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Making Website Mock-Ups in Linux? 88

Posted by Cliff from the web-site-storyboards dept.
The Ubiquitous Web Designer asks: "I am trying to design a rather complex web page and am wondering if there are any tools which will allow me to make non-functioning mock-ups of each page so that a programmer can work from them. Obviously, it's hard to use the GIMP to make radio buttons, check-boxes, data entry fields, and so on. Can something help me design a page without much knowledge of HTML, or am I better off just doing it with paper and pencil by hand?"
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Making Website Mock-Ups in Linux? More

Making Website Mock-Ups in Linux?

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  • Nvu (Score:5, Informative)

    by Sodki ( 621717 ) on Friday September 01, 2006 @12:27PM (#16024710)
    Try Nvu [nvu.com], it's good enough.

    • Re: (Score:1, Insightful)

      by DittoBox ( 978894 )

      No it's not. WYSIWIG editors are horrible, and produce nasty, unmanigable code that in the end will cause more headaches and time trying to fix it than it would have had you you written it by hand. Learning XHTML/CSS is a must and it's not that complicated.

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Tremor (APi) ( 678603 )
        If you're just making a non-functioning mockup, who cares how lousy the code is? I agree completely if you're talking about production source, writing it by hand is the *only* way to go. But if you're just trying to put together visual mockups, and your alternatives are GIMP or pencil and paper, then clearly it doesn't matter what shape the source is in.

        • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

          by DittoBox ( 978894 )

          I start like this: Pen/Pencil -> Image Mockup in Photoshop -> XHTML/CSS mockup with real structure. The last step is the dove tail into the real thing. It gives me the basic starting point and gives the client a chance to see the real deal and interact with the page elements before I plug it into a back end or start replacing bits of it with server side scripting. I don't start with an xhtml page, I start on pape then move into. I probably did communicate that well in my first post.

          At any rate this

          • I start like this: Pen/Pencil -> Image Mockup in Photoshop -> XHTML/CSS mockup with real structure.

            I know (from personal experience) that GIMP takes some time to learn, and creating graphics from scratch with it is not exactly easy. But for the image mockup stage I have a somewhat unorthodox suggestion. Try Scribus [scribus.net]. Since you are doing visual layout anyway, why not use a software that actually is designed to create and manipulate such? Different elements are not tied to graphical layers, and dropp

            • But for the image mockup stage I have a somewhat unorthodox suggestion. Try Scribus. Since you are doing visual layout anyway, why not use a software that actually is designed to create and manipulate such? Different elements are not tied to graphical layers, and dropping sample texts into them is dead simple.

              I have a better idea: use Inkscape [inkscape.org]. Faster than Scribus, much better tools for lining things up, and generally much better in drawing tools. The resulting SVG might even be directly usable in the p

      • Re:Nvu (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Richard_at_work ( 517087 ) on Friday September 01, 2006 @12:50PM (#16024893)
        His point was that you use the WYSIWYG editor to create the initial mockup, see how it looks and feels, and then code it from hand - you throw out the WYSIWYG editors code entirely, all you are after is the visual 'OK' before starting the actual coding yourself.

        Personally, I *always* mockup in Fireworks prior to doing anything. Get the look and feel of the site perfect, then handcode the html. Its significantly easier to move around something in a graphics package or WYSIWYG editor than it is in handcoded html, especially if you are doing it a dozen times an hour.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by hey! ( 33014 )
          Actually, if you're talking about programmers, they shouldn't be mucking around with the appearance of the web page. What you really want to do is give some idea of the content of the page and how it is supposed to work and fit. Then designers skin the page using CSS.

          So, what you need is someting that lets a non-techincal person do simple layout, but maybe link things like buttons. In the day, HyperCard would have done the trick. Maybe Open Office's presenter? I've never used it myself. In any case if
          • You are assuming the luxury of being able to break down the job roles in such a manner, unfortunately its something the vast majority of small to mid level businesses simply cant afford to do.

            • Read the original poster's entry!

              "I am trying to design a rather complex web page and am wondering if there are any tools which will allow me to make non-functioning mock-ups of each page so that a programmer can work from them.

