Website Tools
Website tools are needed to properly build and maintain
a website. Fortunately there are many to choose from,
and a number of the tools available will not only
fit in your budget, they are free.
You will need at the very least, an html editor,
a graphics editor, a log analyzer, and an ftp application.
Some html editors will handle the ftp, so you may
be able to skip that.
You should pick up and decide on which webisite
tools to use early in the process. Stick with your
choice. That way you can learn as you go, and not
spend your time bouncing from one to another.
The html editor will allow you to create and edit
an html page. You really won't need to know much
html to use some of these as you can use them in
wysiwyg (what you see is what you get) mode that
looks like the finished page and handles the html
in the background.
There are two free editors that I recommend. I think
Seamonkey is the easiest to use. It has a very low
learning curve, and works quite well. You can pick
up a copy at www.seamonkey-project.org.
The windows installer is right at the top of the
page. Run the install and Seamonkey will be install
to your programs under your start button. When you
first run the program a web browser appears. That's
part of the package. Click on the menu item window/composer
to get to the editor.
The second is Komposer. It is an excellent editor
and functions similar to Seamonkey. The install is
a bit more involved. They have a zip file to download.
Then you make a folder on your harddrive to extract
the files to. After you do that, in the folder, right
click on the file "komposer.exe" and drag
it to your desktop. When you release, a menu sill
appear. Choose "Create shortcuts here".
Then you can start Komposer from your desktop.
The graphics editor allows you to manipulate graphic
images. From photos to icons, you will be able to
resize them, ad things, merge them together and many
other things. Even if you get images from other sources,
you still may need to resize them or perhaps change
a background color.
I use Paint Shop Pro. I also own Photoshop, but
not only is it expensive, $700.00 plus, it has a
very steep learning curve. I don't need the extra
features, so I use Paint Shop. Paint shop Pro costs
80 bucks and is relatively simple to learn. I do
understand that current versions are more difficult
to learn. For those on a budget, a free alternative
that works nicely is paint.net. You can get it at here.
The log analyzer allows you to keep track of the
visitors to your website. Some of the web hosts will
handle this for you, so you may be able to avoid
this step.
The ftp application allows you to publish your local
files to the web. You can access your site, download
your log files and manipulate all the files in your
website.
I cannot stress how important it is to obtain the
website tools you need, and learn to use them. You
will save huge time down the road.
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