Tools for Creating Web Pages

Mar 2 23:13 UTC 2007

For those of you who make web pages - what tools do you use?

response 2 of 22:

Mar 2 23:41 UTC 2007

Does emacs have an ftp extension for editing files on remote websites?

response 4 of 22:

Mar 3 13:04 UTC 2007

Re #2: Never used one, but it seems like a natural thing that somebody 
would have implemented, and a Google search indicates that remote editing 
extensions to Emacs exist.  See e.g. Jeremy Zawodny's blog post on "Tramp: 
Remote File Editing in Emacs". 
http://jeremy.zawodny.com/blog/archives/000983.html

Re #3: Pffffttt!!!!

response 6 of 22:

Mar 3 22:22 UTC 2007

This item was started in part because I asked about Composers for web 
pages that require no knowledge of HTML. Dreamweaver was suggested. That, 
however, costs $400! I have used the free Netscape Composer quite a bit 
for web pages for several organizations. From the standpoint of creating 
just an informative newsletter for web posting, without many 
bells-and-whistles, it is just fine. It has some features, though, that I 
would like more control over, such as line length. What else is available?

I sort of look at Composers as I do WORD. Noone writes WORD documents 
inserting all the control codes by hand. We all use a WORD Composer - MS 
WORD. Why will this not be the future of web pages?

response 8 of 22:

Mar 4 03:46 UTC 2007

Good point on the cost of WORD - but of course it has much more utility to
many more people than does a Composer. Still Netscape Composter IS free, and
makes nice pages. Somewhere between free and $400 would appear to be a good
price. 

Speaking of my faculty discount - MS Office X M costs $10. Dreamweaver is not
offered. 

response 10 of 22:

Mar 4 16:43 UTC 2007

As far as a WYSIWYG program, I really liked Netscape Composer. I've 
played around with various demo versions of Dreamweaver and haven't
been too impressed (for the cost). Probably hands down the worst of
the bunch is MS Frontpage. If you look at the HTML code after you
built a webpage, it looks like garbage. I deleted that POS off my 
computer and did a defrag, just to make sure it was over-written.

I just use notepad or pico, then alt-tab over to a browser and refresh 
the page to see how I like the changes.  I used to use just plain HTML,
but Cascading Style Sheets have made designing and re-editing webpages 
a breeze. The only book related to web design I keep around now, is the 
O'reilly "CSS Pocket Reference".

I disagree with nate, I think JS, CGI and Flash are very much optional
for creating a spiffy website.

response 12 of 22:

Mar 4 19:32 UTC 2007

I agree with the last of #10: Javascript, Flash, or CGI are IMO optional at
best for creating a website I'd want to look at. In fact, for me they are
counter-productive to that effect. 

response 14 of 22:

Mar 5 00:42 UTC 2007

Well, as I half-implied in #12, "spiffy" to my mind either a) is synonymous
with "minimalistic" (like the Grex web page if it weren't so cluttered) or b)
isn't a compliment.

response 16 of 22:

Mar 5 18:03 UTC 2007

(Continuing with the drift for a bit...)

Re resp:13 and related - It all hinges on the deinition of "spiffy", 
which according to answers.com (http://www.answers.com/topic/spiffy) 
means "Smart in appearance or dress; stylish", or in hacker slang, "Said 
of programs having a pretty, clever, or exceptionally well-designed 
interface."

If one's definition of "smart in appearance" means "displaying effects 
achievable only with Javascript and Flash" then of course, any spiffy 
site would have to use those technologies.  But my concept of "smart in 
appearance" is broad enough to include sites like The World Wide Web 
Consortium (http://www.w3.org), which doesn't use any Javascript or 
Flash at all as far as I can tell but which has a nice appearance and an 
interface that makes for easy navigation.

response 18 of 22:

Mar 23 15:49 UTC 2007

i used to do all my web design in notepad or on a unix box in editors 
like PICO....

then i found i had to double check to much stuff, i found a free but 
VERY usefull program called SELIDA 2

it sports 2 windows one where you insert the code and such and the top 
one is a realtime viewer of what you coded below. very nice for 
tweaking and experimenting.
also has some nice pre-made templates and pre inserted code.


download it here: http://selida.camelon.nl/

response 20 of 22:

Sep 26 00:53 UTC 2008

Dreamweaver is the only real choice for sophisticated web design. I use 
it for both ASP and PHP dynamic pages. It really simplifies - rather 
facilitates - the incorporation of Access Database (ASP) and MySQL 
(PHP). While it is not fool proof it is certainly powerfull.

I have also found Cute HTML a fantastic code source editor. It offers 
syntax checking and code optimization (Two utilities I would feel lost 
without.) 

In the LINUX platform I would strongly recommend Quanta+. It offers bou-
coup features and is user friendly. The site management features alone 
make it worth adding to the arsenal.

For Text editing I say notepad is handy mainly for holding code 
snippets (as a side-kick) but get yourself a free copy of JSoft's 
EditPadPro. You get tabbed pages and syntax coloring. And a very slick 
find and replace that can work for all open pages (so handy.)

The one bit of software I would be totally lost without is On-Target 
Software's Technical Editor 2.65 C.1993. It is a DOS mode ascii editor 
with block editing mode that has saved literally hundreds of 
programming hours. Every computer I have ever had gets this little 
jewel as program one after the OS. Everyone has their own favorite 
simple text editor but I tell you, if you cannot BLOCK edit you do not 
know what you are missing. TE 2.65 is very hard to get hold of these 
days that is why almost every backup disk I ever make contains this APP.

If anyone knows of an HTML editor that does a decent job of CSS I would 
love to hear about it. Dreamweaver obviously tries it's heart out, but 
to develop standards based pages is a bear! (thank you firefox!) 

response 22 of 22:

Sep 26 14:39 UTC 2008

Right...

Here's a for instance:

suppose you have a file that looks like this
================================
<a href=""></a>
<a href=""></a>
<a href=""></a>
<a href=""></a>
================================
and another file that looks like this
================================
loca.com
locb.com
locc.com
locd.com
===============================
if you append one file to the other to get...
===============================
<a href=""></a>
<a href=""></a>
<a href=""></a>
<a href=""></a>
loca.com
locb.com
locc.com
locd.com
================================
using BLOCK selection and insertion you can get the following in four 
easy steps...
================================
<a href="loca.com">loca.com</a>
<a href="locb.com">locb.com</a>
<a href="locc.com">locc.com</a>
<a href="locd.com">locd.com</a>
================================
the steps?
1. select block
2. cut block
3. insert block
4. insert block again

Imagine a list of IP addresses that you would like to turn into a page 
of links to said IPs. The blank code page can be made in a matter of 
moments in line copy and paste mode and the insertion of the blocks of 
addresses (no matter how many) is still the four steps.

It is then the job of my 'Code Optimizer' to remove spaces from the 
resultant script if nessesary.

You Know... ;)