              From the OP's post, they obviously have the luxury of breaking down the job roles... Also if you read, the OP wanted something that would work in Linux. Macromedia products work on windows. If you are a developer, learn to read the specifications (The post's title is: Making W

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by hey! ( 33014 )
              Even if you don't have the luxury of breaking down the jobs by postion, you can certainly separate them in your head. The reasons this is good practice don't change.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by 6Yankee ( 597075 )
          you use the WYSIWYG editor to create the initial mockup, see how it looks and feels, and then code it from hand - you throw out the WYSIWYG editors code entirely

          This is wonderful, and allows you to get the best of both worlds. However, in practice I've found that having an HTML document, any HTML document, tells your PHB that the HTML is "done". I remember being handed a bit of HTML (for a form that was maybe 200x300px) straight out of Dreamweaver and told to JSPify it. Six levels of nested tables, and a pr

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by aonaran ( 15651 )
        He did say he wanted to create a non-functioning mockup.
        This is normally done in Photoshop. for some reason he's finding it hard to do radio buttons in GIMP (which I really don't understand) but he could concieveably do a mockup in NVU, but it'd be hard and he'd never get it to look as nice as if he used a graphics proram. I still think GIMP would be a better mockup program, but the point of my post is that the kind of code NVU creates is irrelevent for this purpose, as it is never going to be used/looked a

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by ryen ( 684684 )
        what part of m o c k u p did you not understand?
    • actually, Seamonkey [mozilla.org]'s editor has similar codebase pedigree, gets updated more often, crashes less and its GUI is a bit less of a pain... still quite basic though.

  • Not much out there (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Se7enLC ( 714730 ) on Friday September 01, 2006 @12:27PM (#16024712) Homepage Journal
    In short, no.

    You can technically find a tool that will let you place checkboxes + radio buttons, etc pretty easily, but you'll find that the visual design of those elements are what require the HTML and CSS skills. You're better off just drawing them how you want them to look and letting the HTMK/CSS gurus actually do all the coding, otherwise all the work you do making them look how you want will have to be redone anyway in code.

  • just the thing (Score:5, Informative)

    by greenguy ( 162630 ) <`estebandido' `at' `gmail.com'> on Friday September 01, 2006 @12:28PM (#16024716) Homepage Journal
    Inkscape [inkscape.org] is perfect for this sort of thing. I've used it many times.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by legoburner ( 702695 )
      I'll chime in with another vote for inkscape. Takes some getting used to (basically think gimp for vector images), but is very good for this sort of thing.

    • Re:just the thing (Score:4, Insightful)

      by MankyD ( 567984 ) on Friday September 01, 2006 @01:11PM (#16025071) Homepage
      I was just about to say the same thing. Inkscape (or any vector editing software) is perfect for this sort of thing. You won't draw perfect radio buttons per se, but draw circles with as much or as little similarity to radio buttons as you want. This is what I do for all of my sites after I've created an initial idea.

      My Method:
      1) Paper and Pen
      2) Inkscape / Vector editor
      3) HTML

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by SpectreHiro ( 961765 )
      I agree with the parent. Vector is by far the easiest way to produce mockups, and Inkscape is an excellent program. However, I'd also like to throw in a recommendation for Xara Xtreme [xaraxtreme.org] which got slashdotted a couple days back. I'm quickly falling in love with it. I initially started using it because I couldn't get the newest release of Inkscape to run... Now, I don't think I'll be going back.
      • Yeah I use inkscape for page layout too (crayon first!). It's good for doing a visual that you can instantly edit if you're chatting with clients (similarly I use the webdev CSS editor at a later stage for this type of thing) ... I haven't used it but wonder if inkboard (a part of inkscape for collaborative drawing - I think) might help here too?

        Oh and Xara ... I couldn't get it running initially, when I did I couldn't get used to the funky UI. That's not totally because I'm wedded to Inkscape; I've started
        • I hadn't noticed Inkboard. I'll have to check it out. I'm reminded of similar functions in openCanvas (back when it was freeware) and Yahoo Instant Messenger (it's pretty basic, but it can be fun to doodle with friends).

          Personal taste is a large factor in clicking with a UI, especially among creative professionals, I'm finding. I was never a real fan of Inkscape, and I still can't use the GIMP for anything other than the most basic tasks (I'm a Photoshop junkie). Then again, I'm really getting into B

  • Paper Prototype instead (Score:5, Informative)

    by kognate ( 322256 ) on Friday September 01, 2006 @12:30PM (#16024733)
    Please do not do what you've asked about doing. Instead, pick up a copy of Paper Prototyping at http://www.paperprototyping.com/ [paperprototyping.com] then read it, and then you will save yourself a huge amount of time (much more than the time you take to understand the concept).

