I am getting ready to create my own website, what software can you reccommend for web design.
[quote author=Rich10z link=topic=6145.msg40504#msg40504 date=1100130051]
I am getting ready to create my own website, what software can you reccommend for web design.
The only web design software I ever used was frontpage, and i didn’t find it that “powerful”. I always used the mozilla composer.
http://bluefish.openoffice.nl/ if you have access to a mac or linux
I have always been more of a wordpad kind of person
As an alternative to writing your own there are some nice free programs for websites. An example is http://phpnuke.org/ a complete website package. I have never used a specific program for writing html or php, just use vi most of the time 
I guess it depends on your level of expertise and how much HTML or PHP/ASP etc you know.
HTML whizkids will happily use notepad or some other text editor to code directly.
People like myself who need things simple will use WYSIWYG editors such as Frontpage expecially if they do not need complicated sites - it is what I use and it is fine for my needs. As the years have progressed I could probably quite happily code HTML from scratch in a text editor but Frontpage makes it easy for me to edit and publish pages to my webspace. Most will slate the program as it is from Microsoft but I am used to it.
I also tried to use Macromedia Dreamweaver once and although it is a very powerful website editor, most of its functions went straight over my head (like I said I am simple compared to other members of this forrm lol)
I’m really just going to repeat what you’ve already heard… notepad, editpad, ultraedit, etc.
All you need is an ASCII editor and a desire to learn. No real need to buy any books, either. Just yahoo/google “HTML Examples”, “HTML Code”, etc.
If you absolutely don’t want to learn the html tags to code the page by hand - download a current copy of Netscape. They still include “Composer” that does a fairly good job of writing the code with a GUI interface. (Though, I still prefer the control of writing code by hand…)
FYI: I’ve been creating websites since 1993 - back when an image was a true rarity.
Dwain
and you can view someones web site…click on view, view source in the browser
works unless they use frames
If they use frames: just right-click somewhere in the frame you want to see and select “View Source”
If you receive an error message when you right-click: Disable JavaScript and their “protection” is gone.
Thanks everbody. There are some really great suggestions here. I found a shareware program called coffecup it’s only fifty bucks and seems easier to use than note pad.
Evrsoft 1st page 2000 might be one to use too…i have tried it, looks ok
http://www.evrsoft.com/
and did i mention there is a free version?
I think this is now called HTML Builder XP Lite.
That often seems to get bad press for some reason.
Mambo (www.mamboserver.com) seems to be the flavour of the month (guess what I use for www.weather-watch.com!)
Yea, I know about nukes bad press but it was the only one I could think of at the time I posted. The point I was hoping to make was that there are plenty of free programs out there for creating a website.
I too was overwhelmed when in the same position a few years ago. I wanted to start out with something familiar.
Believe it or not, Microsoft Word will work for starters. I used that at first since I knew my around the program. Then I played with Frontpage which has a similar feel of Word. So far didn’t cost anything.
Then I tried a few trial versions of different software, but found them a little over my head like the original poster stated.
Now I’m using a CMS script called PHPwebsite which is similar to Mambo. I’ve stuck with PHPwebsite because I know my way around it pretty well. I do have a copy of Mambo on my server that I play with when I have the time - might migrate over to that after a while.
I still want to learn more HTML. I’m getting used to the basics after buying the book “HTML Goodies”. It’s been a great reference for getting started. Their site has also been helpful - http://htmlgoodies.com
I’m still looking for something to settle on and learn. With any of these softwares, it takes time to learn them. I especially want to learn enough HTML to make a custom web page in WD. I’ve been looking at some other folks source code to give me some ideas to get started.
Just to find the time…
Another vote for Coffee Cup http://www.coffeecup.com/html-editor/ it’s a good basic editor with a lot of helpful functionality. You can download a trial version. You can flip between the code and the result so you can knock out a basic page really fast.
Another free one that has been mentioned on here before is HTML-KIT http://www.chami.com/html-kit/, I’ve tried it and it has more bells and whistles that I could use in my lifetime.
A useful resource is www.webmonkey.com which was given a death sentence by Lycos, but then pardoned.
Isn’t PHPwebsite one of the phpnuke family somewhere along the line (like Postnuke, Xaraya, Enlighten/Envision/whatever it became, and all the others)? phpnuke must be one of the most forked CMSs out there!
Mambo isn’t quite like anything else I’ve seen out there though. Typo3 is another league in front, but you need a PhD to understand how to use it!
I love this quote from wikipedia
The PHP-Nuke project has been forked many times by different people, for different reasons.[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PHP-Nuke](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PHP-Nuke) that says it all.
Ahhh, thanks for that. It confirms my memory is still intact…phpWebSite is a nuke descendant.
I have found NamoWebeditor to the easiest and yet still powerful editor to use. It is just more user friendly than Frontpage in my book. (www.namo.com)
Have you tried gvm (Graphical VI iMproved) for html on your PC?
http://www.vim.org
Really cool. It automatically colorizes your code to easy identification of keywords, code and comments.
BTW, I would not suggest VI, VIM or GVIM to the casual user. It takes some getting use to.