What is a free, windows-based HTML/CSS page design app?

Question

My little brother would like to start making websites, and I've suggested Frontpage or Dreamweaver. What are good free alternative programs for it?

Answer 1

nvu is a pretty nice solution. It is also cross-platform Window, Mac, and Linux.

Answer 2

Aptana Studio is pretty good. It has intellisense for html and css, which will help him learn a little quicker. Also, HTMLDog is a good tutorial site.

Answer 3

Visual Web Developer Express. http://www.microsoft.com/express/vwd/

Answer 4

I like NVU if you want to not learn Html. My suggestion though is to utilize an editor that handles html, css, etc so that he learns how the tags work, how css works, etc. To that end I can recommend 2 editors that I have used a lot in the past:

Html-Kit: http://htmlkit.com/ (free with tons of plugins) Aptana: http://www.aptana.com/ (also free with a lot of functionality - javascript is well implemented).

For CSS I tend to like visual editors for that kind of stuff and I bit the bullet and bought a license for TopStyle: http://www.topstyle4.com/ There is an older free version which works quite well.

Best of luck to your brother

Tab

Answer 5

It's not free, and it's for Mac OS X, but it's worth the investment in a new computer.

Coda.

Answer 6

If you only want to edit code (not WYSIWYG), you can use a lightweight notepad replacement, discussed here. For windows, I'd suggest to try Intype, e-texteditor and komodo edit.

Answer 7

How bad does your brother really want to learn something? If he really wants to learn how to do things right then I would start with just a simple text editor, maybe with code highlighting, and a free image editor. Then he can really dig into the guts of semantic HTML, CSS, and how web servers work on a basic level without any of the distractions of having to learn a complicated tool.

It's kind of like learning to drive on a stickshift, it's a pain in ass but you'll probably come out a better driver in the end. This counts double if he's interested in learning a web programming language later like PHP, JSP, or ASP.NET. I think a lot of people don't get the basics when they start doing web programming, so it ends up feeling like black magic (I'm looking at you ViewState).

Examples:

• Text Editor: Notepad++
• Image Editor: Gimp, or something from this list: Online Photoshop Alternatives

Answer 8

Personally, I'd suggest a reading list -depending, maybe, on how old he is- and Notepad (or Notepad++).

I know it's probably a steeper learning curve initially, but if he uses WYSIWYGs to start he's gonna have a hell of a time learning what he can safely -and should- take out, and how to manage the code himself, later. When I first started messing about with xhtml and such I found Notepad to be the best editor I could find. It did the job and it made sure you learned.

Now, on Linux, I still prefer Gedit to the other options I've tried (with apologies to Vi and Emacs fans). Mind I'm maybe just contrary. It's been suggested before... =)

Answer 9

I think Shea and ricebowl are spot-on: does your brother want to make some mediocre websites, or does he really want to learn how and why HTML and CSS work so he has the foundation to make some excellent sites?

"Web page builder" type applications are great if you a) don't know HTML or CSS and b) you need to build a small Web site with limited functionality in a very short period of time. This is where Frontpage excelled, since it allowed anybody to build a Web page. Unfortunately, all the convenient "click this to add a link" and "drag over here to include it in your page" functionality can't help you as soon as you need to do something the application itself can't do.

What if you want to embed a Google map on your site, but your application doesn't have a corresponding button in the toolbar? How do you fix the site if it doesn't look right to Opera or Internet Explorer 6 users, and there's no "Make site 100% compatible" menu item? Who do you call when your awesome site takes dial-up users 5 minutes to download?

Frontpage (now Microsoft Expression Web, I guess) and similar programs insulate you from the underlying technical issues, which eventually becomes a liability.

Notepad++ is a good choice, and so is TextPad; either one provides syntax highlighting and coloring, which can be quite helpful if you're starting out. The former is free, the latter is shareware. Eclipse is quite versatile and free though perhaps intimidating when you start with it.

Answer 10

NVU the open source WYSIWYG editor has been discontinued, however a version of it based on the same original code is in continued development name kompozer and found at http://www.kompozer.net/. If you are looking for something along the lines as dreamweaver without the expense or higher end features then this is a pretty powerful free option. Its usually a good idea to gain some understanding of HTML and CSS even when using a WYSIWYG app.