HTML Editors?

[Yachtzee]

I could use some advice from the web designers out there. I've been given the task of creating a web site for the law firm at which I am clerking. I haven't done a web site in over a year and a half, so I'm a little out of the loop. What are some of the better cheap-to-free HTML editors out there? Currently I'm just working on a few ideas using Notepad, but with my rusty skills, it's taking a lot longer than I'd like. My two major considerations are clean code and price (closer to free, the better). The firm is pretty thrifty, so I don't see them shelling out $1000 for Macromedia Studio or $400 for Dreamweaver. Thanks in advance for any advice.

Oh, and it preferably will have css support. (Is css still the preferred way to go, or has web design moved on to something new?)

[westofyou]

You can get a 30 day trial of anything these days, so if it's a short job I'd think about using a wysiwyg editor like DW, others that might work Home Site, Hot Dog are another 2 off the top of my head.

[ochre]

notepad still works.

[Johnny Footstool]

Some people here have mentioned that there are probably better options that just HTML. I can't remember what they were, though.

[ochre]

Look into something like mambo, or phpwebsite. They are open-source content management systems that you can set up and configure pretty easily. Most of the development work has already been done. Most of them use MySQL and PHP, so keep that in mind. I can throw a demo site up in a few minutes if you want me to. Just let me know the law firm's name and I will show you what can be done.

[TRF]

Agree with ochre, especially about phpwebsite. It's easily deployed, and organizes the site based on content. The software is free and the phpwebsite community provides a large number of third party modules like business contact listings, wysiwyg editing, a bulletin board, and even a module that allows content to be displayed on a cell phone.

I highly recommend it.

[smith288]

Im a big fan of Visual Web Developer 2005 (http://lab.msdn.microsoft.com/express/vwd/default.aspx) by Microsoft.

Its in beta stage but free. It has very nice autocomplete (will display a dropdown of possible attitbutes for the tag/code you entered for ease of use) for HTML and javascript and even has a built in CSS editor. It can autocomplete for asp classic as well as asp.net. Obviously there is no php or perl autocomplete but thats sorta expected with a MS product.

The bad thing is
A) Its Microsoft (i know, i know...its still a great piece of software, though)
B) You need to insall the dotnet framework which takes a large amount of space...

Im a serious web developer though so I need these things but for a casual developer, might also serve a purpose.

[KronoRed]

http://www.nvu.com/

It's free :D

[captainmorgan07]

i've worked with dreamweaver i kno it's expnesive but it's very easy to learn and good

[Yachtzee]

Thanks for the advice. I tried the online demo for phpwebsite. I've used Movable Type for managing a weblog, and it seems similar. I think it might be the way to go once I get approval to get a site up and running. For now I'm just prototyping. I think I might go with woy's suggestion of using DW or HomeSite on a 30 day trial just to get a basic prototype together to show the partners, then once I get the go-ahead to find a host, I'll look into phpwebsite. It definitely looks like it cuts down on a lot of the overhead of site maintenance.

Here's a question...how easy is it to throw in your own custom themes? I didn't see it while I was playing around with the online demo, but do they have a module out there for creating and modifying themes?

[ochre]

Thanks for the advice. I tried the online demo for phpwebsite. I've used Movable Type for managing a weblog, and it seems similar. I think it might be the way to go once I get approval to get a site up and running. For now I'm just prototyping. I think I might go with woy's suggestion of using DW or HomeSite on a 30 day trial just to get a basic prototype together to show the partners, then once I get the go-ahead to find a host, I'll look into phpwebsite. It definitely looks like it cuts down on a lot of the overhead of site maintenance.

Here's a question...how easy is it to throw in your own custom themes? I didn't see it while I was playing around with the online demo, but do they have a module out there for creating and modifying themes?
mambo's dead easy. Too easy almost.

[ochre]

Just set this up for you to see:
http://suncircle.org/yachtzee

I'll throw you an admin account on that site if you want to poke around.

[Yachtzee]

Just set this up for you to see:
http://suncircle.org/yachtzee

I'll throw you an admin account on that site if you want to poke around.


Thanks! I really appreciate the help.

[pedro]

Mambo looks really nice, too bad it's not SSL compatible or it might be good for an ecommerce site I'm working on.