Alternative to Dreamweaver?

[ko]

First I'm no computer wizard, but frontpage stinks...it really has no good templates or logo/banner stuff. Naturally my site stinks...is there any software other than dreanweaver that a person can use? I should have kept jesteps site, but live and learn....kdcalls.com

[paulhiles]

You might want to try HTML Kit from Chami.com.

Personally, it sounds like you need to learn some basic HTML, which will you give you more freedom to dive into "code view" rather than relying on WYSIWYG editors.

Let me know if you need further resources.

Good luck!

Paul

[Jeff Colburn]

Hi,

Adobe GoLive is another good program. If you're a student or teacher you can buy it from Adobe or through http://www.gradware.com/ for a lot less. For example, the web suite which includes Photoshop, GoLive, Acrobat and ImageReady is about $1,000 off the shelf, or about $350 to students and teachers.

Have Fun,
Jeff

[Easy Web 4 U]

If you want to learn html, "Read Less, Learn More HTML" is a great book. :)

Teresa

[righter]

Someone posted in another topic about a new Dreamweaver-like app that's totally free. I don't know anything about it, but you can check it out here:
http://www.nvu.com/index.html

[Dragonsi]

Another good 'beginners' WYSIWYG designer is Namo Web Editor, the older versions are available free while the latest version is only about £40 or so...

It comes with loads of templates and easy to use design aids but is limited when it comes to CSS and more complex design aids..

[less1die]

All of the WYSIWYG editors above work well, especially nvu, if you also a coder like myself. Dreamweaver is not required, some people are still using notepad and having great success. It helps to know code.

[PFork]

I was reading the thread in my newsletter and I could not refrain to talk about our online site builder as a possible alternative to Dreamweaver.

You'll tell me "heresy!".

Maybe, but if you really try to play with it you can see that you can build complex websites with it, even complex database driven websites and intranets... this with just a browser.

It is compatible with Internet Explorer and Firefox browsers (so works on Windows, Mac and Linux) and it will run even on Safari next month. It has advanced features as for instance a advanced database creation / management (forms creation, shopping cart, etc,...).

The address of the demo is http://www.dragdropsitecreator.com/demopage.php
You can also try the full software on www.sqlf.com/login.php with username "iwdn" and password "12345". If you're an advanced webdesigner, you can try to go to www.htmlfusion.com and install php packages and use them (packages can be found on www.paspagebuilder.com/packages.php )

To give you a feel of how far you can go with it, here are some websites built with it exclusively; www.sheabutter.org and www.jon-linfoods.com

It is not perfect yet, but we have the ambition to make it a serious subsitute for Dreamweaver... allowing you to integrate databases, and php scripts without writing code, and having people being able to add to the website created according to their range of competence.


As I said that's the goal. But I would like real innovators who believe in the project to help us move forward.

[Talkfreelance]

A great wysiwyg editor is coffee cup, you should be able to find it on downloads.com. :)

It also allows you to code by hand and contains a large help file.

[loggin]

Give it up with wysiwyg editors, all you need is a good graphics package such as fireworks or photoshop and a text editor such as Textpad32 or if you really must Notepad, develop a templating system using a server side language and bobs your uncle, using something like Dreamweaver or any others on a site with more than just a few pages makes template updates a nightmare as you have to upload all of your pages with every update. Simply use a serverside technology to create 'function' like encapsulation of your content and then include your template and place 'function' calls in the template to pull in and place your content, then when you want to change the 'skin' of you site all you have to worry about is changing and uploading the one template file ( oh and any associated images).

( as yet not really encountered a wysiwyg editor that can really cope with anything but the most basic of server side scripting and any fancy coding that dynamically shapes the page just gives dreamweaver a heartattack )

[Jerry]

I'm not going to preach learning HTML in notepad. I know html and still code 90% of the complex stuff by hand, but that's also because I'm usually generating something dynamic at the time as well, not to mention there really weren't any html editors on the market when I started building web pages. It helps, even with a WYSIWG editor.

Try nview, as listed above, or Open Office for decent wysiwg editing. There's also FirstPage, but I can't remember where to find it, take a look at No Nags for a list of a few more.

Cheers,

[chiron]

Into the non-WYSIWYG "great editors" category I would like to toss CuteHTML, which I have coded literally millions of lines in over the years. I use CuteHTML primarily because it has line counts and color-coding (user can modify) to help you tell the difference among tags for things like an image, text, HREF, JS, etc.

If you want some increased snippets and easy one-click helper tags and stuff, yet are annoyed by the WYSIWYG junk out there, HomeSite 5.0 (when it was Allaire, haven't upgraded since Macromedia bought them out) was IMHO worth the price...

CuteHTML from Globalscape - $25 Basic, $50 Pro
http://www.globalscape.com/store

HomeSite 5.5 from Macromedia - $99
http://www.macromedia.com/software/h...info/overview/

Also, if you want to go out and find a custom-looking, snazzy template, but are stumped due to your own lack of advanced skills, limited time, limited templates in your programs, whatever, then if you can learn just a bit of HTML, and can toss out $40-70US for the right to a non-exclusive (but way less ubiquitous than FrontPage or DreamWeaver) template, then try glancing at:

http://www.templatemonster.com/

I've never used a template from them yet, so I cannot vouch for how good these are, and I would advise against editing one in a WYWIWYG editor due to possible corruption of code... but I keep this site on my radar should I ever be wildly short on time, or perhaps feel uninspired and/or burned-out after a few rounds of trying to please a client from scratch.

Hope this helps...

[toby_bird]

Originally Posted by Jeff Colburn

Hi,

Adobe GoLive is another good program. If you're a student or teacher you can buy it from Adobe or through http://www.gradware.com/ for a lot less. For example, the web suite which includes Photoshop, GoLive, Acrobat and ImageReady is about $1,000 off the shelf, or about $350 to students and teachers.

Have Fun,
Jeff

Jeff, what sort of code does Go Live produce? By that I mean, is it clean or filled with excess code like Frontpage?

[PFork]

Hello,

If you have some spare time would you mind testing the install of the software we just released in its beta version for Web professionals. It is on http://www.webfusionstudio.com

Thanks a lot in advance for any help and feedback!

[MktgPro]

PFork,

Is webfusion studio related to Fusion 8?

Kathleen

[PFork]

Hello Kathleen,

There is absolutly nothing in common beween Fusio 8 and WebFusion Studio.

WebFusion Studion is an innovative web authoring tool allwoing real time collaboration in web application development which you can check at http://www.webfusionstudio.com

It is still in Beta, so it is very important for us to get your opinion about it.

[MktgPro]

Thanks for the clarification!

k