Best Webpage Software

I use Dreamweaver, what else is popular?

[MrFishGuy]

I've been using Macromedia, now Adobe, Dreamweaver for a long time. For a while it was Dreamweaver vs. MS Frontpage for best webpage software, but it seem like Microsoft isn't keeping up with Frontpage.

What's Dreamweaver's competition these days?

[ayiakiriaki]

I thought maybe one of you would tell me why not - if I shouldn't. Otherwise, I will get NVu, and it seems I had better learn the code. But as I have created a site I am quite proud of with Publisher, I don't want it changed. What is a CMS anyway?

[edited by: tedster at 7:55 pm (utc) on July 9, 2009]

[bill]

A CMS is a Content Management System. We have a forum that discusses them: Content Management [webmasterworld.com]

[ayiakiriaki]

I went to that forum, bill, but didn't find a definition for CMS - they all know what it is. Something to do with blogs and comments, I think, and I would like to get into that when I have got my site working in another medium. However, I had hoped for a reason from one of you helpful people, why I should or shouldn't use the one I mentioned, i.e. NVu. It claims to be similar to Dreamweaver and EW, can use code or WYSIWYG, so maybe I could learn code while using it? Would I be able to move my site sraight into NVu? Or would I have to start again from scratch?

[jbinbpt]

NVU is a great place to start, WYSIWYG and source view. It produces very clean code that you can use anywhere else.
But...You get what you pay for. It is a basic editor for basic tasks.

A CMS (Content Management System) approaches from the other direction. All the code is done and ready for you to add content. You can skin the CMS to make it make it look unique. There are lots of modules of code already written and tested that will get you moving quickly.

Added
Publisher will give you a good looking page. You can place elements where ever you want, add text and decorate the text and you will get a good looking output.
The problem is the code that does that is meant for printed output. You determine the output size when you start the project. It produces lots of code to make sure that the page stays good looking.
When you publish to the web, you don't know how your work will be viewed. Big screen, small screen, what ever browser. Web design tools give you flexibility to properly render the output.
HTH

[ayiakiriaki]

Oh, THANK YOU! That is the sort of information I really needed. It explains why Publisher was so easy, but didn't always do what I expected or wanted. I expect NVu will do all that I need - I have been looking at a tutorial and it seems to do all I am doing now, though there is no html instruction. It says that will come later, but I can probably find it somewhere else. Can't see why I might want CMS though.

[jbinbpt]

The easy path between publisher and NVU or any html editor is to use tables. They will allow you to position your elements where you want them and they will stay positioned.

IF you are going to do serious work, then get away from the tables and learn how to use CSS to position and decorate the page(font size and look, backgrounds, positioning)

A great place to learn coding is the W3C Schools [w3schools.com]

[ayiakiriaki]

I didn't use tables in Publisher, my predecessor advised me to do so (it was then in Front Page), but I found them too restrictive.
I spent some hours on W3C Schools yesterday, thank you. I understood it OK as far as I got - but will I remember it? When you reach 76 memory is not a strong point. If I am going to learn CSS too, I suppose I will need a program for it - or is that CMS? If I do, how expensive is it? And what does CSS stand for? I seem to get one query answered only to have another pop up!

[ayiakiriaki]

I had a look at your CSS forum, and found what the initails mean, so that's OK. But, as I want a background on my site I looked at the post "Best Way to Place Background Image to Page?" - and the code suggested there scared me to death! I don't think I should tackle CSS! Can't I manage with WYSIWYG in NVu?

[jbinbpt]

OK.. CSS Cascading Style Sheets Sounds hard but it's not. It's a method of separating markup from your content. You define the way you want something to look ONCE and use it MANY times. You will get consistency through your pages using a CSS file. If you want to change the way an element looks in your entire site, change it once in the CSS file.

In NVU Background images are off the format menu. Additionally table cells can have their own backgrounds.

[Hissingsid]

I use DW to create HTML and PHP pages and to design templates for use with Textpattern (a free blog and CMS package with brilliant plug ins).

If you are coming from a DTP/Design background and you work on the Mac however then IMHO there is no better website and HTML page creation software than Freeway from Softpress. This is a bit like QuarkXpress for web pages, your designs are stored in Freeway format and only rendered into HTML and CSS when you publish the site. There is no HTML round trip. Folks used to knock Freeway because the code it produced was a bit idiosyncratic but now it produces clean code and pure CSS positioning and styling.

