Best HTML Application?

If you must use a WYSIWYG, I suggest Adobe Dreamweaver.

The best choice for websites is to code by hand.

For something simple as that..I know docs.google.com can export to HTML files.

MS Word can export documents as webpages, right? (Never used it, but I hear it does)

Try Nvu. It should be light enough for you.

No, not NVU... Kompozer. As NVU says, it hasn't been worked on since 2005 but Kompozer's up and running with a fairly good support forum as well.

http://www.kompozer.net/

The best choice for websites is to code by hand.

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For pete's sake, why?

I'm no real web designer, but I would have thought something as sophisticated as Dreamweaver would be able to code well. I'm an idealist, and just assumed and hoped that it WOULD... after seeing the mess Golive made of one of my last websites. (Someone here nearly crapped their pants when I asked for some help and they were forced to look at my code. Eeeewwww!)

I could type < a href="url address" > name < /a > OR I could just click a button. That's why I love WYSIWIG. But you're saying it's not up to standard yet, and messes up the code?

Just because you're coding by hand doesn't mean you have to type every character. Programs like BBEdit and TextMate offer ways to speadily type up code. I very rarely ever need to type angle brackets for tags because of scripts and clippings I created for BBEdit.

So... is Dreamweaver better at coding than GoLive was? There seems to be some very advanced functions in DW... so does it still keep the code tidy?

The biggest reason is for standards compliant. Up until recently, most if not all WYSIWYG have been horrible at writing good HTML and CSS that was compliant with the standards. Although, the latest WYSIWYG editors from Microsoft and Adobe are great at standards compliance...but those tools can over complicate the code and theoretically making things slow. I like have 100% control over the code and know exactly what is going on. I've had bad experience with editors that seem to format things strangely and insert strange code when there really was no need for it.

You might give RapidWeaver a shot. It's not too expensive, had some nice templates, and is really easy to use.

CSSyWYSIWYG in Coda. Brilliant application, although i'm still using transmit as a seperate app

ppc_michael said:

MS Word can export documents as webpages, right? (Never used it, but I hear it does)

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no no no no no. you'll end up with the worse looking code you'd ever seen!

if you already have dreamweaver, just use that. for the simple, tedious tasks (like lists and paragraphs), it'll do the job perfectly and get the pages out much faster than if you were hand-coding (which would be easy, but inefficient.. if anyone suggests that hand-coding would the way to go with this, they're an elitist with poor time management.. I bet your bosses love that )

xfiftyfour said:

if anyone suggests that hand-coding would the way to go with this, they're an elitist with poor time management.. I bet your bosses love that )

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I don't think typing <li> before and </li> after each line uses a great deal of time, especially if you use find/replace to do it .

xfiftyfour said:

if anyone suggests that hand-coding would the way to go with this, they're an elitist with poor time management.. I bet your bosses love that )

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I use BBEdit, which lets me add tags without ever typing and < or > ever. TextMate has the same type of things. Just because you're hand coding doesn't mean you're typing ever character by hand. I can generally keep up with any WYSIWYG editor with all of the shortcuts that I have. I use AppleScripts and clippings within BBEdit. Just because you can't hand code quickly, doesn't mean others can't

Here are four really good choices.


1. Freeway 5 http://www.softpress.com/

This is the application that I started using and Yes it creates the code for you, all you have to do is design your pages. If you know Quark Xpress then you will pick this application up really quick. It is closer to iWeb on steroids. Where as dropping flash movies in iWeb is harder too do, Freeway will take flash and quicktime movies without any problems. It is very powerful and easy to use, no need to know CSS or HTML, a lot of actions you can add to the program.

The downside, if you know any of the web languages you will feel like your hands are tied because you can not edit the code directly, this might have changed in the new version, I started using version 3. You can insert code into the HTML pages through a window pane. Price is $250


2. Dreamweaver - http://www.adobe.com/products/dreamweaver/?ogn=EN_US-gntray_prod_dreamweaver_home

A lot more freedom, larger learning curve than Freeway. More freedom since you can edit the code directly. A lot of actions out there you can add too it.
Price is $399

3. Aptana - http://www.aptana.com/

This is what I am currently using. They have a open source version, the price is right. Very powerful if you can hand code.

I combine it with this http://www.macrabbit.com/cssedit/ cssedit to create a really powerful application.


4.Komodo Edit - http://www.activestate.com/Products/komodo_ide/komodo_edit.mhtml They have a open source version now.

I use this for quick edits.

Use Dreamweaver if you want crappy html to get rendered. Use BBEdit, Textamte, Smultron, to code your own clean website.