Re: Alternatives to Dreamweaver (was: Re: Wine)

[Matthew K Poer <matthewpoer@gmail.com>]

On Mon, 2007-03-19 at 13:22 -0400, Mitch Wiedemann wrote:
> Paul Johnson wrote:
> > Jorge Peixoto de Morais Neto wrote in Article
> > <[🔎] e628adfd0703180245o4ed9f289m4b2ad04dbf6f1aba@mail.gmail.com> posted to
> > gmane.linux.debian.user:
> >
> >   
> >> I friend of mine wants to run Dreamweaver, and I suggested wine. However
> >> he had some problems (which I don't remember, and my friend is not here
> >> right now). He runs Debian Unstable.
> >>     
> >
> > This friend knows that Dreamweaver does *not* produce web-suitable HTML,
> > right?  (If it doesn't pass http://validator.w3.org/, it's not
> > web-suitable).
> >
> > (And are you really his friend for not suggesting something better than
> > Dreamweaver?) 
> >   
> 
> Please suggest something that would fit the bill, rather than just
> saying "don't do that."
> 
> While I haven't used DW in many years (since I realized it has serious
> vendor lock-in issues), I recognize that there is a need for 'regular
> folks' to sometimes work on the Web.  Last time I checked, the GNU/Linux
> HTML editing/FTP programs were way off the mark for the 'regular
> folks'.  Have these programs gotten better over the past few years?

Two approches:
  1. For creating a single web page: Try AbiWord, with the Save As XHTML
feature. It tends to work well, render decently. It's fine for a quick
page. However,
  2. For creating an intricate web site, or a series of web pages, Learn
XHTML, CSS, and perhaps javascript. Code it from scratch in nano, Kate,
Gedit, whatever, because there is no WYSIWYG editor currently in
existence that does everything to quality. I.E. things do not render
currectly cross-platform or cross-browser, pieces of code do not
validate, or perhaps the sources are simply unorganized.
  3. If you simply *must* ignore 2, try NVU (which is based on the
original Mozilla Composer). You don't have my blessing.
-- 
Matthew K Poer