Site-Building
Tools
Here you will find
sites which offer various tools and utilities for adding
information, graphics, and functionality to your awards program, or
to any other web site which you choose to build. Some of
these are the well-known (and pricey) commercial programs, but the
amount of quality tools and material now available for little or no
cost is staggering, and continues to grow on a daily
basis.
Coding
Purists will tell you
that all you need to code a web site is a simple text editor, such
as Windows Notepad. That is technically true (no pun
intended), but there are applications that can make the process
much easier and less time-consuming. Some are listed below;
there are many others.
Arachnophilia is a
well-known Web editor with lots of features. It will import
content from Windows applications and convert it to HTML, upload
files, use macros, and more. This is "careware" -- to use the
program, you must stop whining about how difficult your life is for
a while. (We're not making this up. See for yourself.)
Whatever you think of the "careware" concept, the software is
great.
Easy
HTML is a very good free HTML editor with a lot of nice
features, such as simultaneous page editing, a built-in browser,
and a built-in library of JavaScripts. Compatible with
Microsoft's IntelliMouse. Available in Finnish and
English.
Evrsoft (that's spelled correctly)
offers a developers' forum and one of the best free HTML editors we
have ever found, 1st Page 2000. Happily, the software
is once again available on the site for download. (NOTE: Your
virus checker will detect a virus when you install this. It
will cause no harm -- it's just the designer's idea of a
joke. Just delete the file your virus checker detects, and
you'll have no problem.)
Macromedia features a WYSIWYG
(What You See Is What You Get) web editor called
Dreamweaver. This fairly expensive program has become
popular in colleges and universities, and is a very good way to
quickly build a web site. Free trial available.
Microsoft
offers FrontPage, another fairly pricey WYSIWYG web editor,
much improved over previous versions. It has its quirks, but
it can be a wonderful time-saver for maintaining web sites.
Built-in templates and themes allow you to get a site on line
quickly. A free trial may be downloaded. (This is our
editor of choice, just in case you were interested.)
XStandard is a WYSIWYG web page editor which generates clean XHTML code and
uses CSS for formatting, separating formatting from content. The Lite
version is free.
Graphics
Creation
Adobe features PhotoShop, one of
the more expensive graphics programs available. But
PhotoShop has become the standard of the industry, and with
good reason. PhotoShop is a very powerful program with
hundreds of features -- it can take months to learn everything this
program can do. If you can afford PhotoShop, and have
the time to go through the learning curve, you can't go
wrong.
20/20 is an
excellent free graphics program. Includes an image viewer,
screen capture utility, slideshows, thumbnails, etc. You sure
can't complain about the price.
Corel (the WordPerfect people)
acquired Jasc Software and Paint Shop Pro, a popular,
quality graphics program for webmasters on a budget. Free
30-day demo available. (The program is not free, but it's far
less expensive than similar commercial software. This is the
one we use.)
IrfanView is a free graphics and
multimedia viewer. This will even handle a number of rather
obscure graphics formats. (The site goes down on
occasion. If it's not working at the moment, try again
later. It's worth it.)
Macromedia excited web developers
with the introduction of Flash, allowing sophisticated
animated sequences. You can do entire web sites with this
tool. The Studio application integrates Flash with a
web-building program. (These are expensive, but very
good.)
SWiSHZone offers the family of
SWiSH applications, much less expensive than Flash,
and nearly as versatile. Their free demo makes it worth
investigating.
Reference
Simply The Best
Information Library has a number of articles explaining the
many technical terms one comes across while building web sites and
dealing with modern technology.
Web Pages That Suck teaches
you what not to do when you design a web site. We can
learn from bad examples.
Tutorials
AAAHTML.com has tutorials on most
aspects of HTML -- frames, tables, etc. Useful for
experienced as well as novice webmasters.
GrafX Design Web
Graphics Tutorials has tips and tricks for a number of popular
graphics programs.
JavaScript Kit has a
number of tutorials, most of which focus on JavaScript.
Designer Today (formerly TIEMDesign and Tutorial Hunt) claims
to have tutorials for "almost every graphics application on the
planet." I don't know about that, but they sure have a
lot.
W3Schools Online has lots of free
tutorials on web-building, along with a certification
program. Outstanding resource for
self-instruction.
WebReference.com has a lot of
how-to articles which answer lots of graphics-related
questions. A bi-weekly column, too.
WebTutorialList� has a large
number of tutorials (including a tutorial on how to write a
tutorial).
Other Site-Building
Resources and Utilities
Doctor HTML is a web page
analysis tool that can help you find problems in your HTML
coding.
Doctor Watson is another analysis
tool to check a number of things about your site, including links
and search engine compatibility. (This is not the same as the
Doctor Watson application that is included with Microsoft
Windows.)
Internet Brothers has a number
of resources (looks under "tips and tools") for the aspiring
webmaster.
Spider Food is a site to
aid you with promotion, including getting your site listed with
search engines.
Virtual Promote (formerly
JimWorld) is one of the oldest resource sites for webmasters on the
Internet -- and still one of the very best. If it isn't here,
you probably don't need it!
WebMonkey is one of the
best all-purpose resource sites for webmasters on the Internet,
including some hard-to-find tools.
