wysiwyg html editors, freeware or shareware.. any ideas?

[weltweit]

I have thought of a workaround.

I open the page in textpad, does not damage anything, then I build the page contents in HotMetalPro6, then I cut and paste the code into the right position in textpad, save and continue.

That should offer me the best of both worlds.

 

[grit]

Yes, I am behind the times, I should be using css for layout but for the time being I will probably still use tables for tabular information.

I doubt I will use them too much.



I am not yet convinced that either of the ecommerce packages we are considering - Actinic or Magento will produce fully SEO compatible pages for the non ecommerce parts of our websites.

I need full control over TITLE, Meta Description and Keyword tags, H1, H2, H3 etc ... Body code in P, images and alt and title and links inc title tags ... I am not yet sure Actinic or Magento offer that level of control on the non ecommerce parts of their websites.



It might come to dreamweaver. It would not be a wasted investment as I would have the opportunity to use it in future but for me there would be a learning curve.

What we are doing is trying to extend the life of three websites which at the moment are prohibitively expensive to add content to. The current pages have loads of SSIs and the like and are notoriously a pain to play with. I am converting them to static html and will then take responsibility for adding content away from our web services supplier.

The most convenient is if I can use HotMetalPro6 because i know it well. But there are other options also.

Far cheaper and better to actually just invest the time and learn HTML.

 

[Shippou-Sensei]

actually just grab the dreamwever 30 day trial

it will allow you to test it out on an actual project and will allow you to see if it's a worthwhile investment

and to be honest the wysiwyg interface is damn good . (for a wysiwyg interface)

 

[Shippou-Sensei]

Far cheaper and better to actually just invest the time and learn HTML.

now now it's all well and good to say that but this is a tables based legacy site i'd hate to have to edit in code and i teach web design and have a strong dislike of wysiwyg editors

 

[grit]

now now it's all well and good to say that but this is a tables based legacy site i'd hate to have to edit in code and i teach web design and have a strong dislike of wysiwyg editors

Then use firebug to investigate the code and then just re write what you want in notepad, simples. There is no requirement to produce wysiwyg crap code here.

 

[Shippou-Sensei]

that's what you would do, and what you expect web development people to do.

this is radically different from what regular people do

yes HTML is piss easy in principle but looking at a giant nested table in notepad is a recipe for a headache (hell i use eclipse pdt and even the colour coding and my formal spacing and indenting doesn't help that much) now throw in javascript for a little extra pain... hell there may even be font tags on this page

the term simples can not be applied to this page

if your the owner of the site and have any real care for it i'd have thought a rewrite would be on the books (especially if your worried about SEO and accessibility, tables and on page javascript are not a good idea ) however if it's not really your role in a company to be in charge of this and it's a stop gap measure then an edit job using the most convenient software tools to hand is the most sensible choice... not the nicest choice i'll admit but hey c'est la vie,

i mean think about it, a site rewrite? that's a good weeks work at the very least even for some one half decent at html/css/javascript where as with a editor you could get it done in an afternoon , now factor in the learning curve... even technically competent people can't pick up html/css in an afternoon or even a few days, yes the principle is simplistic but the execution takes practice

yes i'd still advise to steer well clear of most wysiwyg editors but software like dreamwever and (on hearsay) MS expressions are half decent and with a little prodding produce perfectly acceptable code and are a real help doing stuff like complicated tables and making aesthetic choices (hey even i can only get a rough idea of what colour a hex code is)


i mean if it really was as simples as you say there would be no web designers, i wouldn't have any students because everyone could do it...

 

[grit]

i mean if it really was as simples as you say there would be no web designers, i wouldn't have any students because everyone could do it...

Consider the state of the web dev freelance market, I'd propose the idea that we are already there in a lot of ways.

