Creating a web site to match a visual design created in a tool like Photoshop is not an easy task. Photoshop was created to give total freedom to the artist. The web, on the other hand, is designed with many confusing technologies and standards that place other concerns ahead of maintaining 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.

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.

SiteGrinder can create graphics, text, and interactivity by using modern web standard technologies. It also takes into account many requirements like cross-platform browser compatibility, all without the user being aware of the background programming needed.

You know Photoshop, SiteGrinder knows CSS, HTML, and web image formats. It is simply a matter of you telling SiteGrinder about special layers, like buttons, by adding “hints” to the layer names.

Often times the only things required to create interactivity such as “button”, “rollover”, and “popup” can be easily created using “hints”. Once you’ve added a few hints in Photoshop you can simply open SiteGrinder and create your page with a simple mouse-click.

The nice thing about this system is that it works the way you do, which turns web design into a uniquely satisfying activity. You can enable your web site’s functionality as you design it, and easily test it in a web browser whenever you feel like it.

Such a flexible workflow even allows you to make major design changes, like selecting a new background color, at the very last minute without headaches! SiteGrinder

You may wonder how SiteGrinder can make many web pages from a single Photoshop document. The answer is easy! Photoshop has a little-used but powerful tool called the “layer comps palette”. This palette allows you to save and name particular document states, including the position and visibility of every layer.

All you have to do is make the document look the way a page on your site should and then make a layer comp. Then set up the next page and repeat. SiteGrinder will use those comps to decide what to include on the web pages it produces. Even cooler: if your layer comp names match your button names then SiteGrinder will link them automatically. You don’t even have to provide URLs!

Popularity: 2% [?]