Best free webpage design program?

[Kemper]

I personally use Dreamweaver but I have a friends who can't afford or doesn't want to spend money on a program. Since I've never even looked for a free program, I was wondering if anyone has experience with a good one? I know Bluehost has its own editor, but I was wondering if there's something out there that's really good... but free!

Thanks...

[scottcrew]

You can find a bunch of them by doing a search in the internet using the search words, "free WYSIWYG editor".
Once that I found is Nvu... Never used it (I'm a die-hard HTML coder) but looks interesting:
http://nvu.com/

HTH!

[nine]

Notepad baby, notepad! Keep it real! haha :)

[scottcrew]

Ah-ha!! Another purist!!!!
:D

[WebJDC]

If i remember correctly Netscape has one built in, that works decently.
Not sure how advanced it is, its been YEARS sence i have used it.

[Kemper]

^^^ lol... I think Netscape's was the first wysiwyg editor I ever used.

Any other recommendations would be helpful. I'll check out the aforementioned link. ty

[WebJDC]

The netscape one, you could make some pretty presentable pages, i dont know if its been updated at all in the past few years or not though.

[solarnexus]

Notepad++ (http://notepad-plus.sourceforge.net/uk/site.htm) is king; not only is it free AND open source, but its better than the rest too.

I use it for everything, I have dreamweaver installed but havent needed it for at least a year and a half. Once you do it by hand, you'll never go back to the bloated dreamweavers of this world.

[whiteknite]

NotePad is a really good way to build a website, if you have the time for all the typing needed to go that way. I always have trouble with pictures when I use notepad. I don't know what I'm doing wrong; but they never show up on the web page. All that shows up is an empty box with a small x in the corner.

If someone can tell me what I'm doing wrong & how to do it right, i would appreciate it. thank you

[whiteknite]

I use Front Page to build the website I have hosted with Bluehost. I would have liked to have built it from scratch using Notepad, but like I said, I cannot seem to get pictures to show using notepad. That's why I used Front page for my site: Happy Dancing eyes. (http://www.happydancingeyes.com)com

I want to learn and am studying so I don't have to rely on WYSIWYG software
and my sites will look more professional. Any advice is greatly appreciated.
Thank you in advance.

Terry

[Maggilove]

When I was creating my first website, I became frustrated by the limitations of the sitebuilder, and by the superfluous code it was inserting that was messing up my pages... so I binned the lot and wrote the site from scratch in notepad. It is absolutely the best way to learn html.

Nowadays I have an html editor (the excellent free Arachnophilia), but old habits die hard... I use it mainly for line checking and code beautification, and still write my pages longhand... :p

If you post a sample of your code, maybe one of us can tell you why your pictures don't show... :)

[vegasgwm]

There are pros and cons to everything.
I agree with Nine that handcoding (notepad) is good, but thats not for everyone, specially if you're making lots of typing errors like me, or if you don't code well like many.
On the other hand GUI's are easy for a novice but a very bad idea to learn programming and designing well. Plus like Maggilove said, GUI's, (even the overprized dreamweaver is a piece of junk, to me) when you look at the code afterwards. A total mess!
Soooooooo, ... I prefer a good html editor, that lets you preview while you work, I use htmlEDitor and HTML-Kit. Ofcourse that requires you to know html coding, which you should learn anyway.
But websites is not just html, so i also use CrimsonEditor for php coding and such. I haven't use Notepad++, yet, but It looks great, i'll download it today.

[scottcrew]

Terry,
Images work if you've coded it right and the image is in the place on the server that is specified in your code....

The image tag will look something like:
<img src="urlToImage/myimage.jpg">

HTH!

[bruphoto]

I use EditPad. The tabbed interface allows me to have my CSS-files and other script files just a click of a tab away :)

http://www.bruphoto.com/pics/mysig.png

[redsox9]

I know that the question has been asked before so I will give my standard reply. Even after doing this for ten-plus years I still prefer using NoteTab Light (http://www.notetab.com/), which is at version 4.95 at the moment. Though it's a text editor it allows you to click on a icon to pull up the page in your browser of choice (FireFox, IE, etc.) to check out your code. Also, especially if you are doing HTML, I would recommend learning basic HTML so that you have an understanding of how it works; it's likely the simplest code form out there.

