Required Tools/Applications

Box Drive

Is free for UIC students. It syncs a folder on your hard drive to the cloud/web. I'll have access to that folder and it'll sync on my computer as well so I can see your files right away. This is very convenient for checking designs and code files and sharing edited versions with you, for example

I wrote a post on this site that explains how to install and use it. So please read this.

Adobe Dreamweaver or other code editor

We'll be using Dreamweaver as a code editor. It has the big advantage of showing what you're coding simultaneously in a preview. This visual feedback is very helpful. The whole Adobe CC suite is available free for you now from the UIC webstore Since we're coding the layouts from scratch we won't be using Dreamweaver templates and other options available. We mainly used to write code and preview code. If you have issues with Dreamweaver you can just as well use another (free) code editor that may have fewer or no preview features. But you can always use a regular browser for testing/previewing.

Slack

Slack is an interesting tool I'd like to try out for our group this semester. That one is not really required but I strongly recommend using it. Questions that come up about design and coding are usually relevant to the whole group so instead of answering them multiple times per email, I'd rather post explanations and links there for everybody to see immediately. And you can, of course, also help out each other and share solutions you found (or if you have any concerns, suggestions, whatever it may be).

Slack is free and most of you may already use it. For those new to it here the link: https://slack.com. I'll send out an invitation to all of you. I'll be teaching 3 classes, moring, afternoon and evening. So it'll be a pretty large group of students and I can imagine there will be an active exchange there.

Code Pen

Is a "social development environment". It allows you to write code in the browser, and see the results of it as you build/code. You can also share, download and comment on "pens". You need an account to use features such as downloading. It's free so go ahead and sign up at your earliest convenience.