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For those of you who make web pages - what tools do you use?
22 responses total.
I use Emacs. It has a *TERRIFIC* nxml-mode for editing XHTML and a reasonable css-mode for editing CSS. I also use Firefox's web-developer extension for trying out various CSS options. (You can edit CSS and see the effect instantly.)
Does emacs have an ftp extension for editing files on remote websites?
Can the Pope play Towers of Hanoi?
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!!!!
I use vi(m).
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?
Well, Word costs about the same. Try using your faculty discount to get software from Computer Stores.
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.
If you're looking to create really slick websites, you need to know HTML along with javascript, CSS, and probably a good CGI language. Dreamweaver gets you close to not having to know these things by hiding them beneath it's own interface. If you don't learn HTML/JS/CSS/CGI, you would still need to learn Dreamweaver. Dreamweaver is for professional web design, and is priced accordingly. If you want to just post information to the web, most office programs export to HTML. I think the future will improve things. The idea is to get to a point where the substance and formating of a webpage are completely seperate such that substance can be created and published with a consistent format.
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.
> I deleted that POS off my computer and did a defrag, just to make sure > it was over-written. For some reason I now have a picture in my head of you beating the crap out of a copier with a baseball bat. :-) > I think JS, CGI and Flash are very much optional for creating a spiffy > website Maybe we have a difference of opinion in what constitutes "spiffy". :-P
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.
Okay. Any have any spiffy websites that they view on a regular basis that do not use Javascript, Flash, or CGI?
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.
Re #6: I got the full Macromedia Suite for under $200. Education rates, I had STeve pick it up for me at the MSU bookstore, but that seemed to be the normal cost for the education version. I prefer to do the raw html in either notepad or wordpad, but do use Dreamweaver when I am going to be do fancier stuff and then edit the code. I do most of my tables using percentages so that they don't force sideways scrolling. Dreamweaver wants to make tables and cells fixed pixel widths, so I have to change them all after I get the basic setup the way I want it. It has a few other quirks that I usually change as well. I have used other tools, but prefer Dreamweaver when I go that route.
(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.
Re #2: Did some digging into the issue of remote file access in emacs
and found out that the "tramp" package is included as a standard part of
emacs from version 21 on. Basically, if you can do scp (secure copy)
between the machine on which you're running emacs and the remote file,
you're all set. Just open the file in emacs like this:
ctrl-x ctrl-f /user@remote.machine:path-to-file
and tramp will be invoked to make a local copy of the file and display
it in the emacs window. Then just edit the file as you normally would.
Whenever you save the file (e.g. with the ctrl-x ctrl-s command) your
edited version is copied back to the remote machine.
This will be very convenient for me. I can use Aquamacs Emacs (a
version of emacs nicely integrated into the OS X environment) to edit
files on my web host, on Grex, and other places.
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/
For free options check out the NVU editor. It's free and got a lot of functionality. I actually use iWeb with my Mac. Makes me look like an artistic genius!
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!)
I'm not sure what you mean by "block edit." Do you mean select and operate on rectangular regions, or do you mean something else?
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... ;)
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