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sc_3007 · Jul 16, 2006, 06:25 PM

Hey,

I have a software dilemma. I am buying a mac and I want to get legitimate software not pirated software. I am a fairly compitent webdesigner. I am used to using dreamweaver and photoshop cs for building and designing my pages. I also have dabled with flash although I am not a massive flash fan. I am basically looking for some affordable tools that will be as useful. I am fairly open minded and not afraid of change. I am not afraid of coding either but would like some wysiwyg ability.

I have looked at elements 4 for my artwork but I am unsure as to whether it will be man enough for what I need.

Many thanks,

Steve

besson3c · Jul 16, 2006, 06:32 PM

I'm not at all a fan of WYSIWYG, so I'm not the best person to ask about that, but I've heard that NVU is pretty nice (and open source). For developing websites, tools like Emacs/ssh can be pretty cool, although they have a bit of a learning curve. Textwranger is also a good text editor.

Photoshop is harder to replace, although perhaps you can get by with GIMP.

mduell · Jul 16, 2006, 07:10 PM

I think Adobe (who owns both Dreamweaver and [obviously] Photoshop) has a pretty reasonably priced program for you to switch platforms with their software.

skalie · Jul 17, 2006, 02:01 AM

... and, er, Flash these days.

sc_3007 · Jul 17, 2006, 06:35 AM

hey, I am loving this input. I never thought of lookign at GIMP. Alot of people seem to get along well with it so I will look into it and see how i like it.

As for the blaspheming person <if thats how you spell it> who said about adobe having reasonable prices, I hardly call £400 for a peice of software reasonable. I think anything up to £100 reasonable. As things start to creep over that then I start to get peeved. Do you know of any way I could get dreamweaver and photoshop cheaper.

I will look at the open source sugestions that have been posted but by all means keep posting, and keep the sugestions flowing.

besson3c · Jul 17, 2006, 06:43 AM

Does your web server where your sites are hosted provide SSH access? If so, like I said, you might want to master emacs. It can do a lot of great stuff, providing you're willing to learn some new tricks and don't mind using a text editor that doesn't make use of your mouse.

sc_3007 · Jul 17, 2006, 07:08 AM

I am using my own webserver which is already in place so it can be configured to use ssh. I am using a mandriva box for that. I have some experience using emacs to write shell scripts. I dont intend to use a wysiwyg editor for everything but I like the idea of making minor changes in the editor and then going to the code and playing about.

thats why I am looking for an editor that doesnt make a hash of all the code. I like using dreamweaver because it doesnt mess my code about too much. Does NVU do the same???

stephenr · Jul 17, 2006, 10:27 AM

check out skEdit.
www.skti.org

cheap, great app. Built-in site manager (ie, file listing for current site) and remote file-manager thru ftp, stftp, ssh, webdav etc.

skalie · Jul 17, 2006, 10:37 AM

Originally Posted by sc_3007

thats why I am looking for an editor that doesnt make a hash of all the code.

the Holy Grail

mduell · Jul 18, 2006, 09:18 PM

Originally Posted by sc_3007

As for the blaspheming person <if thats how you spell it> who said about adobe having reasonable prices, I hardly call £400 for a peice of software reasonable. I think anything up to £100 reasonable. As things start to creep over that then I start to get peeved. Do you know of any way I could get dreamweaver and photoshop cheaper.

By reasonably priced cross-grade, I was thinking along the lines of $100ish.
Call Adobe and ask about a cross-platform upgrade; you may want to wait until they release CS3, which will be native on Intel Macs.