People who play with websites...?

[byslantedlight]

So... having a lovely shiny new laptop, and having my files and photos etc safely stored and moved across, the next thing I have to do is re-download the various programmes I've been using. That's fine, except for the programme I use for my palelyloitering website, which was a very old and naughty version of DreamWeaver... Really I needed to deal with the fact that some aspects of it weren't functional any more, so this is perhaps a good kick for doing that, but... waaah - I can't afford to buy a shiny new version of DreamWeaver at all! Which brings me to my question... *g*

Does anyone use a DreamWeaver equivalent for organising and uploading and all their website? One that's nice and free and user-friendly? I do want to be able to access the code and so on, so that I can see what it's doing when I need to, but I liked being able to write pages without the code too (is that called the WYSIWYG function?) I've googled and found things like Aptana and KompoZer and BlueGriffon - two of those seem to me Firefox-oriented, which I don't use by choice, and the other doesn't have WYSIWYG, but perhaps the former shouldn't matter? Anyway - if anyone's got any suggestions, they'd be greatly appreciated, cos I'm slow enough at getting the poor old website updated and all as it is... (I wish I was clever enough to be able to make it searchable, too, but I think that's an entirely different thing, from poking around about it a year or so ago...)

Help? *g*

Comments

[andreathelion.livejournal.com]

Hmm, what do you mean with firefox oriented ?
I mainly use Phase 5, but this is only available in german :(
In the beginning I also used Kompozer for a while, which wasn't too bad as far as I remember.
That's the only programs I know about and work(ed) with ...

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

Rats for your programme being in German!

I dunno exactly what I mean by Firefox oriented, only that the reviewer made a big deal of them being designed by the Mozilla/Firefox guys, which makes me think that they're probably primarily for that platform and might be more likely to have glitches when dealing with Chrome or IE or whatever? Dunno...

My trouble is that I'm really only used to Dreamweaver, so anything's going to take getting used to... Thanks for letting me know about Komposer though - Not too bad is a start! *g*

[moonlightmead.livejournal.com]

the reviewer made a big deal of them being designed by the Mozilla/Firefox guys, which makes me think that they're probably primarily for that platform and might be more likely to have glitches when dealing with Chrome or IE or whatever?

Very often reviewers mention Firefox specifically, because for those of us who don't use Windows, that's what we ask about! "Does it produce pages I can view on Linux... or on Macs... or on (whatever)?" Reviewers hate this! But Firefox will run on all of those as well as on Windows. So by saying "results work well on Firefox", they answer all of the non-Windows users at once.

There's also the implication that if it comes from Mozilla/Firefox people, the HTML it makes ought to be valid and to conform to web standards. Mozilla certainly used to go on about that a lot. I presume they still do.

I am afraid I have never seen Dreamweaver in action, so I can't offer sensible suggestions to replace it.

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

Ah, interesting about Firefox/non-Windows etc - so it shouldn't mean a focus on, it's being used to provide extra information in a roundabout way that only real techies understand... Thanks!

[snailbones.livejournal.com]

I haven't done this stuff for over a year now - so I'm one with the dinosaurs *g*

I've always used Dreamweaver, except when somebody else set up a web site for the guy I was working for - it was supposed to be for his hobby, but I often was the one to update it. It was accessed using http://www.cmsmadesimple.org/ and I found it really lovely and easy to use. Not sure at all if that's of any help though, but I thought I'd chuck it in and see if anyone else has any bright ideas!

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

Slowly getting around to looking up the various pros and cons of the suggestions... *g*

CMS looks interesting, and I really like the idea that it has a search facility, but I'm a bit nervous about the fact that things come via modules, and I'd have to work out what that was all about... oh, and they're third-party modules, and you have to go through pages of suppliers to find them... DW was so very beautifully everything there that I need!

Thanks!

[snailbones.livejournal.com]

I'm busy looking at the other suggestions too - it's always handy to know what's out there!

[sc-fossil.livejournal.com]

I used KompoZer for years when I had my website since it supports Linux. I didn't write code. It was a type in the block format. I haven't used it for three or four years now but when I did, I remember it was fairly uncomplicated. All of them always need some tweaking.

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

I'm leaning slightly towards Kompozer now actually, though more because I have to rule out other suggestions as sounding a bit too complicated for right now...

...and in fact since I typed that I've actually downloaded it. Now if only I could remember my host's name and niggling things like passwords, I could get going with it... *sighs*

[jack-regan.livejournal.com]

I've always found http://www.coffeecup.com/software/ to be most excellent on the windows side.

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

Looking into all this ve-ery slowly... *g*

Coffee Cup looks cool, and although it's not free it's not too expensive... except that I'd have to pay separately for ftp transfer software, by the looks, which makes it more than I want to spend again... Maybe when I'm rich...