Re:Designers read this and developers will love you
by talmand on Tuesday March 13, 2012 @11:04AM
(#3698726)
I'll take a stab at this.
The best tool, that I am aware of, that is along the lines of what you describe is Fireworks. But Photoshop is more common simply because for the longest time it was far easier to obtain Photoshop than Fireworks in a suite from Adobe. For instance, right now there are five different Creative Suites and a version of Photoshop is in every one. Fireworks is in three. Therefore, in a big enough company with various people with various production needs you could assume that everyone has Photoshop. Thus, trading files in PSD is the norm. Also, I'm willing to bet most schools have a course in Photoshop but not in Fireworks.
Plus Fireworks didn't come into it's own as a HTML and prototyping tool until recently, I don't remember the version. These days it's a wonderful tool to design graphics for just about any device and I highly recommend it. But if you've been using Photoshop expect a slight learning curve since it is different.
Do I use Fireworks? Nope, much for the reasons stated above.
Does Fireworks address the developer part you mentioned? Possibly not, it just depends. Mainly because you don't really "code" in Fireworks. I'm not aware of any tool that allows a designer to create graphics and a developer to code for the same project. Usually that's broken up between software packages with different expectations, feature sets, and goals.
Now, a software tool that allowed designers to design and coders to code in the same file that outputted valid HTML (maybe even some server-side code) would be interesting. But I think it would just generate new issues to work out as opposed to solving current workflow problems.
I think it would be better for designers to learn HTML and CSS, the basics at least. Of course in my experience the same could be said of server-side developers. As a front-end developer I'm constantly amazed at the oddities I see being stuck in the middle of the design/front-end/server-side dynamic. But sometimes it makes things fun.
The best tool, that I am aware of, that is along the lines of what you describe is Fireworks. But Photoshop is more common simply because for the longest time it was far easier to obtain Photoshop than Fireworks in a suite from Adobe. For instance, right now there are five different Creative Suites and a version of Photoshop is in every one. Fireworks is in three. Therefore, in a big enough company with various people with various production needs you could assume that everyone has Photoshop. Thus, trading files in PSD is the norm. Also, I'm willing to bet most schools have a course in Photoshop but not in Fireworks.
Plus Fireworks didn't come into it's own as a HTML and prototyping tool until recently, I don't remember the version. These days it's a wonderful tool to design graphics for just about any device and I highly recommend it. But if you've been using Photoshop expect a slight learning curve since it is different.
Do I use Fireworks? Nope, much for the reasons stated above.
Does Fireworks address the developer part you mentioned? Possibly not, it just depends. Mainly because you don't really "code" in Fireworks. I'm not aware of any tool that allows a designer to create graphics and a developer to code for the same project. Usually that's broken up between software packages with different expectations, feature sets, and goals.
Now, a software tool that allowed designers to design and coders to code in the same file that outputted valid HTML (maybe even some server-side code) would be interesting. But I think it would just generate new issues to work out as opposed to solving current workflow problems.
I think it would be better for designers to learn HTML and CSS, the basics at least. Of course in my experience the same could be said of server-side developers. As a front-end developer I'm constantly amazed at the oddities I see being stuck in the middle of the design/front-end/server-side dynamic. But sometimes it makes things fun.