Whether you’re a budding web developer or a professional web designer, you’re limited by the software you use. To let your creativity be your only limit, it’s important to choose the best software program for your web design needs. This list provides the top three web design software packages for Windows and Mac systems. No matter what type of sites you want to design, there is a perfect software package for you.
Windows Based Software
CoffeeCup HTML Editor
CoffeeCup HTML Editor is a powerful HTML editing tool allowing you to create amazing websites with ease. CoffeeCup has built in code completion and validation. For beginners, CoffeeCup offers tag references and themes to get your site up and running quickly. Support is available for HTML5 and CSS3.
Easily organize websites and web design projects with CoffeeCup’s organization tool. With the provided validation tools, your site works more consistently with various browsers. For further testing and previewing, three preview modes are available, including previewing the site in ten different browser windows within CoffeeCup HTML Editor.
Dreamweaver
Adobe’s Dreamweaver software is available for both Windows and Mac. You can develop visually in a WYSIWYG editor or directly in a code editor. Testing is easy with the Adobe BrowserLab, which is offered through Adobe CS Live.
Dreamweaver supports CSS and easy flash video integration. CSS starter pages are provided to help you get started. To go beyond HTML, Dreamweaver has numerous plug-ins allowing you to add videos, designs and code not available through HTML. Dreamweaver supports both web design and web application projects, allowing you to create basic and advanced sites.
Expression Web
Expression Web, by Microsoft, provides sophisticated CSS layouts that can be fully customized to meet your site’s needs. To speed up the browser testing process, Expression Web offers Super Preview to view and debug your site in various browsers quickly.
Intellisense and color coding are available in Expression Web’s code editor for HTML, PHP, JavaScript and CSS. Real-time validation provides instant feedback to make coding easier. Expression Web also supports many scripting and server-side technologies, such as XML, Silverlight and ASP.NET.
Drag and drop controls are available to quickly add files to your project, such as Windows Media, Silverlight and DeepZoom. Another incredible feature of Expression Web is SEO reporting, which provides information about your site to help you improve your site’s search results.
Mac Based Software
Sandvox Pro
Sandvox Pro by Karelia is the perfect web design software for Mac users, both beginners and experienced users. The great thing about Sandvox is that you can try it before you buy to ensure you’re getting the features you need.
With Sandvox Pro, you don’t need to know HTML to use it. With their HTML editor, you can enter your own HTML or paste code into raw HTML pages or pagelets for immediate results. However, if you are an experienced HTML user, Sandvox has support for advanced HTML. By clicking any element on a page, you can quickly edit the HTML for that element or create an HTML page from scratch.
You can easily see how your page will look outside of the web designer. This lets you see how your site looks in the browser window. Sandvox supports Google integration including Google Analytics and Google Webmaster Tools. Combined with the easy to use and understand graphical interace, Sandvox Pro Edition is a win-win for web designers.
Rapid Weaver
Rapid Weaver is built especially for Mac OS X Leopard operating system, with a familiar interface Mac users will love. Rapid Weaver takes advantage of all Leopard has to offer, including Quick Look, Core Animation and iLife integration.
Rapid Weaver supports one click publishing and supports almost every web host by having built in support for FTP, SFTP and MobileMe. To quickly design your site, ten page types and over forty themes are available. Rapid Weaver also allows you to view your text and code side by side and supports drag and drop to quickly add images and ads to your web pages.
Coda
Coda offers web design software that allows a single screen for everything, including development and file transfer. To make web design even easier, Coda supports plug-ins, which allows you to easily integrate code from other developers into your site. Find files quickly and easily with Coda’s version of Spotlight, which allows you to type a few letters of the file name to locate the file.
In addition to code checking, Coda also has a spell check feature that checks only your words, not your code.
