[X-Newbies] web design software info

[Steven Rogers]

On Oct 10, 2005, at 12:08 PM, Vincent Cayenne wrote:

> At 12:53 PM -0400 10/10/05, Al Poulin wrote:
>
>> Are you locked into the package you begin with?  Or is it easily  
>> transparent to move from one design package to another?  In other  
>> words, if you start with Composer or any other package, and then  
>> decide to use another web designer, are you getting into  
>> complexities?
>>
>
> BBEdit, Composer, nvu, PageSpinner, DreamWeaver and GoLive generate  
> non-program-specific HTML and CSS and have no lock-in that I'm  
> aware of. Others familiar with RapidWeaver and FreeWay can weigh in  
> on those programs.
>
> In theory, I should be able to use any of the above programs to  
> edit components of sites created with any of the others. I should  
> be able to edit the site from any editor on any platform, actually.

There are platform-specific features in some programs. For example, I  
have auto-updating footers in Go-live that change the date/time last  
updated automatically. And it has the ability to automatically render  
web-ready graphics from InDesign or Photoshop masters - which I use  
occasionally. The CSS management features are also fairly extensive.

There's a sense in which you don't "loose" any of this when switching  
to another program. The footers, CSS, and artwork is all still there.  
But one program's helpful features to automate workflow are not  
likely to translate into another tool. You're not going to have to  
"re-do" the site if you switch to another tool, but you might have to  
re-do your workflow. If you're just building a simple site and you  
don't have any workflow (e.g. you're using composer or Nvu) then  
you'll see nearly zero overhead in switching tools.

SR