OK you know Photoshop® really well, you need to get some stuff up on the web and you don’t want to spend time learning Dreamweaver. Media Labs has the answer in Sitegrinder.
Sitegrinder (Basic & Pro) lets you build complete sites within Photoshop®
by using “Hints” like Button, Rollover and Popup as part of the layer labeling process. Sitegrinder then uses those hints to output the code for your site.
Sitegrinder even uses the Layer Comps feature of Photoshop® to create multiple pages from one file.
To quote the site the problem is that websites are difficult....
“It is no easy task to actually build a working site that matches a visual design created in a tool like Photoshop.
Photoshop is designed to give total freedom to the artist.
The web, on the other hand, is built on top of many confusing technologies and standards that place other concerns ahead of preserving visual design integrity.
This situation has understandably intimidated many users who are good at Photoshop but don't want to spend months or years learning the gory details of the internet such as XHTML, CSS, javascript, etc.”
and the answer is....
“SiteGrinder 2 successfully turns Adobe Photoshop into an easy-to-use and powerful website design and production tool.
While SiteGrinder is not aimed solely at the web neophyte, a SiteGrinder-equipped designer with no previous web experience can use only their Photoshop skills to go from concept to deployment of a professional, standards-compliant site in mere hours with no slicing or programming.
The difficulty of this task is invisible to the user as SiteGrinder builds graphics, text, and interactivity using modern web standard technologies and takes into account tricky requirements like cross-platform browser compatibility.”
Check out the site and look at the tutorials and learning videos. You will soon be pumping out really nice sites of your own. Believe it. Check out the example sites also.
Media labs also has a program to make Flash files from PSD (Photoshop) files.
PSD2FLA can be had alone or in bundles with Sitegrinder Basic or Pro. Check site for current pricing but take it from me it is a bit of a bargain compared to other ways to get the job done.
CS3? - compatibility still in beta. Should be available 2-3 weeks from this post.
