Back in the OS 8/9 days, there was the wonderful Claris Homepage, but it's not been updated. Golive is not being updated and it is not stable, and Dreamweaver is big/complex. (So far as I know, I have not used it much. I wonder if I should look at it.) (Update: I've decided I may need to know this anyway, so I've ordered the student edition as well as Dreamweaver CS4: The Missing Manual.)
I like Pagespinner, but it's not actually WYSIWYG.
I don't want an app which is designed for easily making fancy pages and which hides all the code, or makes complex code. I want it to be transparent, and I tend to make very simple, text-based pages.
Update: though it's a word processor, thanks to Alex for mentioning Mellel. It seems to be a very appealing app with a great interface, and I've acquired it. And thanks to Mike for mentioning this list of free web apps.
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Note: I've critized Adobe quite a lot, but I want to commend them for simplifying their application icons to simple colored squares with an abbreviation of the app's name. It makes it much simpler to spot the icon in the doc than trying to remember if Photoshop is an eye, a butterfly, a feather or what. (I still use Golive 6, which has a dull stylized globe as an icon, and it always takes me ages to find it in the dock (fortunately I use keyboard shortcuts most of the time).)
I'm very happy with Mellel.
ReplyDeleteSeems to be more of a Word Processor, but I must say it seems very appealing in many ways.
ReplyDeleteYou could check out this link, most of the leg work is already done:
ReplyDeletehttp://webdesign.about.com/od/macintoshhtmleditors/tp/free-macintosh-editors.htm
Thanks, Mike.
ReplyDeleteAlex, Mellel seems great, I like the full screen view for example, I think I'll get it, thanks.
Adobe Contribute is reasonably priced. You actually edit the web pages inside a browser. Can't get much more WYSIWYG than that.
ReplyDeleteI think Seamonkey is pretty good for free.
... though it's a word processor, thanks to Alex for mentioning Mellel. It seems to be a very appealing app with a great interface, and I've acquired it.
ReplyDeleteWhen I recommended Mellel to you on May 5th, 2007, you said that you were very happy with Mellel's direct competitor, Nisus Writer Express. I'm curious, did Nisus not live up to your expectations? There is a lot of Mellel vs. Nisus talk on the Mellel forums. It is interesting to note that you too have now switched.
I think you caught me here. I'm not sure, but it's possible that I was more enamoured with the *promise* and the *intensions* of Nisus than with the actual app, which I'll admit I had not used all that fucking much yet. Mellel seems to be clearer to use, very intuitive at first try, and for example the full screen view is totally clean.
ReplyDeleteI think the most popular web editor for the Mac is Coda. Some people also speak highly of Sandvox, by Karelia Software.
ReplyDeleteMyself, I just use a text editor.
Thanks, yes at first glance both look promising.
ReplyDeleteFor wysiwyg web editing, I usually just either use iWeb or Rapidweaver, but have been tempted a number of times by the more expensive, but also more full featured Freeway, that even have a christimas promotion at the moment:
ReplyDeleteFreeway holiday sale
for handwriting web pages, I use BBEdit or Espresso.
I like Pagespinner, but it's not actually WYSIWYG.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure what you mean by WYSIWYG. But usually when people use this term they are referring to the ability to “finger paint”, i.e. adjust font and paragraph attributes as they type. That approach, unfortunately, is completely orthogonal to the idea of HTML and results in quirky, slow loading and unmaintainable websites.
The very fundamental, over encompassing and core idea in HTML is the separation of structure and visual style as far apart as possible. This means that they are maintained in separate physical files (.html + .css), usually using dedicated tools, and (in big projects) by different people.
In fact, as I'll mention below, what you really want to achieve is a three way separation of 1) content, 2) structure, and 3) style.
Given this, I don't even understand what a “WYSIWYG web editor” can achieve, if not harm. HTML is inherently a WYSIWYM medium, not WYSIWYG.
Yes, it is possible to bundle the tool with which you bang your prose and the tool used to design a CSS stylesheet into the same executable, but it is questionable what benefit that brings you. It is like building a freezer and a microwave oven in the same chassis, for they too kind of relate to each other: you take stuff off from the freezer and place it into the microwave. But what if you'd prefer a Miele microwave and a Siemens freezer?