    Your users will thank you.

    • Re:Paper Prototype instead (Score:4, Insightful)

      by 6Yankee ( 597075 ) on Friday September 01, 2006 @12:52PM (#16024910)
      Seconded. HTML mockups, whether hand-coded or bastardised together in something like Dreamweaver, are too much like hard work. I've also found that if you email them, or put them up on a site for users to look at, people forget that these are mockups and bitch about the things that don't work yet. As long as whatever you use is obviously not a web page, and a programmer can make sense of it, it doesn't matter what you choose.

      I would say paper prototype, and use the chance to get some user feedback before you've poured heart and soul into a full-blown mock-up (or, worse, application). You'll probably find it easier to accept when these crude user tests show up problems - once you've got too much emotional investment in your design, it's far harder not to come up with reasons not to change it.

      Of course, some people won't believe in paper prototypes. (I have one or two of those around here.) The compromise that works best here is to use - ick - PowerPoint. You might want to use whatever the OpenOffice equivalent is. As long as whatever you use is obviously not a web page, and a programmer can make sense of it, it probably doesn't matter what you choose.

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by Tim C ( 15259 )
        HTML mockups, whether hand-coded or bastardised together in something like Dreamweaver, are too much like hard work. I've also found that if you email them, or put them up on a site for users to look at, people forget that these are mockups and bitch about the things that don't work yet.

        On my current project, we had an interface developer create an HTML "demonstrator" - essentially, a non-functioning HTML mockup of the site. You could click through a single, typical use case, and it showed you how things wo
      • I've also found that if you email them, or put them up on a site for users to look at, people forget that these are mockups and bitch about the things that don't work yet.

        Ha!, this is so damn true. I've all but stopped handing out mockups to people because of this. I even tried printing one out recently for the folks I work with and they still complained about certain things on it. "This info is wrong, it should be this...", "Why are you using this picture. You need to change it before we get in trouble fr

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by nurb432 ( 527695 )
        "people forget that these are mockups".....

        I cant tell you how many times ive sent mockup database form screenshots to people: "why cant i type" or another common oe "the buttons dont work, its broke" *sigh*

  • Paper and pencil (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Doctor Memory ( 6336 ) on Friday September 01, 2006 @12:30PM (#16024737)
    On one project I worked on, we did a user interface JAD session that consisted largely of hand-drawn diagrams. When the users made a suggestion, we stuck a Post-It note over the part of the page that needed to be changed and drew in the suggested change. Incredibly fast turnaround, and we weren't restricted to whatever we could render in HTML. After the session, we went back and coded up some mock pages in HTML and curculated those as an appendix to the meeting minutes so the users could comment on what the "real" interface would look like. It's not too hard to write up some JavaScript to wire a few dozen pages together to produce a prototype that exhibits a lot of the behavior of the proposed system.

  • I use paper and pencil with a ruler to sketch a basic idea and layout. It gets scanned, I open it in Photoshop and start working. Without layer styles in GIMP you might be SOL...

    If you do use gimp just download a GTK 2 theme based on the image or experience engine and pull out some transparent PNGs of the controls you need.

  • Sounds like a job for denim (Score:4, Informative)

    by afd8856 ( 700296 ) on Friday September 01, 2006 @12:34PM (#16024772) Homepage
    Java tool, optimized for tablets though. http://dub.washington.edu/projects/denim/ [washington.edu]
  • http://dub.washington.edu/denim/ [washington.edu]

    It's like paper prototyping, but without the paper!
  • It sounds like you're looking for something that you can just draw the screen the way you want it to look with all of the controls and such. It sounds a lot like the Visual Basic interface (or any of the visual programming tools). Obviously buying Visual Basic to do layouts is silly but there are other freeware programming tools that work the same way. A quick search came up with Lazarus [freepascal.org].
    • Well, putting aside arguments of "using the right tool for the job", you don't have to buy Visual Basic anymore. The 2005 Express editions of the Visual Studio tools are free (and not in the 30-day trial sense). Naturally there are some moderate restrictions such as not being able to use Visual SourceSafe with it or creating custom controls (which is easily worked around if you are worth your salt as a programmer), but you can develop applications with it that can be compiled and redistributed without roy
      • not saying if it's a good idea or not, but your B point is somewhat moot in that they're not trying to create a webpage, they're trying to create a mock-up of a webpage.

