FREE WEB BUILDING TOOLS

I’ve spent hundreds of dollars on software specifically for building websites or working with web images. While I am certainly not ready to give up my Adobe Photoshop or Dreamweaver, I’ve been experimenting with open source or freeware software since I bought my laptop. I would have to uninstall Photoshop in order to install it legally on my laptop. Not wanting to do this got me thinking about a program I had used years ago called Gimp. Impressed, I looked for a Dreamweaver substitute in the open source world and boy was I impressed with what I found.

Well, here they are. Try them out. The price is right and I don’t think they bite.

HTML Editor:
If you only use blogging software, you don’t really need an HTML editor, but if you do any other type of web work having a good WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) editor is a whole lot faster than using Notepad.

NVU -Web HTML Editor - If I had this years ago, I probably wouldn’t have bought Dreamweaver. NVU (pronounced N-view) requires no technical expertise or knowledge of HTML. Everything is WYSIWYG and easy to control. Like many commercial web editors, you can choose between Visual or Code modes. Works with Windows, Linux and Mac operating systems.

Image Editor:

GIMP - Image Editor - I tried an earlier version of this many years ago but ended up buying Photoshop. Because of the laptop situation, I decided to try the Gimp again. It is just about perfect for almost everything I need it for. I am still trying to get used to it; it is a little frustrating since I’ve used Photoshop so long, but it gets the job done. Nearly every image on this blog was created or edited using Gimp. It doesn’t seem to have the text effects that Photoshop has but it can do everything else. Works with Windows, Unix and Mac operating systems.

FTP Client:
Filezilla - FTP Program - Use this program to upload files to your server. Easy to use and free.

If you know of any other open source program to do web work, please let me know.