Video:How to Choose Your Most Important Needs From Web Design Software

Transcript:How to Choose Your Most Important Needs From Web Design Software

Hi, this is Dimitri LaBarge for About.com, and today we're going to talk about how to choose your most important needs from web design software.

Before You Choose Web Design Software

Before you start your evaluation, decide what your needs are. Are you a hobbyist? Are you going to be building sites for fun, or for small business? Are you going to be building sites on a daily basis for clients? If you need more powerful software, remember that - with some exceptions - it's going to be a lot more of an investment as the power of your software increases.

Factors to Consider When Buying Web Design Software

Are you a graphics artist or a coder? If you're an artist, maybe you want to consider a full suite from a company like Adobe. Their Dreamweaver application is one of the premier web editors on the market. But it also interfaces with graphics and animation software like Photoshop and Flash.

Color Coding and Web Design Software

How about using color coding? Instead of having great gobs of black text everywhere with everything running together, maybe your software should be intelligent enough to separate text and different tags into context-aware colors. Not only does it help keep things organized, but this is another excellent way to quickly track down coding errors.

Debugging and CSS With Web Design Software

Do you need complex enough code that it will be useful to have help debugging it? With CSS, XML and increasingly complex programming languages for the web, it can be important that your software is able to validate your tags. If so, maybe you should think about Dreamweaver, or an Integrated Development Environment like NetBeans, Komodo and Aptana Studio. This software can look at your code and help save time by validating it for correctness. Plus, they can be very useful for small business purposes with features like advanced database connectivity.

Building Web Sites With Web Design Software

Maybe you're looking for software to not only build pages, but keep entire sites organized and synced. Look for software that can define an entire site profile, automate your FTP uploads, taking out all of the drudgework of uploading your site assets.

Pre-Built Templates in Web Design Software

Another feature that might be helpful are pre-built templates. Not all of use come with a gift for graphics or layout, but a program with templates can make even a basic site look professional and crisp, with useful images and even navigation choices.

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