        I kind of think it's a good idea, just in that one would be able to position elements, including radio-buttons and check-boxes (and, if they really wanted to, they could make them functional without too much effort, Visual Basic does have its positive side - and that's RAD [rapid application development]), images, and other user-interface
        • I figured I'd just chime in pointlessly and waste bandwidth
          I think you just wrote slashdot's new mission statement.

  • These are the steps I follow (Score:4, Insightful)

    by dduardo ( 592868 ) on Friday September 01, 2006 @12:43PM (#16024840)
    1. Rough sketch on paper
    2. Draw the complete layout in Inkscape
    3. Export elements into the Gimp for final touch up and optimization
    4. Link to images in stylesheet

    Inkscape is an excellent tool becuase you can scale you're elements as much as you like without losing quality.
  • ...has always suited me very well for those very elements mentioned in the post - that and your web browser.

  • One place I worked... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by blueZ3 ( 744446 ) on Friday September 01, 2006 @12:49PM (#16024889) Homepage
    Had a design template in Photoshop that contained all the graphics for buttons, checkboxes, text fields, etc. The designers just grabbed elements from the template and used them to mock up their design. I don't see any reason you couldn't do the same thing using the GIMP.

    You should be able to grab screenshots of the elements you want out of Firefox and then reuse them in your layout. The only "hard" part is that for objects that have variable sizes, you have to grab the right and left sides and the middle as separate elements. Then for a "wide" button you stretch the middle portion to the correct width for your text and then place the right and left elements on the sides.

    This may sound like too much work to you, but keep in mind that once you have captured all the parts you need, you can reuse them on future projects of a similar sort.

  • Whatever works . . . (Score:2, Informative)

    by Evardsson ( 959228 )
    When I worked as an HTML code slave, I would get mock-ups done in Photoshop, GIMP, pencil and paper, Dreamweaver, Word, Publisher, Open Office, whatever. What it all boils down to is that you need to work the way you work best and leave the coding up to the coders. If you are most comfortable doing your mock-ups in crayon, then do them in crayon. The important thing is to be sure that you have gotten your ideas across clearly and plainly, and have a little faith in your coders to do the job. If you can't tr
    • ...is usually what is being used for development of the end product. If you are making a website mock-up, do it with web development tools. If you are mocking up a windows forms app then use Visual Studio (whatever language because it doesn't matter, especially in .net--the point is to use the form-building GUI tools). If it is GTK use GTK-based tools, etc.

      What it all boils down to is that you need to work the way you work best and leave the coding up to the coders.

      I don't mean that you should do this an

  • Paper! (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Peganthyrus ( 713645 ) on Friday September 01, 2006 @01:08PM (#16025043) Homepage
    Paper-making is not a closed source process. You won't be betraying the ideals of the open source movement if you pick up a pen or pencil and just start doodling.

    You can probably do a couple iterations on your design in the time it takes you to install and boot up any software package. Hand the best one to the programmer, or scan it and e-mail it to her.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Tim C ( 15259 )
      Speaking as a programmer, I'd ask him what exactly he expected me to do with the piece of paper. But then perhaps I've been spoilt; while I can (of course) do HTML, CSS, etc, we have people dedicated to that sort of thing. Just as you wouldn't want me admining live servers (although I *can*), you don't want me (or any other programmer) creating the HTML from scratch.

      • Speaking as a programmer, I'd ask him what exactly he expected me to do with the piece of paper. But then perhaps I've been spoilt; while I can (of course) do HTML, CSS, etc, we have people dedicated to that sort of thing. Just as you wouldn't want me admining live servers (although I *can*), you don't want me (or any other programmer) creating the HTML from scratch.

        A few years back I met a graphic artist turned webdesigner and using pen and paper was a drum she beat frequently. Get it first on paper t

      • The original question seemed to be all about 'how do I communicate a bunch of forms to programmers without actually learning how to give them HTML?'. Paper works pretty much as well as anything else, IMHO.

        Ideally, of course, a "ubiquitous web designer" would be able to, you know, open up a text editor and pull out their favorite cheatsheet [werbach.com] to refresh themselves on how forms work and give the programmer something to work with. But somehow it sounds like the original questioner is convinced they can never lea

  • No! (Score:2)

    by also-rr ( 980579 )
    Inkscape is king, or try one of the several other (Free, free) vector drawing packages available.

