[tomtom]

Hello,
I'm looking for a free web-page editor. Nothing flash, but needs to be gui rather than text based and can cope with tables fairly well.
Anyone got any faves?
T

[slackline]

Hello,
I'm looking for a free web-page editor. Nothing flash, but needs to be gui rather than text based and can cope with tables fairly well.
Anyone got any faves?
T

Emacs 

If you were on OSX or GNU/Linux I'd recommend Bluefish but you're not so I won't!

[tomtom]

 

I've used Emacs loads in a past life and its fine for text editing (though I really like ultraedit - which also has the neat facility to allow you to select text via cols instead of rows..) but really wanted something with a GUI..

[slackline]

I've used Emacs loads in a past life and its fine for text editing (though I really like ultraedit - which also has the neat facility to allow you to select text via cols instead of rows..)

To paraphrase Family Guy...

Emacs did it first

but really wanted something with a GUI..

Can't help there, plenty of people rave about Dreamweaver but its proprietary.

[Johnny Brown]

I tried Nvu which is ok but went back to Dreamweaver.

[Control freak]

Dreamweaver is the way forwards - have a search on Torrent sites. Theres plenty of places to get CS3 and CS4

As an aside - why does it have to cope with tables? Its more industry standard to layout with CSS these days

[slackline]

Dreamweaver is the way forwards - have a search on Torrent sites. Theres plenty of places to get CS3 and CS4

As an aside - why does it have to cope with tables? Its more industry standard to layout with CSS these days

Well you could use CSS to provide the style/format of the table, but you still need to define the table itself with the <tr> and <td> tags for rows and columns respectively.  When you're doing large tables with possibly spanning of columns/rows it can become a bit of a headache to code by hand.

See here for how to use CSS to process (but not define) tables.

[tomtom]

As an aside - why does it have to cope with tables? Its more industry standard to layout with CSS these days

Because I am an amateur/cretin who doesn't know any better!
Erm, isnt a style sheet something that comes in a glossy supplement of the Sunday Times?? 

 

(I suspect Slacklines previous post - that I've not investigated -will put me right!)

[slackline]

As an aside - why does it have to cope with tables? Its more industry standard to layout with CSS these days

Because I am an amateur/cretin who doesn't know any better!
Erm, isnt a style sheet something that comes in a glossy supplement of the Sunday Times??  

 

(I suspect Slacklines previous post - that I've not investigated -will put me right!)

The above only shows how to style your table (although it does have exampe tables).  They're not too hard really, it helps to organise them properly, the <tr></tr> delimits rows whilst <td></td> deilmits cells within a row (or columns if you like). <th> can be used for "header" that you want to stand out (saves you having to put things in <b></b> bold).  Here's a latin square for a bi-allelic locus a la a trait that Mendel might have studied in peas...

Code: [Select]

<table border="1">
<tr>
  <th></th>
  <th>A</th>
  <th>a</th>
</tr>
<tr>
  <th>A</th>
  <td>AA</td>
  <td>aA</td>
</tr>
<tr>
  <th>a</th>
  <td>Aa</td>
  <td>aa</td>
</tr>
</table>

The w3schools provides a basic overview, but the full current w3.org standard is you're best bet (although obviously more complex tables than the above to become unwieldy, but I find the basic layout above helps delineate rows nicely and then all you have to think about is which column you're filling in).

[Bubba]

Well you could use CSS to provide the style/format of the table, but you still need to define the table itself with the <tr> and <td> tags for rows and columns respectively.

Nah, you don't need tables at all - I  pretty much write all my HTML nowdays using CSS to control all layout, including "tables".

Using a CSS framework such as Bluetrip makes things much easier.

[slackline]

Don't know if you sorted this tomtom, but heres a Comparison of HTML editors.

[Palomides]

Hmm, I was looking at this last night.

I too am looking for an editor, but a full website manager/page editor combined. Wrapping myself in HTML/CSS/PHP manuals for a few weeks before emerging butterfly-like as a proper, hand-coding, "real-man" web developer is a tempting option, but I want to be able to pass on the intended website to someone else to maintain, so an all-in-one package seems to make sense.

Without either paying anyone, or ripping anyone off, about the only real option I came up with was NetObjects Fusion Essentials, which seems OK after a quick test. I looked at KompoZer too, but without installing it I really can't tell if it works as a site manager or not!

Anyone have any experience of NetObjects Fusion, or any alternative suggestions?

[Bubba]

Aptana might be worth a look - not used it myself but it seems well regarded as a free Dreamweaver alternative.

[Palomides]

Thanks Bubba, I hadn't found that one.

On the face of it, it looks like a fairly heavy-weight web apps development tool (based on eclipse) rather than the kind of thing I'm looking for, but it's good to know about these things.

Miind you, I really do think that anyone offering a web development tool should really have a site that works properly, or at least fails gracefully. There's some rather strange scaling going on when I try to view their "screencast" - maybe they're not ready for firefox 3.5 yet??

[slackline]

maybe they're not ready for firefox 3.5 yet??

How does FF-3.5 shape up on the acidtest?

[butters]

How does FF-3.5 shape up on the acidtest?

You mean how is it running compared to pre 3.5? Been running it for a couple of days and seems OK - few extensions didn't like it (ie they haven't been updated) but none of these I would consider "vital" to my surfing. The new tab button floats at the end of the last tab now as opposed to being fixed but other than that I have yet to notice any difference.

[slackline]

How does FF-3.5 shape up on the acidtest?

You mean how is it running compared to pre 3.5? Been running it for a couple of days and seems OK - few extensions didn't like it (ie they haven't been updated) but none of these I would consider "vital" to my surfing. The new tab button floats at the end of the last tab now as opposed to being fixed but other than that I have yet to notice any difference.

No I mean how does it perform in the acidtest a web-page that is designed to see if a browser conforms to the Web Standards Project HTML/XHTML definitions (worth noting how shite IE performs, I've tried pointing out to people I work with who oversee the development of a web-site that the company who are developing the website are aiming to get it compliant with IE, and that doing so is dis-ingenious as it doesn't work with other, more compliant browsers, but I'd be better off  ).

Good to hear its running ok though.  Waiting for it to be unmasked under my Linux distro before I bother compiling it and trying it out.

[Palomides]

No I mean how does it perform in the acidtest a web-page that is designed to see if a browser conforms to the Web Standards Project HTML/XHTML definitions

Is there a RTFL icon? The page you link to gives 93/100 for FF3.5

For me, it's noticeably faster in use than 3.0.whatever , certainly on Javascript-heavy pages. I had a bit of reinstallation fun to get Google Toolbar working, but it's fine now. I don't use any odd extensions, and I haven't really played with the Chrome-like tab throwing. Seems to start up faster, and run a bit lighter. It's fast and good enough that I won't bother switching to Opera/Chrome for now.

[slackline]

No I mean how does it perform in the acidtest a web-page that is designed to see if a browser conforms to the Web Standards Project HTML/XHTML definitions

Is there a RTFL icon? The page you link to gives 93/100 for FF3.5

  I should have let myself google that for myself.