Just mt 2c.

Sid

[lavazza]

Publisher is for making printed documents, not websites. It's as simple as that. What works on a printed page will not work on every screen.

The same can be said for EVERY so-called WYSIWYG editor on teh planet

Frontpage: WYSI#*$!

[ayiakiriaki]

It's a long time since anything new came up on this. In the meantime I have been learning html and really enjoyed it! Apart from the site I did with Publisher I am now building a site for my blind son, which MUST be totally accessible to screen-readers; Publisher didn't do this, hence the html - and I have produced a very simple site which is just awaiting his approval before uploading. I have also acquired a copy of Dreamweaver 8 and am starting to learn that for the first site. It all keeps the old brain cells active!

[signor_john]

What works on a printed page will not work on every screen.

The same can be said for EVERY so-called WYSIWYG editor on teh planet

What works on a given screen won't necessarily work on another screen. And it doesn't matter if the page was coded in Notebook, by FrontPage, or by a CMS.

Text editors, authoring tools, and content management systems don't kill appearance or readability. People do. :-)

[lavazza]

Text editors, authoring tools, and content management systems don't kill appearance or readability. People do. :-)

I agree with as far as the 'People do' bit goes...

However, I have a hunch you might be implying that not ALL (so-called) WYSIWGs are guilty of crimes against htmlanity

If so, please name one 'authoring tool' that, by default, ensures cross-media/cross-platform compatibility

[tangor]

by default, ensures cross-media/cross-platform compatibility

None.

Why? The browsers are not all playing in the same field. And some of those browsers are getting really long in the tooth and should have been interred years ago.

[signor_john]

The browsers are not all playing in the same field. And some of those browsers are getting really long in the tooth and should have been interred years ago.

Plus, more types of devices are being used to browse the Web these days: not just computer displays of wildly varying resolutions (everything from netbooks to huge widescreen monitors), but also non-computer devices that range from smart phones to video-game consoles.

Today, "the Web" has nearly as broad a meaning as "print" does, and it's as unreasonable to expect every site to work with every device as it would be to expect WAR AND PEACE or a coffee-table photo book to provide a good reading experience when printed on a stack of business cards. People who expect every authoring tool, editing program, or CMS to work equally well with all devices and all formats need to fast forward from the 1990s to 2009.

[lavazza]

Today, "the Web" has nearly as broad a meaning as "print" does

For years, CSS has had media types [w3.org], including print

...it's as unreasonable to expect every site to work with every device

Ermmm... So?

I'd be inclined to think you were adding something of relevance if you said 'its unrealistic to expect every (human) author to consider every format and platform'

[tangor]

Converse is true... no single software will make the grade across all platforms. What would be really cool is a piece of software that lets you work on a contents page (what we do) and outputs dynamic, static, mobil, etc pages on demand. And while our bandwidth might not shoot throug the roof, our storage capacities might see a significant boost. Just trying to wrap my head around this (still offer only static pages on most of my sites and only a few dynamic... with no optimization for mobil on any)

[signor_john]

What would be really cool is a piece of software that lets you work on a contents page (what we do) and outputs dynamic, static, mobil, etc pages on demand.

Trouble is, formatting is only half the battle. It's like having a word processor that can automatically reformat a novel's dialogue into dialogue balloons for comic books: Just because that's possible doesn't mean dialogue extracted from novels works well in comic books.

My own pages are successful (and profitable) with readers who like information packaged as conversational text in a linear editorial format, but they'd be lousy if ported over to a mobile Web site or iPhone app. On the other hand, I know another very talented guy in my field whose Web pages are delivered as "hypertext stacks" with a paragraph or two of text per page. His site could work better as a mobile app than it does on a conventional desktop or laptop PC. Software isn't going to turn my site into one that's optimized for mobile devices or his site into one that's optimized for people who read.

IMHO, tools may be important to the owner, but they don't matter to the end user. The person who's reading my Web site doesn't care if it was produced with Notepad, Homesite, Dreamweaver, Frontpage, Wordpress, Drupal, or Joomla. And people who go on about how real men write HTML in text editors is like saying "Real men program in machine language": It just makes the complainers sound really, really old. :-)