FYI, I just switched to a PHP-based site but I still went with NTL to pull together the pages. Best of all - it's free! ;-)

[warbricktech]

crimson editor is the only way to go!
http://www.crimsoneditor.com

[Necron99]

crimson editor is the only way to go!
http://www.crimsoneditor.com

I just downloaded and installed Crimson Editor. Played around with it a bit. Came to the conclusion it doesn't really compare to PSPad (http://www.pspad.com)

Well, you know: One person's editor is another's ________ (insert derogatory phrase here). You go with what you like and are comfortable with.

Dave

[impactnoise]

There are a lot of great sounding programs posted here that I'll have to try out, but for the time being I have to second vegasgwm and suggest HTML-Kit (http://www.chami.com/html-kit/). I'm used it for several years and still find it very useful. It eliminates the "fun" of playing hide-and-seek with that single forgotten/missplaced period or backslash.

Sorry notepad :(

[grantgarvey]

I use pico editor (nano on bluehost servers). If I feel like some syntax highlighting I use Kate.

[rylord]

notepad2 or HTML-kit

http://www.flos-freeware.ch/notepad2.html
http://www.chami.com/html-kit/

[grantgarvey]

The image tag will look something like:
<img src="urlToImage/myimage.jpg">

Don't forget the alt tag!


<img src="http://www.example.com/image/somepicture.png" alt="Some Picture">

[adventist1962]

Try HTMLKIt http://www.chami.com/html-kit. It is a great editor and the tags are color coded. If you want a more advanced editor that works for HTML, PHP, and many other languages, use PHPDesigner 2006 www.mpsoftware.dk/phpdesigner.php. These are much easier than Notepad. If for no other reason, just the color coding of tags. Also PHP Designer has a bulit in debugger and you can see your output immediately by clicking on the "debug" button.

Hope this helps.

[nick106b]

Ok, so there are loads of you out there who can pour out HTML like a second language... but what about the rest of us poor mortals who ain't got a clue?

I've got Dreamweaver 8 and it confused the BZZZzt out of me, so I've done my sites in Frontpage. I'm happy with that, but all I hear about Frontpage is very negative stuff. Why is this?
Is there such a thing as "Web snobbery"?

[Necron99]

I'm happy with that, but all I hear about Frontpage is very negative stuff. Why is this?

Take a look at this:
http://www.oreillynet.com/onlamp/blog/2005/11/giving_frontpage_the_boot.html

and this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_FrontPage#Pros_and_Cons

for starters.

Dave

[johnnydough69]

I have played with nvu. Probably okay for light wysiswyg. For my own website I use Evrsoft's First Page 2006. It is an HTML editor that gets the job done well for me. It is free. Has a nag on startup. but hey if they are going to let me use it free, they are welcome to it.

http://www.evrsoft.com/

Have never been happy with the detritus that wysiswyg leaves in my code, so I don't use Front Page or others anymore.

Peace

[KnowProSE]

Seamonkey (http://www.mozilla.org/projects/seamonkey/), the evolution of Mozilla, has a WYSIWYG editor built in. Browser, email, WYSIWYG editor, IRC client rolled into one.

Same code base as FireFox, for now.

[Objective]

I found PHPWebsite just fine for a simple site that is essentially brochure-ware. If you are going to use it be sure to look into mod-rewrite modifications so it can be indexed (spidered) properly.

My example of this is Objective (link below)

Frontpage has kind of messy html but does index easily on search engines.
Example here is Exchange, link below.

I think you could also make a cool site with PHPBB but it would take some serious work.

[enrico]

Did you try using http://hapedit.free.fr/?LangId=EN Hapedit. Free software with html, php and asp autocompletion.
Enrico