looking for wysiwyg editor- appleworks preferred

[jkaz]

Hi, I've been trying various methods of web editing today and in the last week. So far I've tried the web page function in word for mac and the demo version of Dreamweaver.

So far, I must say i'm not terribly impressed. There is no real sense of control or creation that can compare to making a drawing in AppleWorks.

Text manipulation, drag/drop placement, resizing, layers: none of these have i been able to find. Instead all I can find is simply text and image insert to locked locations with no offer of fluid drag/drop and place.


Ideally, I would create the entire webpage in AppleWorks then save it as an html document, perhaps to a folder where the rest of the pages images would also be stored.


I have no other way to describe that what I'm trying to achieve other than the previously stated.

I am certainly no expert in this field, but feel I have the aptitude and just need a nudge in the right direction.

Any help appreciated,

Thanks,

jeff

 

[CanadaRAM]

Ummm, thats not how HTML works, unfortunately.

You don't have unlimited placement control, text manipulation, drawing tools or other such available to you in HTML. Any program that would offer it would then have to try and construct legal HTML code to reproduce what you had done onscreen. One way to do that is to simply render the page as a graphic, but then that defeats the purpose of a Web page, mainly.

You might try Adobe GoLive, it had IIRC an attempt at drag and drop creation, whereupon it would generate an un%^$ly complex table structure to try and render that as HTML. It was the buggiest program I ever used on my Mac (no, I lie, Hemera Image Browser is) and I abandoned it for Dreamweaver.

At any rate, expecting a drag and drop experience in web page design without understanding the fundamentals of HTML at least, is likely doomed to failure.

 

[jkaz]

thank you for your response.

i was afraid of that being the answer.

it defies any ability i have to rationalize the notion that the code used to render webpages today has not yet caught up to what's simple, basic and natural.

at any rate, do you have a recomendation for an editor that keeps simplicity and price in balance for someone who has little desire to do more than make a drawing in appleworks as a webpage?

thanks

 

[xoreu]

The power to fully customize your pages' layout comes with CSS. There are lots of very interesting things you could do with it that would probably match your desires, but you need to be reasonably knowledgeable and experienced with it to produce anything worthwhile. Likewise, I know of no software that will be able to do that for you, in a GUI.

If you're looking for HTML editors, I'd try Nvu and Taco Edit, which, aside from Dreamweaver, seem to be the most recommended HTML editors. They'll do almost none of the formatting you seem to be looking for, but neither do their more advanced counterparts. Mainly, they're free, so there's no risk in trying them.

I haven't had the opportunity to use it, but I'm curious whether iWeb would satisfy you. Judging by the tutorial provided on Apple's site, it does exactly what you want. Granted, you use Apple's templates, but everything else is good, and you don't need to mess with code.