Adobe Dreamweaver is one of the most popular Web authoring tools used by professionals. The latest Creative Cloud version doesn’t ask for a very steep price either although you have to continuously pay for the license. Paying roughly $20 a month might be worthwhile if you really want to take advantage of the customizable interface and numerous other page editing and site management features but there are a few basic and free online tools that you can try straight from your Web browser.
You can get started by trying out one of the several online color scheme tools such as Adobe Kuler. Picking a color is as simple as dragging the indicator anywhere on the color wheel. Then you can set the color rule and get instant codes for each color in the theme. This will help you decide a good color scheme for your main page.
Creating a mockup of your website before you begin coding is recommended as you can carefully plan the layout of your website and get an instant idea on how it will look. Online Web apps like Mockingbird bring you to the drawing board immediately.
Once you are ready to code, you should look for any online Web authoring tools that have live previews. It is a good idea to try out multiple services as they take different approaches. CSSDesk, for instance, focuses more on CSS where you can type a few lines of HTML code and enhance it with CSS on the fly. Other Web apps support additional languages such as Tinkerbin if you want JavaScript and CoffeeScript support and PHPTester for running PHP code without the need for a server.
Now that you are well aware of these nifty tools, you can at least conclude that Web developers can even use iPads and Chromebooks to build websites.