Member Avatar for HMB

Hi,

I am very NEW to all of this, but was suggested by a friend to try this site for help & feedback.
I recently opened up my own business, & I basically do everything and anything to save $$$, including my own website. It's very basic, but now I am looking to up the look & design(way up). I was interested in Studio 8. My wife is highly interested in designing our site. Can anyone give me feedback on this program? Is it worth the $$. Does the program include everything necessary to design all aspects of a site? Or am I treading down waters I shouldn't be??

Any help is greatly appreciated!!! :confused: :?:

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  • Latest Post Latest Post by jtbnet

Dani AI

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A few clarifying, modern notes that build on the replies already here (especially , , and ): testing tools and learning fundamentals were the right first steps then, and they still are now. Trying a trial, experimenting with free editors, or learning basic HTML/CSS will save money and help decide what to buy later.

Background: the “Studio” line mentioned in earlier posts was part of Macromedia’s product set; Adobe announced its acquisition of Macromedia in 2005 and integrated those products into Adobe’s suite, so buying old boxed Macromedia software today risks compatibility and lack of updates. (adobe.com)

Practical, low-friction choices now (three common tracks):

  • Hosted visual builders — fastest path: templates, hosting, SSL and updates handled for a monthly fee (good for a tidy small-business site). (webflow.com)
  • Self-hosted CMS (WordPress) — flexible for content, ecommerce and growth; requires hosting, maintenance and basic security work. (wordpress.org)
  • Design + hand-off — prototype in a UI tool, then hand code or hire a dev for a bespoke site. (figma.com)

Quick workflow to get a useful, maintainable site:

  1. pick the single primary goal (call-to-action) and content;
  2. choose a responsive template or starter theme;
  3. add content, compress images and set the mobile viewport in the head:
<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1">
  1. enable HTTPS, analytics, backups and at least basic accessibility; test on phones and tablets. Responsive-design fundamentals and the viewport behavior are well documented. (developer.mozilla.org)

Closing note: follow ’s idea to try trials and ’s idea to learn basics before investing. For most new small businesses, speed, clarity of message, mobile usability and a simple maintenance plan give better returns than an expensive suite or flashy effects.

Recommended Answers

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Member Avatar for Soral 3.0

Try it for 30 days! :-)

-Isaac

Member Avatar for DaveSW

Web design can be done with tools which are free. If you want to become a good web designer then purchasing Macromedia tools will not necessarily make you one.

Dreamweaver for instance is simply a program which generates html code. HTML code is easy to learn and can be written quickly and very efficiently by hand. See my website for an example - - this was written using html-kit from www.chami.com - a free program. If you view the source on it then you'll see it's almost plain english.

Graphics programs are harder to find for free, but www.gimp.org offers a quite good one. Or you could pay something like £100 for Paint Shop Pro - a full image editor, free trial from jasc.com, though it's now taken over by Corel, so the address may have changed.

Flash file creation can't be done for free, but for a small fee www.koolmoves.com (free trial again) can be used - it's easier to use and a lot cheaper.
Swish is another popular flash authoring tool. Many people find flash overly complicated and difficult to learn e.g. motion tweens and layering can be very frustrating.

I'd suggest you try the free demos, and decide how much return you're likely to get on your investment - if you're not likely to get many customers (at least at first) then it might be worth doing the work using free tools - so that your first few jobs aren't spent exclusively paying for your software...

Member Avatar for businesscards

If you really want I will make you a 7-20 page web site for free. Contact me with any q's.
We sell business cards, envelopes and letterheads. We can make CD (arrrgh I can't remember how they are called) things and we now offer web site design

Member Avatar for businesscards

I will also sell ad space

Member Avatar for mdvaldosta

Dreamweaver is definately the way to go for you.

Member Avatar for jtbnet

In Universitys and small business they use Studio - Can save time once your used to it - try the 30 day free trial and then have a look at some of the tutorials to get you started.

Regards.

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