 

[Shippou-Sensei]

... i won't deny that...

and i'm churning out more of them... *sigh*

i'm glad i only have to teach this stuff and do development work for the college... i'd hate to have to work commercially ... the last time i did that the guy wanted all of his website to be in papyrus .... i'm so glad i could just tell him that wouldn't work

later fro another site he got in done in flash... it was (about) 10 point green papyrus on a black background... i could barly fucking read it

knowing my luck the next guy would have asked for blinking marquee text and i would have gone into code rage

 

[ChrisFilter]

... i won't deny that...

and i'm churning out more of them... *sigh*

i'm glad i only have to teach this stuff and do development work for the college... i'd hate to have to work commercially ... the last time i did that the guy wanted all of his website to be in papyrus .... i'm so glad i could just tell him that wouldn't work

later fro another site he got in done in flash... it was (about) 10 point green papyrus on a black background... i could barly fucking read it

knowing my luck the next guy would have asked for blinking marquee text and i would have gone into code rage

Surely the job of a pro is to tell clients when their ideas suck? Design is for the consumer, not the client.

 

[stupid dogbot]

Komodo

 

[grit]

Surely the job of a pro is to tell clients when their ideas suck? Design is for the consumer, not the client.

The reality does not work that way, your client is your consumer. I've worked directly as the designer and coder of a site along with working with professional graphic artists and implementing their designs. Whatever the configuration, working in an industry that interacts with aesthetics opens a world of pain when dealing with a client.

Personally, its because of this why I changed jobs and slight direction in my career. Now I work with back end stuff, there is no room for interpetation, it works or it doesn't.

This video, while a parody, is painfully close to the reality.

 

[weltweit]

I think I know as much about html as I need to know..

All I want is to quickly add some new pages to three sites, new content but not complicated content.

I think with the combination of texpad and HotMetalPro6 I should be able to do what I want.

Simples!

 

[ovaltina]

I found wysiwyg web builder easy to pick up when I had to make a website recently. Free for a 30 day trial, then you pay about $30 for a licence. Might not be able to edit an existing site though.

http://www.wysiwygwebbuilder.com/

 

[editor]

I'm still using Homesite, from around 2002.

 

[ChrisFilter]

The reality does not work that way, your client is your consumer.

Depends on the level of budget you're working with. When someone is taking their website seriously as a lead generation tool they're usually more than happy to be lead, brand guidelines aside.

If they aren't, they tend to be left with a fucking awful site that we wouldn't put our name on.

 

[grit]

Depends on the level of budget you're working with. When someone is taking their website seriously as a lead generation tool they're usually more than happy to be lead, brand guidelines aside.

If they aren't, they tend to be left with a fucking awful site that we wouldn't put our name on.

The brand guidelines are never put aside they are always there (all 50+ pages of them in some instances), even on some six figure jobs you have to say "this is dumb dont do it because x,z and y". Even after that you will still have a client demanding it. Its also important to remember that the bigger the project the greater amount of stake holders who will want to chip in. Too many chiefs not enough Indians syndrome which can then lead a change being modified and reverted several times.

Yes there are clients that see reason and are able to let go of their baby so to speak. Others, well from a business point of view, even if you think its ridiculous, it just makes sense to just deliver what they ask for and be done of them

 

[editor]

I've been lucky that the big clients I've worked with - and some have been very big indeed - have hired me precisely because they want to hear my no-bullshit, down to earth, get-it-fucking-sorted advice. The industry is full of fucking charlatans, con merchants, shit designers, clueless 'experts' and liars.

 

[Shippou-Sensei]

Surely the job of a pro is to tell clients when their ideas suck? Design is for the consumer, not the client.

the site i built for him was perfectly acceptable to the end user being css styled in reasonably sized black arial (sans-serif backup) on a white background with a subtle(ish) watermark effect

it would probably be easier when there is only a vague concept to the site but clients can have a real vision about their site and may well value the perceived style above accessibility issues

i of course bring up these issues when going over a site design but i try to be tactful and at the end of the day it is their site

again this is why i'm glad i don't have to work commercially... with students they have a tendency to listen to you more about the nature of web design ... unless of course they are graphic artists (joke!)

