On Tuesday 09 November 2010 13:01, Richard Detwiler wrote: > I'm looking into software for web page design. I have heard that > OpenOffice.org is NOT a particularly good tool. (What are the reasons > for this? I'm not very knowledgeable about web sites.) > > What would be some better applications for this task? (Preferably free > ones, but I'm willing to pay a modest amount if that's what it takes.)
Depends on what you want to do. If you want static (X)HTML pages then * Writer/Web is OK * Writer saving as HTML is not * Word Saving as HTML is not * KompoZer is Ok * NVu is OK but no longrer maintained (KompoZer is like an NVu 1.0.2) * Amaya produces perfectly formed code but is tricky to learn * Hand coding ( [X]HTML, CSS, Javascript ) is good to learn despite the tool you use. If you want an online web-tool that you can log into and update (requires a LAMP hosting setup) * Wordpress is probably the easiest * Silverstripe is relatively workable and moderately complex * Joomla is very extendible but complex * Drupal is very extendable but complex * Hand Coding (with databases) is dangerous but probably necessary knowledge in addition to any of the above Hand coding tools * Notepad (Windows) - last resort * Notepad++ (Windows) - untested by me * PSPad (Windows) - used by me * Bluefish (Linux) - used by me * Vim (Linux) - used seldom * Emacs - used seldom Additional useful stuff * Google (All the following and more) * Online tutorials - w3schools is ok-ish (good for beginners) * W3C HTML Validator * W3C CSS Validator * W3C standards * Sitepoint online reference * Sitepoint books (PDF or tree) * Character encoding and UTF-8 * HTML character entities * Hex colour coding * Semantic web site design * WAI & the WCAG * mobile web development * "so you want a web site" * "content content content" * "100% easy to read standard" * "search engine optimisation" (SEO) * CSS zen garden * position is everything * webdesign-l (mailing list) - general web help * css-discuss (mailing list) - strictly on CSS topic only * Sitepoint forums (If you prefer forums to mailing lists - i don't) * Web typography * A good local design school course HTH for starters -- Michael --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [email protected] For additional commands, e-mail: [email protected]
