Can anyone recommend to me what they consider to be the best inexpensive (or free) web-authoring software?
I am volunteering to assist a local not-for-profit group in redesigning their website, but I have a sort of snag. I use Dreamweaver MX for authoring, and at some point this site needs to be able to be turned over to someone else with the group, and at the very least I will be sharing the workload with another person in the group.
This introduces two problems: A) They would need to buy a copy of Dreamweaver, and B) I would need to upgrade my Dreamweaver studio for about $400 to keep pace with the current version they would buy (MX 2004).
This seems unrealistic to me, so I am wondering if anyone has any suggestions for inexpensive tools that are still good for collaborating.
I am asking in other circles as well (read: I am aware this is a photography site) but I know there are some very technical people here that are familiar with web authoring, so why not ask one of my favorite communities ;)
So, if anyone has any recommendations or suggestions, I am all ears. Thanks!
Shameless plug: Acuity CMS. This was created as a simple web based page editor. We sell a lot to not for profit groups including church groups and non-government organistations. It's a much cheaper alternative than buying Dreamweaver or Frontpage. PM me if you want any more info or just visit the site :)
For a non-profit (a.k.a. largely volunteer) it needs to be simple, too. While not free, FrontPage is simple and less costly than Dreamweaver. And it has workflow built in so more than one person can share the work.
For a non-profit (a.k.a. largely volunteer) it needs to be simple, too. While not free, FrontPage is simple and less costly than Dreamweaver. And it has workflow built in so more than one person can share the work.
Front Page creates the most godawful amount of extraneous crap in web pages...
I have seen results from Front Page that could have been done with less then a half the amount of code with straight WC3 Compliant HTML/DHTML hand-written code.
Sure, it half the amount of code might not mean much to you sitting at your desk, but when you are on dial-up that half the amount of code loads up oh so much faster. Plus, if you are charged by the MB by your hosting company, you can save a significant amount of money. Then there is the fact that Front Page Extensions can bring an IIS server to its knees with its unnecesary bloat.
Take a look at the built-in editor that is available with Mozilla, look up Bluefish(?), I believe that there is a Windows port of that. I don't know what else to look at off-hand. I only manage one website and I wrote that all with 'vim'.
If you're using Dreamweaver MX, you may look at Macromedia Contribute. It will let you develope the site in DW and then someone using Contribute can modify pages. When developing the site, you select the editable areas, like when creating templates.
Rich, there is a site where non-profits can get software almost free. I just checked and you can get Dreamweaver MX 2004 for a $35 administration fee. Plus there are other web authoring tools too. You can get Front Page 2003 for $7. In fact you can get most of Microsoft's main software for almost nothing.
You do have to have a 501(c)(3) to take advantage of this.
Rich, there is a site where non-profits can get software almost free. I just checked and you can get Dreamweaver MX 2004 for a $35 administration fee. Plus there are other web authoring tools too. You can get Front Page 2003 for $7. In fact you can get most of Microsoft's main software for almost nothing.
You do have to have a 501(c)(3) to take advantage of this.
It's not wysiwyg, but it's nice. I like it because it has guides for everything, but doesn't write FrontPage-like crap code. Just use Arachno 4 not the Java one! :)
Seriously there are heaps of HTML resources on the web. Just knock it up in notepad. Make sure you have an index.html. Go for gold!
There is a lot of functionality available in a product like Dreamweaver and that notepad does not have (especially site-wide change methods using templates). Plus, not everyone who is going to edit this site is going to want to do it in markup. I am hoping to end up using a product that is fairly easy to use, but still has some robust features to it.
But then I'm a geek and a pro. web developer who prefers to do it by hand. I use dreamweaver now and again but I don't like the code it produces so I end up having to go through it in notepad to remove the extraneous rubbish.
I guess it depends on what kind of a website you are producing, if its just a simple HTML site then a simple text editor is all you need combined with some HTML tutorials off the net. If it needs to be more complicated but still have its content edited by non-webby people then a CMS probably is the way to go.
Rich, there is a site where non-profits can get software almost free. I just checked and you can get Dreamweaver MX 2004 for a $35 administration fee. Plus there are other web authoring tools too. You can get Front Page 2003 for $7. In fact you can get most of Microsoft's main software for almost nothing.
You do have to have a 501(c)(3) to take advantage of this.
Try Open Office / Star Office. It is very stable and it writes the cleanest HTML of any editor on the market. It looks just like Office and the menus are nearly identical.
I admire that a non-profit if looking at purchasing software instead of steeling it but Open Office is free anyway.