 

[ChrisFilter]

Fuck tact, tbh. Or at least fuck tact at the expense of a good site. We sell ourselves on the results we get from a site, and if some wanky client request is going to affect the site's conversion rate then we'll stick to our guns. It's uually appreciated.... eventually.

 

[weltweit]

When I used to do websites, as soon as I got an interview I pretty much knew I had got the job. I showed the client the work that I did in analysing key terms on the SEs and how I built the whole site around them. It was not something my competitors were showing them and it usually got me the job.

 

[Shippou-Sensei]

i would never produce a site i though was seriously flawed in some way* ... i have my standards as a professional

but i understand for a lot of people maintaining a good client relationship can be critical to survival especially if your a one man band operating on low margins

although some stuff i saw some people do for commercial reasons made me cough up blood... like a fake members are login... with... get this two text boxes.. as the guy didn't know about password boxes... something in my soul died that day



*for a client or teaching purposes... my personal sites are allowed to be broken in places.... most notably the very crappy sign up form on my forum god that needs a re-write..... if anyone was actually using the forum....

 

[Shippou-Sensei]

actually thats one thing i'm glad i don't have to cover except academically

seo

firstly because of the amount of fucking snake oil and bullshit there is about it (yes i know there are a lot of good things written about it but man oh man try googling seo and take a shot when anyone writes something that just does not make any logical sense and you will be plastered in no time) although it may have improved in recent years i stopped looking on the net ...

and secondly... because i believe that when you write site content you should be writing it for the end user not a search engine

my idea of seo is make a technically correct site with informative wording and make it interesting or useful enough to make people want to link to it...

not on the first page of google? well have you ever considered that your site isn't good enough? build a better site don't bother about tinkering with on page factors with keyword frequency and density just make a god damn better site make it so your site deserves to be number one

again i understand how in business you can't quite say that .... but i'm usually thinking it...

 

[ChrisFilter]

Yeah, but that's what good SEO is. Writing good content for the site and for link bait.

 

[editor]

It's not just how good a site is. If there's bigger, more authoritative sites on the same subject from bigger companies, then it's entirely correct that they should rank above yours.

Of course, if they haven't built their sites correctly, that might not always be the case. I'm #1 for the hugely popular and famous "Union Square market" in NY with just one photo page!

 

[FridgeMagnet]

Yeah, but that's what good SEO is. Writing good content for the site and for link bait.

That's good SEO certainly, but it's not what a lot of consultants sell. There are such things as good SEO consultants - they do research and tell you the sort of content you need to concentrate on producing based on what top search terms around your area are, then how to link them to your other content, and structure your site so that it doesn't have duplication and concentrates hits on key nodes when people are looking for stuff, etc etc. You know. But lots of people want a magic spell that turns their shit article into one that's top of Google, and there are plenty of consultants who'll sell that.

 

[Shippou-Sensei]

oh i appreciate there is an art to it

i just feel that ideally there would be no need for it

ideally you shouldn't even have to think about search engines at all only ever try to create thing that were interesting and informative and by that be ranked accordingly

take for example link bait... even when it well executed relevant link bait it's more though of as what would make us more popular so we would rank higher rather than... hey what would the people coming to our site really like to see?

yes thouse two things are related and sometimes one leads into another but on a question of principles i know how i'd wish to think about one of my sites

 

[mhendo]

I'm #1 for the hugely popular and famous "Union Square market" in NY with just one photo page!

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but my Google search for union square market has you at #2.

Still, for a single page with a photo, that's pretty impressive.

 

[editor]

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but my Google search for union square market has you at #2.

Still, for a single page with a photo, that's pretty impressive.

#1 for me, both in Google and Bing...

 

[mhendo]

I think the discrepancy is probably because my Google searches default to google.com, while yours are most likely google.co.uk.

 

[grit]

Fuck tact, tbh. Or at least fuck tact at the expense of a good site. We sell ourselves on the results we get from a site, and if some wanky client request is going to affect the site's conversion rate then we'll stick to our guns. It's uually appreciated.... eventually.

Be careful with saying "fuck tact", they might take the same attitude regarding paying you