Website Software

[naturalnails]

I am hoping some of you lovely geeks can help with recommendations.

I have been making my own websites for the best part of the last 10 years and have previously used some strange free generators.

For about the last 5+ years I have been using MS Frontpage which is fine but maybe a bit tired and messy LOL.

We as a family are about to upgrade our computers and they come with MS Office Home and Student which does not include Frontpage.

I checked and MS FP doesnt seem to exist past 2003 (the version I have).

I already subscribe to RomanCart for my shopping bit so I dont really want to go down the Mr Site route.

I am looking for a reasonably priced website software that will let me edit and add my own code as well as maybe having some pre created code.

Any advice and recommendations, greatly appreciated.

 

[Ruth Mills]

I remember there was a free web authoring add-on for Firefox, so did a quick Google and found this page, Free Web Authoring for Mozilla Firefox | Firedocs - so this might be worth a try.

Haven't used it myself (I still code my HTML and CSS by hand most of the time), but it's probably still worth a look to see if it meets your requirements - it might save you a bit of money compared with buying a package such as Dreamweaver or whatever.

 

[naturalnails]

Thanks.

I dont use Firefox now so would be concerned at creating a website using it if it might then give IE browsers any glitches.

I am happy to spend a bit of money but not the £300 plus for the likes of dreamweaver.

 

[Verve Designs]

Frontpage has now been superceded by Microsoft Expression Web- which is very similar- but a little bit better. So if you're familiar with FP then it might be an option. Im not sure if MS Office Home and Student comes with it.

Microsoft Expression Studio Ultimate | Expression Studio Web Professional | Expression Encoder Pro | Microsoft® Expression®

OR- save the money on the software and get someone to build you a CMS site- so you can edit it yourself without having to worry about code, cross-browser compatibilites etc etc. Even for someone with coding/designing experience they're still a bloody good option for the time it saves you.

 

[naturalnails]

Thanks I will look at the Expression one.

I dont want to get someone else to do it for me - I have the time to potter myself that I couldnt justify to cost. I did get someone to do some work and to be honest it didnt really look or feel any different at the end of it.

 

[Ruth Mills]

Thanks.

I dont use Firefox now so would be concerned at creating a website using it if it might then give IE browsers any glitches.

I am happy to spend a bit of money but not the £300 plus for the likes of dreamweaver.

Actually, the Firefox plugin would probably come up with more compliant, cross-browser compatible HTML than what Frontpage would, as Microsoft have a reputation for "doing their own thing" when it comes to web standards.

But, if you did go for the free Firefox plugin, then a sure fire way of gauging IE compatibility would be to test any web pages created with it in Internet Explorer to make sure that they work OK.

Following on from what Carl said, many web hosting companies offer PHP based content management systems such as Drupal or Joomla, which may be worth a look if you've got the time to experiment.