How to Choose Web Software

An image editor is software for creating and editing computer graphics. Dreamweaver does not fall into this category. While you can use Dreamweaver to place image files on your web pages and make simple edits to the size and dimensions of these images, you can’t actually edit the pictures themselves or generate image files from scratch.

When you add an image to a web page, it’s important to note that the image remains as a separate file. You don’t embed the image into the HTML document the way that you might add a picture to a word processor file. Instead, you add a pointer to the image in the HTML code. The pointer tells the browser where to find the image file online. The browser sees the pointer, follows it, grabs the image, and incorporates it into the page. This happens every time that the visitor requests the page. (Incidentally, when you load a web page that shows broken graphics, what’s happening is that the browser can’t find the image in the specified location.) When you publish your HTML documents on the Web, then, you must also be sure to publish all the image files for your site.

Image editors fall into two basic types: paint programs and draw programs. A paint program deals in bitmap or raster graphics, which are computer images made up of small colored boxes called pixels. Adobe Photoshop and Macromedia Fireworks are excellent paint programs.

A draw program is for vector graphics, which are computer images made up of paths, or outlines. Adobe Illustrator and Macromedia FreeHand are fine examples of draw programs.

For the Web, bitmap graphics are by far the most common, so you want to choose a paint program, not a draw program. Ideally, you should get yourself a copy of Photoshop or Fireworks for your image-editing needs. Fireworks in particular was made with the Web in mind, and it’s well integrated with Dreamweaver. It comes with Macromedia Studio 8, so if you have Studio, you already have Fireworks. You can also buy it separately.

Choosing Multimedia Software

Multimedia (or simply media) refer to a wide variety of digital data, including animations, audio, and video. To create multimedia for your site, you need dedicated authoring tools. You probably have a few of these already. Microsoft Windows Media Player springs to mind—you can use this application to capture audio from music CDs. To create different kinds of media formats, or for more robust editing capabilities, you’ll need to invest in additional software.

Multimedia, like images, exist as separate computer files. You place them on your web pages in Dreamweaver. Dreamweaver adds the corresponding pointers to the HTML code, and, when you publish your pages, you upload the multimedia files so that the browser can find them.

However, unlike images, your visitors require additional pieces of software called plug-ins to open your multimedia files. Every multimedia format has its own browser plug-in. For Flash movies, it’s the Flash Player. For QuickTime video, it’s the QuickTime Plug-in. If your visitors don’t have the necessary plug-ins installed on their computers, then your multimedia files won’t work. It doesn’t matter if you, the designer, have the correct plug-ins on your computer. Your visitors need to have the same plug-ins on their computers.

On the upside, the plug-ins for all the popular multimedia formats are free. Your visitors can download them, install them, and enjoy. On the downside, visitors generally dislike having to leave your site to download special software. Once they’re gone, they might not come back. Plus, the vast majority of web users have no interest in knowing about plug-ins. When they go to a web site, they expect it to work. They don’t want to understand why it doesn’t work.

For this reason, it’s the wise web designer who uses multimedia very judiciously. Your site doesn’t need to be an extravaganza of animation, audio, and video. A few choice selections go a long way. Also, it behooves you to pick multimedia formats whose plug-ins the visitor is already likely to have. Table 1-2 lists many of these.

Virtually every computer on the Web today has the Flash Player plug-in, so if you want to include multimedia on your site, the Flash format is a very safe choice. Macromedia Flash Professional 8—the Flash authoring environment— comes with Studio 8, and it’s available as a standalone product.

Don’t confuse the authoring tool with the free plug-in, though. The Flash Player plug-in allows you to view Flash movies, not create them. Some multimedia formats, particularly for audio and video, open in a variety of plug-ins and applications. Table 1-3 shows the most common formats. The chances are good that your visitor has some means of viewing or hearing these types of files.