[bonafizzle8]

Hello, I am ready to start building my ecommerce site, but am wondering what the best web design software to use is? I have heard a lot about Dreamweaver and Photoshop, also, what makes Photoshop so good that it goes for double the price of Dreamweaver??? Any input would be appreciated...



Thanks

Joe

[jimmiejo]

Dreamweaver is the standard app for web layout and programming. And Photoshop is the best image editing app ever made. It is the first app you should get your hands on before any others. Learn the in's and out's of it first before you try to get anything online. I do believe you can download a trial version from Adobe.com to learn a bit about it.

[RagdollOp]

I agree those are the best I have used.

[mxer210]

I use dreamweaver and love it. for graphics I use fireworks. It's the sister program to dreamweaver made by Macromedia and has an easy learning curve though less powerful than photoshop. photoshop is pretty tricky imo and has a steep learning curve.

[bonafizzle8]

Ok, I am going to go ahead and get Dreamweaver, but I am wondering what version to buy: the regular ($390) or the academic ($92)... I am wondering what is better and if there are any differences or stipulations with the academic as there is quite a price descrepancy between the two...



Thanks,


Joe

[mxer210]

I would look at the features and see if there is any difference. Some companies make the academic versions more limited (microsoft) and other companies give discounts for students because, their students (apple). It sounds liek the academic one is a good choice, assuming you are a student, with such a big price break.

[richkid]

http://www.macromedia.com/resources/...uirements.html

That is there conditions for educational products... i dont think they limit their products, but it does say that you cannot use it for any commercial purpose.

[jimmiejo]

academic software is usually only a license that is sold to a legitimate school on the basis that they intend to purchase a large quantity of an application. my college recently purchased a thousand or so licenses for photoshop, and they received a massive discount from the off-the-shelf price.

[richkid]

thats not necessarily true...our local departments stores sell educational versions...which are for students to use, cuase everyone knows students are poor....

[jimmiejo]

yeah there are student versions of software, which usually have limitations on usage and features. i don't think student versions are too common in web and graphic apps, at least not in canada that I know of. i tried to buy a g5 system through the apple education online store, and was told that my college is not enrolled in the benefit program (it's a private school), so there are always issues with special educational offers. read the fine print or learn the wonders of torrents.

[bonafizzle8]

Right, thanks alot everyone

[gambit]

I don't know about the best. But I use Dreamweaver MX, Adobe photoshop 8, and Macromedia MX.

For PHP, I just use Note or dreamweaver. I highly recomend this 3 softwares