Another aspect of this is that any kind of end-user “app” for maintaining websites is really only suitable for websites comprising a few pages. They are essentially meant for mom-and-pops who desire an electronic brochure of their B&B or whatever.
When you have 10s, 100s or 1000s of pages worth of content, the bigger question is not the visual layout of your site, for during the lifetime of your business that will probably change many times, but rather the management of your content. Putting your precious content under the management of something like Dreamviewer is a thought so scary that I better not even think about it, lest I'll have nightmares tomorrow.
Finally, if all one needs is a 2–5 page electronic brochure type of site, why use any “app” for that? Why not just use something like weebly.com? Even if that service later goes out of business, transferring a few pages to another similar service is no big deal (provided you used your own domain name, which you should do anyway).
Bottom line: What on earth are these “web editors” even meant for? To me, it seems their only raison d'être is to satisfy the demand caused by those people who are stuck in the 1980s and have learned to think that documents are created with word processors, but documents for the web (for some reason they don't quite understand) need a different kind of word processor than the one they use for paper.
Adobe et al. have discovered that educating these “users” is a hopeless endeavor, so instead they just take their money.
I can't edit my pages looking at all that code. Some people (who are good prospect for coders) can hold all that complexity in their head, some can't.
ReplyDeleteI didn't say anything about “editing code”.
ReplyDeleteDo you edit code when you post entries to this blog? How about when you publish content for Amazon (i.e. review a book/DVD)? Perhaps you've even contributed to a Wikipedia article without editing (much) code?
And yet you are not using Dreamweaver or GoLive for any of those tasks either. How can that be? :-)
No, I said "looking at all that code".
ReplyDeleteWhen I look at a html page, I either have to look at it wysiwig, or I have to look at the code. Is there a third option I have overlooked?
No, I said "looking at all that code".
ReplyDeleteDo you look at code when you publish content on, for example, the services mentioned above? I don't.
Is there a third option I have overlooked?
Yes there is. Let's take a hypothetical example ...
A guy is a photographer who wants to publish his photos on the web. Now, he could use Dreamweaver to painstakingly create pages for his thumbnail galleries and individually link to each image in various sizes, maybe create alternative views based on themes or keywords, etc.
But, it just happens that years ago when people first started doing this they soon felt exhausted after all the manual work. So, they thought there must be an easier way! And thus the software genre known as "photo gallery" was born.
Now, over a decade later there are hundreds of such packages to chose from. For the most popular ones, such as Coppermine and Exhibition Engine there are even companies that maintain and host the thing for you.
Similarly, for other types of needs. For example, a group of people want to maintain information on some subject of interest of theirs. It just happens that Mediawiki, the very software package that runs Wikipedia, is available for free as a hosted solution for you to create your own paedia on. From several competing companies even.
And these were just two specific examples. For other types of publishing needs there are countless other packages and services.
But what if none of the thousands of readily available solutions fit your needs? Let's say, as a completely hypothetical example again, that you are a famous Porn King with over a decade of experience in purveying porn to the masses. Based on your experience you know exactly how a content management system for this special field should function, with facilities for photographers to log in and upload photos directly to the system etc. so that the Porn King need not do anything but sit back and watch the money pour in. In this system, the only code the Porn King needeth to look at is the PIN code of his bank account.
Well, it just happens that there are approximately a zillion programmers reachable through Elance, tapping their fingers on the table waiting for a cool programming job involving nekkid ladies. An assignment for which they are quite willing to compete against each other and ultimately take on for a very modest fee.
So, yes, I think it is fare to say that there is a third option.
Good points.
ReplyDeleteThough I think that the theoretical Elance should look at the appeal of Editing as differentiating the site from the big porn sites out there which put quantity way above quality.
I understand. This is specifically why professionals create/commission their own tools.
ReplyDeleteOMG! Claris Homepage was the ONE reason I kept my G4 for this long. I just replaced it with a Mac Pro and I'm still looking for a good wysiwyg html editor.
ReplyDeleteI don't understand why Apple abandon this piece of software.
I don't understand why Apple abandon this piece of software.
ReplyDeleteA complete rewrite would have been necessary to make it address today's needs and standards. Which Apple kind of did, in iWeb.
iWeb is generally considered lacking many important features, but Wikipedia lists five 3rd party applications that extend its functionality.
Check out KompoZer
ReplyDeleteThank you very much.
ReplyDelete