HTML Program Suggestions?

[wardprobst]

Hello all,

I am looking at getting a new program to rehab our website. I have looked at NotePad Lite and CoffeeCup. Does anyone have any other suggestions. I'm not too computer literate but I'd like to try and keep it up myself. Simple is okay!
DP

[tedkitch]

I use Microsoft FrontPage. It isn't cheap, but I've had it for a while. Some of my friends are using nvu. You can download a version of it here for whatever operating system you like. Can't beat the price, free.

For simple things, you can also use OpenOffice.org Write for HTML. This is also free. You can download it here. For your web site, this should more than meet your needs.

Good Luck,

[RayintheUK]

FrontPage is, as you'd expect, Microsoft-specific. It's also modular, so pages are far larger (file size) than they need be, consequently slower to load. A lot of surfers are using Firefox or Opera nowadays, so you should ensure that pages will load in those too.

The very best (and free) web editor is HTML-Kit from Chami Software. You can get it here. It contains more features and help than a load of commercial programs. Highly recommended!

If you need any other help with the basics of page construction, I did a tutorial some time ago that may assist.

Ray.

[wardprobst]

FrontPage is, as you'd expect, Microsoft-specific. It's also modular, so pages are far larger (file size) than they need be, consequently slower to load. A lot of surfers are using Firefox or Opera nowadays, so you should ensure that pages will load in those too.

The very best (and free) web editor is HTML-Kit from Chami Software. You can get it here. It contains more features and help than a load of commercial programs. Highly recommended!

If you need any other help with the basics of page construction, I did a tutorial some time ago that may assist.

Ray.

Thanks Ray,
Exactly what I was seeking. We had a professional designer do a site for us but it didn't look the way we wanted so I'm going to take another shot at it myself. I found your tutorial very well written and clear- the usual RG standard....

Happy New Year,
DP

[25]

If you really want to take the time to learn HTML(it's pretty easy, the hard part is learning what is compatible between all the different browsers), then I would suggest VIM or Emacs. These are more of just text editors though.

If you are looking to buy some good software, the last one I used and really liked was Dreamweaver. It's really nice and even the HTML it generates is readable. Unlike front page which inserts way to much bloat.

As a note though, it was at least 6-7 years ago last time I used Dreamweaver and I haven't kept up with it at all. Not having played with it the software Ray suggested looks pretty good though.

[wardprobst]

Thanks guys,

I was wanting to stay away from the WYSIWYG stuff and the packages Ray recommended got me further done the road.

Thanks to all,
DP

[jwaterdawg]

Another vote for Dreamweaver. Although I do often edit the source code directly, the gui is nice for page layouts. There is very little fat associated with the html produced by Dreamweaver.

Stay away from MS Frontpage; it's horrible for making code that is unreadable, producing 100's of tiny files all over the place and generally a pain to manage.

[LinuxRandal]

You can do html in a lot of programs. From resources on the web, html.org, to your public library (any html book). Download your page, and use view source, make a change, rename it and view it. Best to experiment till you get what your looking for.

Heck, my dad still uses wordpad for a lot of html editing.

[Lance]

another vote for Dreamweaver. great WYSIWYG for speed of building templates, etc., minimal bloat, and decent text editing to get exactly what you want. Might be a little overkill though, for occasional updates to a small site.

Do you have any specific websites that you can say, "yeah, I'd like our site to look more like that."

-Lance

[wardprobst]

Thanks to everybody for the ideas. Ray from the UK basically laid out the site for me, taught me a ton plus pointed me to two programs: HTML Kit and IfranView that helped me a bunch. I guess I'll have to figure out a way to get over to Sussex now! Check out his sight at http://www.raygirling.com/

Thanks Ray- truly bumped my learning curve a light year!

Swing by and let me know if anyone has any problems- I only have two browsers and everything seems okay so far.

Thanks again Ray,
DP