Freeware webpage editor

[anemones2]

Sorry for the quick post, but are there any good freewares out there like front page?

Just for amending a pretty basic webpage; not front page because it is expensive, and not note pad.

It needs to be something my dad can use.

We have cute ftp so that is fine, just something to edit the html page. In a more user friendly format than html, and leaves your page less messy than using ms word.

Thanks

[HX1]

There used to be one at the PortableApps.com page.. long time ago.. here.. Nvu Portable, might want to look into the full app but this one will install just fine, just have to make a quick shortcut to launch it... I changed to this after shredding the 400 MB Portable Dreamweaver version I had... then I removed this type of app from my portable stuff all together.. Since if I am doing this type of work I can do most stuff by hand... ( simple stuff ).. and I have a laptop to go with me..

When you get done with it.. show him how to validate the code at W3C.org, this way the page will remain streamlines and have current valid markup and code.. :thumbsup:

[LeetPirate]

The simplest one I know of is WYSIWYG Web Builder.

You know what I've been wondering for quite some time, whether the task of making a website W3C compliant is actually of practical value or just a novelty thing. Everytime I'm board I think about doing the whole compliance thing then when I think about how much work it is I change my mind soon after starting. It's for simple things like encoding an ampersand, most places where applicable I just type out the word "and" though. Then there are the many quick fixes and overrides I insert into the css. Do you think it's worth the trouble? What does one gain from it?

EDIT: sorry my suggestion is not a freeware, I didn't notice you asked for freeware. :( Nevertheless it is a very nice and easy program to use, basically drag and drop and you can also view the code. Take a look at this list of free web page builders, you should find one to your liking I hope.

[anemones2]

Basically I need something that will show me the webpage, as is.

And the text can be amended just by clicking into it like a document.

Then I have cute-ftp for uploading the changed page to the web.

I can look through the text in notepad, amongst the html and change the information, but I need something simpler.

For someone who has no idea about html, and finds the idea daunting.

I will try find NVU somewhere, it says that it is discontinued... buut I will have a look :)

thanks for your suggestions guys.

EDIT: is mozilla composer flexibly-compatible with other web browsers ?

Oh p.s. this site is great http://www.portablefreeware.com/index.php?q=nvu&m=Search

found it

[HX1]

Nvu can be gotten directly from the page I sent you to... unless you were looking for the regular one..

@LeetPirate - The reason I use W3C.org.. ( and I am not necessarily there to be accessibility compliant but code compliant yes.. what is the use of writing XHTML documents if your actually writing HTML 2.0.. ) is because of the page load times.. as a code checker.. to make sure I haven't left anything out, and that the code structure fits the meta.. and there isn't a mixture of code.. The load time differences between a page which is written out of context and one that is, is different... as well as meeting the standards in which open tags.. and code that is wrong.. can cause problems in other browsers and systems... Sort of like tidying up and getting it in order after you have spent so much time ( in some cases ) .. it is helpful to have something that will go through and find things you missed or brush up for you in areas you may be a little hazy or misinformed on, or just simply missed.. as well as showing you ways to make it smaller and reduce the coding needed in some cases.. which of course gives you more room for the page and smaller upload size.. which can lead to better performance..

I also use it sometimes to find something wrong with a page I am loading.. It is a good resource and excellent second opinion to say the least. ( You can also clean up CSS and even find problems more quickly within it... than trial and error or looking at seemingly valid code for days, trying to find the problem.. or why it isn't working )

My honest opinion of the best editor would be Dreamweaver... as far as a paid program is concerned... and yes Microsoft Office leaves HUGE size pages... in some cases...

[henz]

you need something like html tidy?

[HX1]

Its basically like that, Dreamweaver has a place to validate the page and double check for code issues.. but I always felt better about it after I have it checked.. make sure the page is written as it should be.. I think its good for everyone to do.. Sort of like Spell Check.. Especially if I am not at my system I always suggest it..

[LeetPirate]

Yea the W3C validator is a good tool to check for major errors and code compliance. However making code compliant according to their standards will almost always increase the code size which is why I believe many people (including myself) don't worry about every error but just the major ones that can break the site. Simple things like using target="_blank" is against W3C compliance so people often use a roundabout method and use javascript to perform the same feature just for the sake of compliance but you can see that will increase the load time and payload size.

I was more concerned about the effect of W3C validation on SEO rankings and after some research I found my answer which was confirmed by Matt Cutts; W3C valid does not boost SEO rank in any way, it's more of a novelty item.

Turns out it's absolutely correct when you look at big successful sites like Google or Amazon, they don't pass W3C validation at all. In fact Google omits certain closing tags on purpose to decrease load times believe it or not, lol. Also using things like bold tags instead of <strong> leads to errors but I don't see why they are forcing things like strong instead of <b>, strong is not the same as b. Tags like b and i etc are only display constructs which means they are rendered purely for visual effects whereas tags like strong and em can be interpreted by things like screen readers and other robots. For example a screen reader that recognizes the em tag will audibly emphasize the text within that tag whereas the text between the i tags are read as normal. To pass validation 100% you need to put all the style information in CSS which is an entire sentence to achieve what you could get by using a 1 letter tag. That's just some basic examples.

Not that I am against CSS and proper html, I use CSS for everything but sometimes I inject style tags into html for a quick duct tape fix when I don't think it's necessary to write en entire css class or div id for a trivial use. Oh that reminds me, you guys should investigate how to use server side gzip compression for your web content, it really helps.

