Website Design Programs / Editors

[Sue_B]

Does anyone use a website design program / editor to create their sites? I'm currently coding by hand (which is slow... amongst other things)

There are numerous programs - FrontPage, Dreamweaver, even SiteBuildIt.

It would be great to find one that allowed you to edit your layout or menus once and the change would happen throughout the entire site.

I've heard that xsitepro.com is supposed to be good. Has anyone tried it?

Suggestions?

Sue

[virajw]

[asr_guy]

NetObjects Fusion isn't bad. They just came out with a version 9. One feature I really like is that you can see your website in a tree hierarchy. If you move a page over to another branch, all the affected menus are updated automatically.

Cheers,
Peter

[Mattie]

Dreamweaver is an expensive purchase for someone starting out.

I use:
Sothink HTML Editor is FREEWARE.

Web Site: http://www.sothink.com

Tel: +86(27)87561172
Email: support@sothink.com
Add: Suite 311, 7-4 IBI building, Guandong Science
Park, Guanshan 2nd Road, Wuhan, China 430074

Another simple editor is Mozilla available from the Foxfire site this, again, is free.

Hope this help you out. These are good simple programs to learn, not a whole bunch of bells and whistles but get the job done.

Mattie

* * * * * * * * * *

[Mattie]

Here's a replacement program

Bill Klein - <bill@orbit.org>
7907 Wavell Rd.
Cote St. Luc
Quebec, Canada
H4W-1M1

http://www.orbit.org/replace/

How much does it cost?

ReplaceEm is 100% free, no strings attached! We ask that you bookmark our website www.fitsoftware.com and think of us when you need quality software development work done.


When specifying which files to be included in a particular replace operation, you can add one file at a time, or you can tell ReplaceEm to use all the files from a particular folder -- or the files from that folder that match a given file filter (such as *.txt or *.html). You can even specify to include all files that don't match a particular filter. Additionally, you can decide to include the files from all subfolders of that folder. . . .
More quote from the site. . .

There are a great many things you can do with ReplaceEm to improve your productivity. Personally, I wrote the program because, although there were many search-replace programs available, they were either too much of a hassle to use (requiring one to learn an entire scripting language just to do some search-replace operations), or weren’t powerful or flexible enough to do what I wanted. This entire web site is maintained across its primary site and its mirrors using ReplaceEm (see the help file for an explanation of how this is done). Still, there are some features which would be desirable to have but which are not yet in place in the current version. If you have any suggestions, don't be afraid to let us know.


Now folks, let's get out there and make some money!

[Patty_Gale]

Hi Sue,

XsitePro is the software that I use to create all of my websites and will make the global changes that you are looking for.

It is a very powerful, yet simple program to use. It has a main page layout section where you can setup your template, style, colors, etc. and then the software will automatically make those changes globally throughout your site.

So, if you decide to change the text or color of the footer (for example), you only have to make that change one time in the Page Layout area, and XsitePro will make that change automatically throughout the rest of your pages for you.

I used to use Frontpage and then found XsitePro last spring and I do not use anything else now. You can see a full review of the software on my site here:

http://www.CommuteInYourJammies.com/xsitepro-review.htm

If you have any questions at all about it, I'd be happy to help.


Patty

[Rosalind Gardner]

Hello Sue,

I recommend that you go for a program which in the long run has the most features and flexibility for your buck.

Dreamweaver/Homesite will probably always be my first choice in that regard, with XSitePro coming in a close second for those who don't want to spend a lot of time learning HTML.

That said, for a really lost cost HTML editor that does globals, and is quite close to Homesite in functionality, check out Coffee Cup's HTML editor. I use it on my VAIO, and it's a fabulous little editor for only $49.00.

Check out Coffee Cup here.

As for Mozilla, I wasn't able to find a global replace feature... but certainly could have overlooked it. Does anyone know if Mozilla has that feature?

Cheers,
Ros

[its_me_shaners]

WOW holy KARMA batman !!
I just updated my blog on this exact topic. Hahahahah the stars must be in alignment !!!