    You can easily bolt together page elements and then create copies to drop anywhere on your mockup, and group select to alter attributes accross many elements. It can also import raster (bitmap) graphics to show where photos etc would go on the page.

    Output is as .png or .svg, easily convertible to pdf or whatever you need really. You can also use it to create frames and then animate them with the command li
  • I do this sort of thing all the time (make mockups in Photoshop and then create the HTML and CSS for them). The only form elements you really need to be worried about is radio buttons and check boxes because you can't style them by normal means. Everything else, design the way you want to. Also, I'd recommend getting away from Linux, GIMP and pretty much any open source piece of design software if you see yourself doing a lot of this kind of work. Linux isn't designer friendly and open source design softwa

    • From this post, it is not hard to see why Linux is not friendly to you...

    • Agreed. Much as I admire how far GIMP and Inkscape have come along graphics is one area where you really need those fine-tuning little extras that come with professional tools like Photoshop and Illustrator. The other big issue I find with Linux is font rendering and line spacing. Why is it that open source's flagship browser, Firefox, renders pages horribly compared with OS X and Windows? Reason - because graphical rendering was an afterthough. Linux, like other *NIX variants primarily excels in data handl

      • It may also explain why Adobe isn't porting Photoshop to Linux anytime soon.

        I'm not so sure Adobe is taking so long to port to Linux for this reason. Afterall they're not porting their software, PS, to MacTels until the third version of CS comes out.

        Falcon
  • I have a question that's been bugging me for a while that is related to, but not quite the same as what the submitter asked. It's more relevant to the company I used to work for, but I still want to know the answer even though I don't so much have the need anymore.

    The submitter wants to make non-functional mockups without spending a lot of time. Our designers would do that in photoshop and once the client approved the design, they would then do the mockups in HTML.

    The HTML mockups weren't bad, they did thei

  • why not use xfig? (Score:3, Informative)

    by belmolis ( 702863 ) <billposerNO@SPAMalum.mit.edu> on Friday September 01, 2006 @02:28PM (#16025691) Homepage

    If you just want to show layout and don't want to draw by hand on paper, why not use xfig or some other diagram-drawing program? If you do a lot of this and want higher quality drawings, you can create a library of objects.

  • Inkscape works great (Score:3, Interesting)

    by mattnuzum ( 839319 ) on Friday September 01, 2006 @02:31PM (#16025722) Homepage
    Inkscape is a great tool. I recently revised the www.bazaar-vcs.org website. My SVG mock-up is here: http://people.ubuntu.com/~mnuzum/projects/bzr/BZR% 20Concept2006-07-26-1.svg [ubuntu.com] (open it in inkscape for the real effect).

    I plan on documenting this process soon, because I know a lot of people ask about it, but here's what I do:
      * Get the newest version of inkscape that you can, they really are adding excellent new features with each release
      * Open a new doc and assuming 1024x768 target browser size set the document to 1000x600 px. For 800x600 go for 760x600px
      * Use the layers tool in Inkscape to separate portions of the document
      * Create a layer on the very top called "slices" and in this layer, create rectangles that are 10% opaqe or so that cover individual elements that will become images in the final product. This layer will usually be hidden.
      * Periodically save your document out as png... remember, most people have a screen res of *96 dpi* not 72.
      * When you want to save individual components, for example the logo in the example above, show your "slices" layer, click the square that covers your logo so that it's selected, then hide the slices layer. The square will be selected but hidden. When you choose export, it will export just the visible portion of the image you have selected.

    I'm happy to give more details, I'm newz2000 on irc.freenode. I don't have a lot of time to chat, but ping me and I'll help out if I can.

    Once we get guasian blur in inkscape I'll probably stop using photoshop. (Yes, I run photoshop in Linux - using crossover office)

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Tony ( 765 )
      (open it in inkscape for the real effect).


      Or in the beta version of Firefox 2.0. I just tried it-- very nice.

    • Yes, I use Inkscape a lot also to do my initial visual design and will often generate graphic elements (custom buttons, for example, or logos) directly from the program in PNG then do the final touchups/format conversions in GIMP. I use Bluefish http://bluefish.openoffice.nl/index.html [openoffice.nl] for the actual page coding.

