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 much time down the road.

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