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Sean Wood's Personal ToolboxHome > Build > Design > Articles > Toolboxes Name: Sean Wood Position: Webmaster Preferred Platform: Windows Company: The Banker's Exchange, Inc. Since I work for a sales company as the Webmaster, my work toolbox is geared more towards eCommerce applications than my home box, which is more oriented towards graphic design. In my position, I am responsible for site administration and maintenance, web marketing, and eCommerce. Many of our clients have been very happy with the Web site because it allows them to view the products, ask questions in a real-time chat room, and order products online. The site has boosted sales tremendously now that we can reach a much wider range of customers across the world. Anyway, here's some of the fun stuff I use everyday. Coding MetaPad: I have been coding HTML on NotePad for a while, but when I found this application, I soon made the switch. It has the quick commands like Ctrl-A, Ctrl-S, Ctrl-P and Esc which kicks you out of the program. Another advantage is that you can launch your code in an external web browser. Adobe GoLive (4.0 for Windows): Adobe just released the Windows version about a month ago. This program is much better than any other web editing program I've used before (I haven't used Dreamweaver yet, which I hear is better). It makes web development easy because I switch views between the Layout, the Source, and the Preview Mode (which I also double check by launching it in the browser). I also like the Cascading Style Sheet (CSS) functions offered by GoLive. However, GoLive does have its shortcomings. The code can get a little sloppy when changing around the grids & tables. I find myself having to clean up some of the extraneous code that GoLive generates. I shouldn't have to clean up GoLive's mess, so I may be changing programs soon because of this reason. Graphics I think the other articles in the Toolbox Section offer a great look at the top products available, so to brief, here's what I have in my happy little toolbox. Adobe Photoshop 5 - The industry standard for web graphics. Adobe seems to be concentrating on their web customers and this is the workhorse of graphic programs. Adobe Illustrator 8 - I'm really digging the 8.0 version over the 7.0. It plays nicely with the other children in my Adobe box. Macromedia Fireworks - I was just introduced to this program and can't wait to use it to compress all the graphics on my site, which causes the site to load slowly for the connectionally-challenged customers. Quark XPress & Adobe Pagemaker: I use these desktop publishing programs for company designs. (not web-related) Site Administration Adobe GoLive (4.0 for Windows): Again, this is the tool I use for administration because it has some great ideas for site administration. I can store a text or image element as a "dynamically generated component" which can then be placed dynamically on all pages. This works well with my navigation bars that are used on every page. If I need to edit one of these components, GoLive changes all the web pages that use that component throughout the site. I can also map out my Web site using the Site View option in GoLive which gives a structural chart of the Web site GoLive does have a fully-integrated FTP that lets the user upload and download files by dragging and dropping. However, I prefer the traditional interface of . WS_FTP Pro: This is the standard FTP client. It has an Explorer-like interface for drag & drop ftp-ing. I like the speed and configurability offered by the WS_FTP Pro. E-Commerce Tools Allaire Coldfusion Studio 4.0: Just like the controversial science of the same name, the power created by this database application program is huge. ColdFusion Studio is the eCommerce money maker at my company. The folks at Allaire made this database application program extremely easy-to-use for web developers. From the moment I began using this, I have found my way around CF with great ease. There are two reasons for this. 1) If you are familiar with Allaire HomeSite, you'll be cranking out some Cold Fusion in no time. The ColdFusion Studio integrates the the HomeSite program which is a solid web design program in itself. 2) The tag-based code generated by ColdFusion is very familiar those of us raised on HTML. It uses HTML with it's server-side language called Cold Fusion Markup Language (CFML). We have used Cold Fusion to provide a secure online shopping environment. For customers that have not registered with us, a search of products is made available. But once a customer is authenticated, they can view the prices as well as the products. If they have cookies enabled, they don't have to login whenever they revisit the site. When the customers are ready to order, they enter the secured portion of the site (https://) which is made possible by their browser hitting the secure site certificate we have with Verisign. I have selected these tools specifically for the task I have as the webmaster for a specialized company. There's a lot of great software tools out there you should test and add to your own toolbox. Just remember to keep trying out new stuff and having fun as you learn. Paul
Heslep, Graphics Toolbox |
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