Easy, Cheap, Functional HTML Creator

[reaper]

Okay,

So I know a little about coding HTML but am in school right now and want an easier, cheap way to make web pages. I have been looking into Contribute 3 with the .Mac discount ($99) and was wondering what people thought of it compared to Dreamweaver.

I am not going to do anything complex, but rather than just writing the code as I have done in the past I would really enjoy the added benefits of a WYSIWYG editor (although I may want to dive into the code now and again, which I don't think can be done with Contribute, right?). Anyone have some advice?

- reaper

[ChicoWeb]

I'm not a huge fan of contribute. Contribute is more for editing or maintaining a website, but not creating one. Its almost a duplicate of dreamweaver, but like I said I would start off on a different program if I were you. Dreamweaver is a great wysiwyg editor, frontpage is kinda weak in my opionion but some still use it. :)

[Archaeopteryx]

ive used almost every web page editing software made for PC and Mac, IMO Dreamweaver is by far the best of the WYSIWYG's

[bubbamac]

Try PageSpinner. It's about $30 or so. Probably not as good as one of the high-dollar apps, but works for me.


http://www.optima-system.com/pagespinner/

[RacerX]

I am not going to do anything complex, but rather than just writing the code as I have done in the past I would really enjoy the added benefits of a WYSIWYG editor (although I may want to dive into the code now and again, which I don't think can be done with Contribute, right?).

Currently I split my WYSIWYG page creation between Adobe GoLive and Stone Design's Create (http://www.stone.com/Create/Create.html), with some elements starting out from ImageReady and most of my hand coding and hand editing being done in the source editor in OmniWeb.

The benefit of Create is that it also does page layout and illustrations (which is why I don't have a need for Illustrator or InDesign on my system). By itself it is $150.00 (I also got PStill (http://www.stone.com/PStill/PStill.html) as I didn't want to pay for the downgrade from Acrobat 5 to Acrobat 6 Standard just to get Distiller).

[iLikeMyiMac]

Try HyperEdit (http://www.tumultco.com/HyperEdit/)
I first heard about it when I read about it in the latest issue of macworld. downloaded it today and played around with it a little bit.
It's a free trial but after 10 runs a nag screen starts appearing to get you to buy the program for $20.

[reaper]

Awesome, thanks for the input. I have one more quick question. When I make my site I am going to want to do a little image editing and make some banners and the like. I can get the entire MX Studio 2004 from my school for $289 or just Dreamweaver for $99. Would you all recommend trying to get photoshop elements or something in addition to Dreamweaver and do that, or should I save up for the studio, or is there another cheaper way of doing the image stuff without having to fork over even more money? Thanks.

- reaper

[iLikeMyiMac]

Awesome, thanks for the input. I have one more quick question. When I make my site I am going to want to do a little image editing and make some banners and the like. I can get the entire MX Studio 2004 from my school for $289 or just Dreamweaver for $99. Would you all recommend trying to get photoshop elements or something in addition to Dreamweaver and do that, or should I save up for the studio, or is there another cheaper way of doing the image stuff without having to fork over even more money? Thanks.

- reaper

Since its just a little image editing then you could probablly get by with PS: Elements but you may want to give gimp (http://www.gimp.org/macintosh/) a try because it's free.

[wormed]

I use BBEdit. It's not a wysiwyger though but it's pretty cheap.