Funny though 'cause for our family business, (mechanical contracting firm) we had a client set up our site, using flash, very nice job (gotta love bartering) But then I realized something I dont know the first thing about flash. I couldnt add stuff to it, you know photo shots of projects and the likes even adding text content. SO..... I had him redo it in fp 2003 which i have on my 'puter. Which was ok but the tables were out of whack, (nothing I did HONESTLY) SO he recommened Xsite pro. Ok Im not a genius Im a blue collar guy and I like things that work and dont need hours of fussing about with. Heck I do that with 8 hrs of my day as it is. I just want to click off some shots on the job come home and post them , or add some content and click whammo eh badda bing DONE. So for me its the way to go. I'm not concerened about SEO on this site but there are tools for it.
SO yeah thats my lil blurb on that. !!!

[wthomas]

I bought, used it and love it. I also own FrontPage and Dreamweaver but prefer xsite pro

[Val]

Sue: There is a fantastic free program called <a href="http://www.nvu.com">NVU.</a> It works like a charm on both PC's and Macs. Even has a CSS editor built in. Easy learning curve, to boot.

Here's a review from Gizmo's Top Picks:

Review taken from here: http://www.techsupportalert.com/best_46_free_utilities.htm

Best Free HTML Editor Updated January 16, 2006

This is one of my most requested items but up until now I've not been able to give any product my hearty endorsement. There have been any number of contenders: Amaya for example, impressed with its standards compliance but was incomplete while Selida looked slick but had too many bugs.

Finally a worthy contender has arrived on the scene in the form of the Open Source Nvu.

In reality Nvu is nothing new but rather a reworking of the old Netscape Composer. Composer was always a solid product and the revamp has lifted the product into another class. Here is an HTML editor and site manager that's easy enough for beginners to use but powerful enough to build large sites.

It's closer in concept to Microsoft's FrontPage more than any other product but unlike FrontPage it, thankfully, produces standards compliant code.

Its easy-to-use WYSIWYG editor will delight HTML newbies while HTML honchos can simply click a tab to switch to code view. Multiple tabs can be kept open to allow simultaneous editing and there is excellent support for forms, tables and templates. An internal spell-checker is included.

CSS is handled through the CaScadeS editor from Mozilla Composer. Nvu also has the handy ability to call W3C's HTML validator from within the product. It's also extensible via XUL.

Nvu can upload files to your site via FTP and has some basic site management features but this is not its strength. Indeed the FTP side of the program has proved so problematic for some users that they have switched to using an external FTP client for uploading their sites.

Overall it's an impressive product; no, it's not a replacement for commercial products like DreamWeaver but those looking for a competent, free HTML editor that's easy to use need look no further. Free Open Source, Windows 98 and later plus Linux, 6.57MB

http://www.nvu.com/

[BuildAWebsiteTonight]

NVU Editor sounds great - I'll check that out as well.

Sue, my http://www.BuildAWebsiteTonight.com service isn't free, but it will do what you're asking, and more, especially if you're not ready for the cost of Dreamweaver or grappling with html or templates.

Feel free to send me a private message if you have any questions, and have a look at the link for *Featured Sites* to see what other non-techie people have been able to achieve.

Make sure you have your list of "must haves" and "would like" features, and thoroughly investigate everything before spending any $$. Ask lots of questions. Visit forums which discuss your topic - it's a great way to learn what works well for many people.

Have a gorgeous day!
Cheers
Teena

[falconbt]

I was in Website Design Programs and I came accross enquiry from Sue_b. There was a message from wthomas in which he stated that he switched to xsitepro. We have been reading all about it and are very interested in which route we should take. We might add that we also have FrontPage. My question is:- "What did you purchase?" Did you get the software ($197.00), the 14pack web sites($49.99) or the individual websites($8.99) to create your website? At the present time we are undecided and would appreciate a litte more detail.

[boysbach]

I'm another xsitepro user and I love it. I bought the software and it has been worth every cent charged. I designed my site soley off it and my husbands site I did the template and he uses that in Frontpage to edit and amend his site.

I also bought some templates at a later date from a UK company and they were more to give me some ideas of what to do, I will use them and amend them.

Bev

[falconbt]

Hi Bev
Thank you very much for your input. We will think about this over the weekend and make a decision as to which way to go.
MaeT

[boysbach]

Not sure where you looked for templates but I would recommend taking a look at www.xsiteprotemplates4u.com they have adsense websites from $39.99 they have individual subjects, they will design the template for you etc.
Bev