dreamweaver MX (page layout)
notepad (tweaking and script modding or writing)

Guys I'm a firm believer in FrontPage. I find it runs better than all the other software programs for large "webs". I'll probably get flamed for this but once you turn off all the bullshit that frontpage tries todo to your page and just use it as a write html then see what it does kinda program... it works very well. But most of what I do like everyone else is template driven so I use find and replace alot.

1) Absolute HTML Compressor - to save what little I can on BW
2) Advanced Find And Replace - to change over templates
3) Adobe Photoshop - the only tool I believe makes crisp thumbs and can stamp your images correctly
4) Note Pad - quick and easy to change up a single page html
5) Front Page - LOL no comment :)
6) ACDSee - don't know if there's a better tool out there but I started using this years and years ago to look at porn and now I use it to rename and view files.
7) PathFile Twirler - I use this one to rename mass files. I think it was made to rename MP3z but I use it for porn. There are many others out there that are just as good.
8) Cute FTP - when I first started I used this then I switched over to WSFTP Pro. I have no idea why I switched but I just switched back to Cute FTP a few months back. WSFTP Pro was uploading partial files and screwing up my html pages. Was a real pain in the ass especially when you uploaded 140,000+ pages and had no idea which ones were messed up. Switched to Cute and it is by far the better of the two. No errors and if there are it reports them to you unlike WSFTP Pro which reported errors to me only 1/2 the time.

this turned in to a really good thread

I might try dreamweaver

Yeah...Dreamweaver rocks imo - the site management tools are great....I love it when you need to replace ref codes thru out a whole site a couple of clicks or two and your worries are over.

I found Dreamweaver had a very strange interface at first.. I looked at it by myself and decided it was too weird to bother working out.

It wasn't until someone spent 15 mins giving me a practical demonstration on the basic usage that I got into it..

It's definitely worth perservering with though.. if you have the same reaction trying to work it out at first.



*Tip: Dreamweaver is a bad memory hog... if you use photoshop at the same time.. both will run MUCH faster if installed on a seperate drive volumes.

cute html
thumbsplus

Dreamweaver for page layout
aarachnophilia for html editing
Photoshop for graphics
Thumbsplus for image handling
Arles for thumbnail creation
PFE for coding

I might have flamed you, but you did point out that you have the sense to turn off the bullshit. ;)

FrontPage uncontrolled is straight from the fiery depths of hell.

I would still urge any new web page builder to learn raw HTML before trying to make nice with a so-called WYSIWIG program. It's just not difficult.

Hiya Tommy!

I started writing in html.
But (being a slow typer) I did buy a program.
But that was way back in 99 or so. Which I still use.
It's WebPage 5.0.
It pretty much does pure html. But I still go in and clean up things.

Everyone needs to know html and other things.

Wow.... you guys have me strolling down memory lane today - lol

It's nice to see that there are many more hand-coder diehards out there than I'd been led to believe. I was told that everyone used Dreamweaver or some other WYSIWYG program and that I was a control freak for doing it by hand.

I used Notepad for the first few years and then someone turned me on to Note Tab Pro. I still only use the hand code half (I know... old dogs... lol), but I like how it pops the various elements into color so I can spot them out easier when making adjustments - that is a helpful feature. I tried the auto-correct function a few times and found it UN-helpful, so I still take care of that kind of stuff on my own.

I started with Paint Shop Pro - I think it was Rowdy who sent me my first bootleg of version 2 or something like that YEARS ago. Then a good friend told me to get a "real" program and I broke down and grabbed PhotoShop and have never looked back.

I also still like WSFTP versus all those other proggies with all the bells & whistles so maybe I am a little too old school.

Anyway, that's what works for me. Really... it's nice to see so many others that do HTML by hand!

|roses|

....oops and a little add-on here re: Dreamweaver....

I've worked with several people over the years who absolutely LOVE this program - and while I'm sure it IS great for them, it absolutely SUCKS for someone who hand-codes it and follows after them to do updates to the pages.

Dreamweaver uses tons of superfluous code that really just bogs down the file size of the page and makes things more complex than it ever really needs to be.... at least in my experience...

I'm sure it's a great program but for folks who work TOGETHER, there's nothing better than doing it by hand, knowing how it all works so you can FIX IT yourself instead of relying on some program to get a clue and do it FOR you.

Dreamweaver and mostly fireworks