Developing Website with Free Software - XP Compatible

[ehrenfest]

I am trying to develop a website and I am getting sick of writing everything in HTML. Is there some free software package that I can use instead? MS word works with html files but there has got to be something better.

I have Windows XP.

 

[CRGreathouse]

Code by hand. It's not hard, and the websites will look much better than coming out of MS Word.

Otherwise there are a great many programs out there, many of which are free. As I don't use anything but a text editor I'm in a bad position to help here.

 

[ehrenfest]

Is SeaMonkey an example of a program that I can use to design a website? Has anyone used that?

What about the Mozilla Application Suite?

 

[exprog3]

Code by hand as CRGreathouse said... but if you are a beginner then use Microsoft Frontpage if you really have to (I don't really like Frontpage). Use Adobe Dreamweaver for advanced server side implementations.

 

[PerennialII]

Yeah, seamonkey is one (I've had the impression seamonkey pretty much is what mozilla appl suite has in this respect ... someone correct/verify please). aceHTML is also freeware for win which at least personally have found to be a solid editor and prefer over frontpage and like. Coding by hand is sure "preferable" in learning the ropes and all that, but once it gets "big and complex enough" doing it in an IDE for the sole management of the whole project is in my book a good idea.

 

[Hemmer]

I'd recommend coding by hand using notepad or something similar. Try a few firefox extensions like https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/655 to help learn how html works.

 

[ehrenfest]

But there's no way you could make a website as nice, say as PF, coding by hand, right? Look how many different tables and buttons and fields there are on this page? Do you really think someone wrote this by hand?

 

[Hemmer]

Well yeah the images would require some design software, but the code is largely based on vBulletin, with tweaks that could be made by hand. Yeah sure I'd also recommend something like Dreamweaver but it's expensive, and you can become lazy and too dependpent on just dragging and dropping. If something goes wrong, its much better to actually know the code and how it works, rather than just generate it. Just my $0.02.

 

[j777]

Something that is a little beyond straight HTML is extjs which is a javascript framework for creating rich client interfaces (you can use it to create a site like PF).