      I wish I could say that I've extensively tried other Linux graphic apps/code editors but I haven't. XaraLX is just now getting to the stage of usability for Web stuff; I'll have to spend more time

      • hullabalucination: Check out aptana http://www.aptana.com/ [aptana.com] for the implementation phase. It has a preview tab so you can tweak your CSS and html and get pretty fast feedback. Even better, it has CSS/HTML/JS auto completion so you don't have to switch back and forth between your different files as often.

        • I'll give it a try. "JavaScript-focused" sounds intriguing.

          * * * * * *

          Boy, those French, they have a different word for everything!
          --Steve Martin

  • It's the holy grail of all user interface design.
  • Personally I'd have to agree with everyone else who suggests learning XHTML and CSS; it's really not very hard at all... or of course, you can just run something like DreamWeaver on Wine, I'll admit I can't stand those GUI editors at all but it might be worth checking out anyway if it might be easier...

    I will admit, I'm a real GIMP addict myself, but it can definitely be a pain in the ass to learn, it took me around a year or so of playing around with it off-and-on before I really got the hang of things, al

  • The newly open sourced... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by mav[LAG] ( 31387 ) on Friday September 01, 2006 @04:46PM (#16026770)
    ...Xara Xtreme. Yes I'm biased. I used Xara 1.5 to create production quality graphics for a magazine nearly ten years ago and I still haven't come across an illustration program that was as fast or as easy to use until I grabbed the latest build of Xtreme. See here [xara.com] for the Web-specific features. Ignore the Windows-only requirements menu - there's a very stable Linux build in the Downloads section.

    For a nice quick design prototype, I'd love to hear if there's anything better.

  • At my previous company, our UI designer used PowerPoint to create wireframes. That was to get a feel for where the UI elements would fit on the page. One nice thing was that he could easily share his work by e-mailing the PowerPoint file. He even did some crude scripting so that clicking on certain elements would take you to the next page. The software developers joked that we should just ship his PPT file as our product.

    The artistic factors (color scheme, logos, etc.) were handled by our graphic de

  • You are better off not doing it at all. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by LWATCDR ( 28044 ) on Friday September 01, 2006 @05:52PM (#16027191) Homepage Journal
    Find a real web designer. And not I am not being mean.
    CSS/XHTML imposes limit on what fonts you can use and what is possible and what isn't
    Not only that but you have to make sure it runs on standards compliant browsers and hunk of trash that Microsoft calls IE.
    it is the height of arrogance to think that you can design a web page and no nothing about HTML. Kind of like someone that can't change their oil thinking they can design a car.
    Find a web designer and tell him what your page needs to do. Then work with them until you like it.
    Do not give him a pretty picture and expect him to get it to render on every browser and resolution on the planet.
  • I do professional webdesign and use Linux. I'm also using OS X but for reasons unrelated to classic webdesign.
    First of all I'd like to note that the available OSS tools have come a long way since a few years ago. Inkscape as a vector tool looks impressive, Gimp is a usefull tool for professional work and Openoffice Draw isn't to bad either, allthough it's best suited for flowcharts and stuff.

    For professional Print and Web work on Linux I personally use Corel Draw & Corel Photopaint for Linux (CD Version

  • I find that when I'm designing stuff quickly, I need to have something that I can use easily and quickly, even when my mind feel like it's going faster than my hands can go, so I draw. Just scribbles, but when I have one that I think is good enough, I'll pull out the ruler and colouring pencils, and see if it really does look that good.

    When I'm done, I'll open up Vim and see if I can get a working style sheet & HTML. If I still think it looks good, then I'll go ahead with it.

  • Quanta plus is so nice and easy to use, with support of CSS, and a bunch of other tools to help you code right.

    Basically make your content, name the blocks. Start writing CSS that makes the page look right.

    To do a website elegantly, you need to consider CSS from the ground up.

    quanta plus has a wysiwyg environment now. Plus it uses konqueror--the browser that passes the acid2 test. and it has some great code collapsing features from the advanced text editor.

    --AP

  • I tend to use tracing paper, felt tip pens and a photocopier.

    Establish your basic grid - photocopy a bunch of shells, you can layer elements to see how the screens build on each other using either light trace or bank paper.

    I also find that colour can be useful in mockups - hence the felt tip pens. If links are going to be a different colour, etc... show them as such on your mockup. HMTL is a GUI, chances are they won't be using the site in B&W - colour does impact on the choices people make while us

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