Web and art programs?

[BinaryDigit]

Hi all!
I'm trying to get into web design, and I'm trying to sloooooowly get myself using Ubuntu as a main OS (right now I have a slower pc for it, and my main 64bit machine with Windows). I'm looking for the equivalent of what I'd need in Ubuntu from Windows apps. In Windows I use HTML-Kit, Photoshop, Illustrator, Firefox, and SmartFTP. What are good equivalents in Ubuntu (linux)? I'm trying to get used to Gimp, but I'm sure there are more apps out there that can help :) I've heard of Inkscape, is that similar to Adobe Illustrator?
Any advice would be great! Thank you!! :)

[mostwanted]

I usually use GIMP for bitmap images, Inkscape for vector graphics and Gedit for html/css/php and other programming. I just use Nautilus' built-in FTP as I find FTP programs such as gFTP suck for quick and easy access to a site ;) but that's just me I guess.

[qalimas]

For a script/markup editor (HTML, PHP, etc) you may want to look into a program called Bluefish

[benplaut]

if you want, Photoshop 7 can be emulated in WINE ;-)

[Lux Perpetua]

The GIMP doesn't quite measure up to Photoshop or Paint Shop Pro. Too bad there are no Linux versions of these apps.

[BinaryDigit]

Yea, I wish they have a linux version of Photoshop :( Gimp is a little hard to get used to, but it'll do :) Thanks for the suggestions everyone :)

[MadMan2k]

The GIMP doesn't quite measure up to Photoshop or Paint Shop Pro. Too bad there are no Linux versions of these apps.
except printing which is not requiered here, GIMP can do everything Photoshop can...

[jzke]

The GIMP doesn't quite measure up to Photoshop or Paint Shop Pro. Too bad there are no Linux versions of these apps.
I'm sorry, did you just say Paint Shop Pro? hehehehe... that's SUCH a bad program. But of course, GIMP doesn't match Photoshop unfortunately...

[drizek]

im not sure what html-kit is, but if it is anyhting like notepad, then you will be fine in linux. something like kate is more than enough for write-it-yourself web creation. if you want to use a gui, then there is quanta and nvu, which is an improved standalone version of the mozilla composer. ive never used quanta, but ive heard good things.

as for ftp, nothing beats drag n drop with konqueror(i guess nautilus works as well, i dont use gnome).

there is also krita for image editing. it is part of the koffice suite. krita has a more photoshopy GUI, but it is still on its first real release, so its not as "battle tested" and refined as gimp. but its promising.

[flaming_monkey]

Hi all!
I'm trying to get into web design, and I'm trying to sloooooowly get myself using Ubuntu as a main OS (right now I have a slower pc for it, and my main 64bit machine with Windows). I'm looking for the equivalent of what I'd need in Ubuntu from Windows apps. In Windows I use HTML-Kit, Photoshop, Illustrator, Firefox, and SmartFTP. What are good equivalents in Ubuntu (linux)? I'm trying to get used to Gimp, but I'm sure there are more apps out there that can help :) I've heard of Inkscape, is that similar to Adobe Illustrator?
Any advice would be great! Thank you!! :)

After using photoshop for over fire years, the change over to GIMP was a little rough but once you put some time and patience into it you are well rewarded. On a side note, GIMP is trying to improve itself and is looking for Usability Experts (http://www.gimp.org).

As a web developer myself I use a mixture of software including the previously mentioned BlueFish, Inkscape and gFTP but to be honest I find the console applications faster and more efficient. Therefore:

* HTML/CSS/PHP etc. is written in Vim (in multiple console tabs)
* ftp for uploading, managing server files

As for artwork and development:

* Inkscape for layout, colour scheme design, icons etc.
* GIMP for tweaking icons, images
* Blender for 3D work
* Firefox, Opera and Internet Explorer 6 (running under Wine) for testing

I've also installed Apache, PHP and MySQL for local development before uploading any files to my host. All this software can easily be installed from Synaptic.

[klepas]

The GIMP doesn't quite measure up to Photoshop or Paint Shop Pro. Too bad there are no Linux versions of these apps.