My bottom line is that I will no longer worry about trying to fix every W3C error to be 100% valid, just focus on the big errors that break the site, the rest is trivial as it does not lead to any boost in seo ranking by any of the popular search engines. Plus you could put that valuable time into something more important.

[HX1]

Well I do agree with you on some compliance such as accessibility features that are a part of compliance.. The only time I have found errors like the STRONG and B, I problems is when you write for one type of code like XHTML.. and validate for CSS versions.. and have written code that is used in HTML... other than that I really have never seen that sort of issue... Now when it came to tables and some of the embedding and things that are allowed and not.. I ran into errors.. but after doing some investigating I found it to be other problems.. SO .. sometimes the validation has to be manually changed to what you want to validate it for.. AND it may not indicate the precise error which is being picked-up on.... That gets a little aggravating to say the least.. and I don't write a lot of sites... Just stuff for myself.. and validating ( believe it or not - in the past ) code which I used in profile pages such as MySpace or something.. including the CSS inside the style tags..

There is a move towards the elimination of deprecated elements, an effort I think to move to more recent versions of code writing. My Custom Start Page for example that I submitted to deviantart.com.. Which passes validation for its type.. right down to the CSS...even received comments from people on Linux systems who asked for me to not use tables and to use CSS instead... so in some ways.. I think that to a degree.. it comes down to what your doing and who is doing it...

My big problems came from the introduction of Safari, and writing code that would be validated and shown correctly across platforms and browser engines... one wrong tag.. something left out.. or invalid markup would destroy a page and its proper viewing by anyone using a certain browser or system. Thats pretty much when I started validating and using it as guidelines for better code, being that I have no formal training in anything.. It started with one page, which lead to me going backward and validating everything and finding my mistakes.. and trouble which originated from a lack of proper knowledge.. I even went as far as working with save pages and validating them.. The problems do seem to ring in where you have script involved.. or script within a page.. it has to be a certain code type for the page.. and be written a certain way to be proper... Eventually my validating went green for everything I have... Plone was different in the respect that it also included code.. which I didn't alter.. So it wasn't on me to begin with... I did manage to speed it up by doing some other things in cache and by putting together KSS, Javascript, and CSS files into one each and compressing the file.. so I only had to do one each and not 20-30.. The site on first access compiles these and after its hot, it stays hot for quite some time ( with the exception of different caching rules for different account types and access types.) .. and fast.. for all of the options I have with it and function the time is great.. ( looks bare without an account though..being that its a personal account and not really a lot going on for the public.. and its not always up and running because I don't bother starting if I don't need it.. -need to work on power failures, auto reboot configurations though.. used to I just had to change the services.. LOL ) I did do quite a bit of work on it.. but only as a novice.. in Python land where I know nothing... but still some great things to say the least...

GZIP compression can be a great idea.. for size and caching...but in some cases.. where hardware is concerned and processing time on some systems.. I think it can be a problem in the way of actually slowing the machine down a bit.. BUT truthfully in those cases you probably shouldn't be trying to run a server on them anyway.. and then again it could be because the server, browser, and system is all on the same machine.. so your get a huge spike in resources usage..

My Plone site does that though, once it has built those files and they cached server-side it books along, with less then 0.047 - 0.250 response times ( Total Page Load times not database queries ) unless there is a resources which has to be revalidated or something..( usually under a second.. and depends on the size of the resource.. ) or it has been awhile since there has been activity... from the user.. replacing files.. and of the such.. I had to work those timing out as well.. for the two reasons that .. you have to be able to edit data and have it update site-wide in a timely manner without wait.. and if its set to low.. you might as well not have a cache.... and if your numbers and staging for different things are off.. you can overlap..and cause occasional bottle necks which have odd reaction times..Quite a few areas to cover.. if you have ever been inside the Zope Management.. or had the Addons inside the main site to manage and take care of...but I was proud to say the least.. on a system this small with such a minuscule upload bandwidth.. to have professional site speed was like unexpected when I got done.. I don't know how it work with thousands of visitors per hour.. but I know it works well here..

[LeetPirate]

Don't worry gzip compression is almost always faster than going uncompressed. nearly every web server has spare cpu cycles to compress on the fly but the bandwidth is the issue (unless you get tricked by bob parsons and host on godaddy where they overload servers and pack 2000+ websites on a server, lol). Most web servers are configured with compression enabled by default now because it's faster 99.9% of the times.

[shought]

If you need some help in fixing/tweaking a site/server, drop me a PM, I'd be happy to look into it :)

You know what they say: 'With great experiences comes great knowledge.' - Wait, what? Do they say that? Who's they and why the hell do they get to say stuff!?

ps then again letting a mildly delusional person take a look at HTML might not be the best idea :P (Nah, I know my HTML, CSS (well, duh :P), PHP and some Javascript.)

@heath28m

GZIP compressed files should/will (not sure, but I don't think there's any webserver that doesn't) always be cached (as in saved on disk, in their gzipped format). The additional processing time should only be visible the first time a user accesses a file and every time you update it. Obviously there's some (don't think you could even prove this by measurements) performance decrease because the server has to check the original file as well as the gzipped file to find out whether it's changed, but this should not affect performance in any visible way, I think ;)

(We use gzip compression on our frontpage :) Saves a lot of costly bytes (for our users) (on everything but images (even HTML, yes :)).)

[anemones2]

KompoZer portable is perfect (/I think is the new/old NVU, while they charge for the new one under the NVU title)