Good & Free Web Editor?

TehChowd

I'm getting ready to start a webcomic (olol I know, another one of those posts) and I was wondering if anyone would be kind enough to recommend me a simple, good, and free webpage-making program (what is the proper name for these kinds of programs anyway?).

Starting off, I don't need to anything complex, basically just picture uploading, text, and linkage (which I think I could do in Word if I wanted/had to). I'm hoping though that there's a great, intuitive, and elegant web designer out there that would make the experience a breeze.

My artist and myself have recently been fooling around with Pbwiki to make collaborating over long distances easier. If there's a web editor like that (i.e. does the work for you), that's kind of what I have in mind. I'm not necessarily opposed to a more tech-heavy editor, as I do have some really minor experience with html, but I'd prefer to keep things fast and simple.

In line with all this, if there's a free FTP program that you guys would recommend, I'd be interested in knowing that too (or should I grab any old free ftp program? It's not like there can be much difference between them. I mean, it will either transfer files, or it won't.)

Thanks in advance.

Andorien

For the FTP front, Filezilla works well.

As for the web designer, you're typically better off writing the code yourself, as these programs still tend to spew badly organized, nigh unreadable pages that are far larger than they should be, and often use tables and such to perform layout.

Regardless, first there's Amaya, which is guaranteed to be standards compliant as it's made by the same people who make those standards. I don't like it myself, as it feels sluggish.

Then there's Nvu, which I don't have much experience with. Supposedly a descendant of the composer that came with the original Mozilla Suite.

Daenris

I've used Nvu a few times and it's pretty good, so I'd recommend it. Personally I usually get annoyed by minor issues with any HTML editor/webpage builder I've used and end up just doing the HTML in Textpad or something.

VThornheart

I'm currently trying Aptana (http://www.aptana.com) right now for a WYSIWYG editor. It rocks pretty hardcore compared to a lot of other free editors that I've found... it has built-in WYSIWYG editing where you can see what the output would look like in Firefox or IE as you're editing... you can also drop into the Source and it has full syntax highlighting.

I haven't posted anything on the web yet so I don't know in practice how its output is... but it's really easy to work with while developing.

bagelpirate

Notepad.

Andorien

bagelpirate wrote: »

Notepad.

1. Doesn't answer his question.
2. Even once you go down to coding 100%, there's no real reason to use notepad other than for dick waving. No syntax highlighting alone means there are better options (Notepad 2, Notepad++).

altmann

Try Typeroom:

http://www.typeroom.com/

Check out the demo. It's pretty damn easy.

falsedef

Andorien wrote: »

2. Even once you go down to coding 100%, there's no real reason to use notepad other than for dick waving. No syntax highlighting alone means there are better options (Notepad 2, Notepad++).

I would disagree. Syntax highlighting isn't needed for HTML and light page coding. Syntax highlighting is nice for reading an already completed page, but I often find highlighting to be distracting while writing the page itself.

Anyways, I suggest starting off on blogging software, and ditch trying to make your own pages. It's easy to publish and comment on your comics, and just tag comic posts as "comic" for easy searching. To change the look just learn some CSS. I'm pretty sure there's also comic publishing templates available, though I don't know any personally.

Making and editing pages manually for comics is a bad idea, and gets worse as time goes on.

OremLK

I do all of my web design in Notepad, including the site in my sig. I'm sure there are better IDE-type solutions, but frankly CSS is so simple I don't really see the need. For uploading, most hosts offer web upload forms, which is a pretty easy way to get started without dealing with the hassle of FTP. I use FileZilla now though.

In any case, steer far clear of any program that does layout for you. Code it yourself; learn HTML and CSS. It's not hard.

VThornheart

Syntax Highlighting might be overkill for some, but I've never seen a situation where it *impedes* progress. The odds are significantly in favor of syntax highlighting being quite helpful.

I use Notepad for some things as well... but why bother using it when you're coding when there's excellent free options out there?

Give Aptana a try, or Notepad 2. Intype's another option: it's a bit buggy right now, but it can only get better.

Munacra

I don't like to type in line numbers, myself thank you.

Notepad++ is much better, and I second the choice of Aptana.

Heartlash

Also, if you do want to learn html (which really isn't too tough) I'd recommend www.w3schools.com. Most web editors are fundamentally constricting, so knowing as much about the code as possible is your best bet.

TehChowd

Thanks for all the great responses guys, it is immensely appreciated.

Willeth

For a first webcomic, install Wordpress and use Comicpress.

Check out http://www.hatesong.com for an example I can think of off the top of my head.

Dava

Personally, I create my pages in Notepad and upload them with WS_FTP, which sadly is no longer free. For a beginner, though, I'd have to agree with those who suggested you use WordPress with the ComicPress plug-in. You can also try grabbing a website template from a free templates site and editing that in Notepad. Either method would get you off the ground without dabbling too much into HTML, although I highly recommend you do so eventually.

Once you do start writing your own markup, there are tons of great extensions for Firefox that make your job easier. These include text editors, validators, FTP programs, debugging tools and other useful stuff:
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/browse/type:1/cat:4

Hope that helps!

Szechuanosaurus

Firebug is a plugin for Firefox that turns it into a rockin' development program.

I'm not sure if it's true WYSIWYG as you're looking for, but it does mean you can see the effects of code changes as you make them and click on elements in the page to highlight the code that relates to them etc. Maybe something to look into when you hit the flexibility limit of the WYSIWYG editors and want more control over the layout.

www.getfirebug.com

VThornheart

Aye, Szechuanosaurus is right on that: Firebug is a Godsend. If you need one so you can check IE support, Microsoft made something similar (I think it's called the "IE Development Toolkit" or something like that), which looks so similar that I'm not sure who copied who... but with the two combined, you can effectively debug your site for 90% or more of the usual people who come into your site.