Open Source tools for webdesigners
For majority of webdesigners the only option they think about is Adobe. I would like to show you some other options in this post – which have one huge plus – you don’t need to pay a penny for them:)
GIMP
It’s graphic editor both for Windows and Mac (I don’t need to mention anything about it for Linux users – they all know it). If you need very short review – the Gimp is now where Adobe was with Photoshop 6.0. And this means that Gimp is a very powerful tool – you have all the blend modes, masking and effects. You can also read .pdf files with Gimp (but you won’t see any layer effects though).
Positives: powerful, free graphic tool.
Disadvantages: Gimp don’t support CMYK colors (so it’s totally useless if you design for print), Gimp don’t support .psd files in 100% (so you need to ask people to save the files as legacy psd in order to open it with Gimp).
Final opinion: Gimp is great if you need image editor as support software (for example – you’re developer – you write the code 80% of the time – but sometimes you need to scale an image, cut out some layout element or create a button). Having Gimp as core design tool is also possible – but it sometimes might be problematic.
Quanta
Quana is web development environment that can be counter option for Dreamweaver. Actually, you have all the features needed – most developers in here use Quanta.
Advantages: powerful web development environment
Disadvantages: you don’t have built-in two way ftp.
check Quanta official site here
Blender
Blender is open source professional 3d renderer. We don’t use Blender that much to give you full review here – but if you check what you can do with it – it’s quite impressive. And it’s quite easy to learn it (I’ve made my first model in about 15 minutes).
Open source can really save you a lot of money – and deliver professional software that will boost your creativity. So – I think it’s worth trying.
Inkscape
Inkscape is open source vector graphic editor – like Adobe Illustrator. It uses SVG as it’s main format. It’s quite powerful (although it’s early version). The main Inkscape disadvantage is that it only allows saving in other formats (.ai / .eps) – you won’t be able to open those files in Inkscape. This make it quite useless for bigger projects – but it’s great to create some logos or icons.
What about Fyre and Inkscape? They are also very useful. And probably Qba will evangelize you with the omnipotence ov VIM ;-)
I’ve added Inkscape review – and as for Fyre – it’s more something like a widget than application.
If Qba would like to write about the power of VIM – I would be very glad to read it.
[...] Code editors – you have tons of editors to wrote html and css code on linux. The one especially worth trying is Quanta Plus.If you would like to get to know these programs little better – here’s more detailed description [...]
hey guys, any free tools for building & designing flash games?
Not really. If you really want to create Flash games – there’s no other way just to use Flash.