Depends on one's persistence, time, and effort. I use the GIMP almost daily and it does everything and more that I want it to. I've tried PS and I never really liked it. No proprietary software anyway on this machine. :-)

Pascal

[Deeze]

Hi all!
I'm trying to get into web design, and I'm trying to sloooooowly get myself using Ubuntu as a main OS (right now I have a slower pc for it, and my main 64bit machine with Windows). I'm looking for the equivalent of what I'd need in Ubuntu from Windows apps. In Windows I use HTML-Kit, Photoshop, Illustrator, Firefox, and SmartFTP. What are good equivalents in Ubuntu (linux)? I'm trying to get used to Gimp, but I'm sure there are more apps out there that can help :) I've heard of Inkscape, is that similar to Adobe Illustrator?
Any advice would be great! Thank you!! :)
You're going in the right direction :). Gimp, check. Inkscape, check. Firefox, check. For FTP I use IglooFTP Pro. I would love to find something with the capabilities of HTML-Kit (wonderful piece), but I get by with Gedit doing html/php work.

Don't let the anti-gimpers get you down hehe. It's awesome, and can do anything meaningful in web design (among other things) that Photoshop can do other than cmyk color seperation (obviously not meaningful in this context). It just does it differently.

[Fraeon]

Nvu, Krita, Inkscape.

Now I wish Krita would be a smidge more stable and feature-rich than Gimp is, but its UI is far ahead of Gimp, at least in my hands anyway.

[Ahriman]

When i was using a KDE desktop, I used Kate to write html/css/php. Am I still able to install and run Kate via a gnome desktop?

[Lux Perpetua]

You can run KDE apps in Gnome, but you have to install the KDE libraries.

[klepas]

You can run KDE apps in Gnome, but you have to install the KDE libraries.

And visa versa. :)

[xequence]

Inkscape is a very good program. I can accually do sort of good art with it =P

[BinaryDigit]

You're going in the right direction :). Gimp, check. Inkscape, check. Firefox, check. For FTP I use IglooFTP Pro. I would love to find something with the capabilities of HTML-Kit (wonderful piece), but I get by with Gedit doing html/php work.

Don't let the anti-gimpers get you down hehe. It's awesome, and can do anything meaningful in web design (among other things) that Photoshop can do other than cmyk color seperation (obviously not meaningful in this context). It just does it differently.

Yea, I really like HTML-Kit, it's good software (in Windows). I'll try to get used to Gimp and it's menu's...I'll be patient and look through tutorials :) It'd be nice to show people "look you can make great web sites with open source"..which is the point of all this to me. :) Especially at work, where open source can help me do things on my own, when we don't have licenses for Photoshop and Dreamweaver, and I'd be interested in redo-ing the main website for the company. At least Gimp and Filezilla (or any other ftp prog) are good for Windows as well as Linux. I did the Vbulletin forum for my job, and built the web server myself, we used Fedora Core 4, and I enabled/configured Apache, mySQL and php for it. Had to install Gimp and use that to edit some of the colors and logo for the forum as well. So it's not all so bad. I guess anything with time and patience will be worthwhile :)

Thanks for everyone's help and responses, I'm sure I'll be posting more as I get into it :)

[savage]

I just wanted to add. Don't forget the lowly command line. Great tools that can improve your efficiency are grep, diff, and find. There are of course others but I can't live without these three now. grep helps me find the exact line I'm looking for, so no more scrolling through huge pages of source or css. Diff can help troubleshoot errors, keep a copy of the original then diff your changed file against it, especially helpful when you return to something you altered long ago. Also, and I haven't used much in this area, but there are some great search and replace utilities that can be run from the command line. You can do recursive, directory based search and replace this can be an ultra-powerful timesaver.

Firefox with extensions; Web Developer, User Agent Switcher, and Colorzilla.

[qalimas]

Do a Google search for GIMPShop, it's a modified version of GIMP with the menus and tools placed in some of the same areas as Photoshop's, making things easier for you, as you don't have to look around for what you want.