There are so many web design software packages out thre it would be difficult to describe them all on one page, so we have chosen a few that have been around for awhile, and have earned a good reputation from the web designers over the years.

Adobe (Formerly Macromedia) Dreamweaver is without a doubt the first choice of most professional web designers, with features such as using layouts, automatically creating Flash text, rollovers, navigation bars, etc. It can convert layouts to tables, and vice versa, check your links for the whole site or just a single page, search and replace code throughout a single page or the entire site, checkin & checkout of files from your website for editing, inserting php, coldfusion, javascript code, and yes, a whole lot more:-)
There are also hundreds of plugins available for Dreamweaver, many available for free, and many companies editing software integrates with Dreamweaver directly, allowing you to insert various components directly from Dreamweaver. Xara for one has their Menu Maker which will generate a dynamic menu on the fly for you and insert it directly in the web page. Also Xara Webstyle inserts a plug in allowing you to directly insert a 3D heading, Animation, Navigation bar, Menu, etc into your web page. Nice!

According to Adobe: “Dreamweaver 8 is the industry-leading web development tool, enabling users to efficiently design, develop and maintain standards-based websites and web applications. “

And they’re right. It is the most complete web design software on the market, bar none.

To read more or purchase click here:

Netobjects Fusion - Another great program that has been around for a while, offers many very useful tools and features for both the professional and amatuer web designer. Designed to be easy to use, as well as doing a great job of managing the entire site with stylesheets, automatically inserting and updating navigation bars as you add and remove pages, it’s extremely easy to get spoiled using this program. This entire site was created with Netobjects, as I didn’t need the advanced editing capabilities of Dreamweaver. Well worth the low price!

Some new features in version 9 quoted from NOF’s website:

“Design with precision and efficiency by locking objects, Master Borders and Layout Regions in place while you fine-tune your page design.

Enhance your site by incorporating Flash® navigation and banners into your projects with the click of a button. View Flash® animations while you are working, real time in Page View. No Flash® knowledge required.

Take full advantage of the portability and central management that CSS design has to offer. Advanced developers can launch an editing window for hand-coding definitions. Assign CSS class definitions to your form and navigation elements, along with your database output so you have strict control over the look and feel of your site.”

For more information or to purchase click here:

I have tried many different web editing packages, but between these two, and using windows notepad for raw html editing, I really have never found a need for anything else.