[goldworker]

I've been building a web site on my son's PC (ugh) using the Homestead site - which provides easy drop and drag software. I hate working on the pc, want to do everything on my wonderful iMac, but don't know what software would work as easily. I know nothing of HTML, so I need something easy. Does any such software exist for the Mac?

Thanks for any advice.

[wrwjpn]

If you are building a very simple site, you can do it with Appleworks and it's not too hard(I know because I made my first web site with it). If you don't mind investing a little money (well maybe more than a little) there are some good WYSIWYG out there. GoLive is quite easy to learn and would be a good investment for future web designing. I am not sure if you can buy Claris Homepage anymore but it is really easy to use but is not all that powerfull.

I am sure there are a lot more out there but not sure what. You can always try a search on Googles.

[KaptainKaya]

If you have the cash, I would go with Dreamweaver (any version unless you're intent on using OS X). GoLive is ok in the sense that it integrates with Photoshop and ImageReady, but Dreamweaver (to me) seems to have a better intuitive interface. Freeway is another app if you don't want to spend the big bucks.

[DaisyDams]

I've been writing mine on Simpletext, which comes free with your iMac OS - just save it like this - "Myfilename.html". You can write simple HTML code and then open it through IE without even having to be online. Great way to learn HTML by writing it. Then you can find tutorials etc on the web - I found this one handy http://www.w3schools.com/html/default.asp

Which means you don't actually have to buy software to write a web site if you own a Mac - unless you want some nice pictures.


Codehead!

[bluedog]

Suggesting the professional applications for someone who is just starting out isn't what I think the poster is looking for. I can't imagine spending >$100 for a few web pages I want to publish and the apps suggested so far are much more than that.

Take a look at:
www.versiontracker.com

Do a search and you should find something they have listed that you can be happy using and won't cost you an arm and a leg.

Look on the left for the section called 'product categories' and HTML TOOLS.

You didn't mention whether you are running OSX or not. Many apps are written for OS9 at the moment, although the big-expensive apps are already native for OSX, there are plenty of smaller good apps for beginners to use that will likely 'never' get ported.

I would start by taking a look at these packages that are fairly reasonable in price and have a lot of features:

OS9 versions - Pagespinner, Freeway, PageMill,
OSX versions - Pagespinner, Freeway, WebDesign

Then the expensive 'professional options' are Macromedia Dreamweaver or Adobe GoLive.

Good luck.

[desvenne]

Check out BBedit lite (free) from barebones software. It's a great text editor. The full version has code highlighting and other niceties, but the lite version should get you started. The website is www.barebones.com .

And also learn about html. www.w3schools.org has a boatload of tutorials.

HTML is actually great fun.

Once you've mastered html and Cascading Style Sheets, you can step up to php + MySQL or PostgreSQL.

Oh man, I foresee some great times are going to be had on that MAc .

Have fun, and cheers.

[Millennium]

The cheapest WYSIWYG tool out there is the Composer built into Mozilla and Netscape.

Honestly, though, I would learn to code by hand. HTML is very easy, as far as languages go. I strongly recommend http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/Guide and the tutorials there; they are very basic, but very easy to follow, and you'll be surprised at just what you can do when you've been through them.

[SPiNdustrious]

I would definitely recommend BBEdit and handcoding. It's the most direct way of getting the job done.

Check out www.favelets.com for some easy-to-use JavaScripts that you save as favorites. These favelets offer easy access to HTML/XML and CSS validators, among other usefull tools.

Even though this is jumping the gun a bit, I'm going to suggest that you always separate content from presentation in your web pages. By using HTML/XHTML for document structure and CSS for presentation, you'll have a site that is easy to maintain and update.

Some other helpful links:
NY Public Library Style Guide http://www.nypl.org/styleguide/
Learning Resources for Web Standard Complaint Development http://www.webstandards.org/learn/resources/

Web standards are important! The more we use them, the more browser makers will be expected to support them by their users.

Good luck and enjoy yourself!

Peter

[Millennium]

Originally posted by SPiNdustrious:
Even though this is jumping the gun a bit, I'm going to suggest that you always separate content from presentation in your web pages. By using HTML/XHTML for document structure and CSS for presentation, you'll have a site that is easy to maintain and update.

That would be why I recommended http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/Guide as a tutorial. It gets you doing this right from the beginning; you quite literally learn HTML by learning to separate structure from presentation. And it's very simple to do. The tutorial is actually by the guy who wrote Tidy, quite possibly the most useful Web design tool ever written.

Web standards are important! The more we use them, the more browser makers will be expected to support them by their users.

And that's the real key. Standards which are well-defined, such that everyone -or at least every browser maker- knows how they work. Undoing the damage Netscape and IE have wrought on the Web with their proprietary crap.

Every site helps, even personal ones. Don't forget that. You can be doing your part to, quite literally, fix the World Wide Web.

[Siggi_arni]

Originally posted by goldworker:
I've been building a web site on my son's PC (ugh) using the Homestead site - which provides easy drop and drag software. I hate working on the pc, want to do everything on my wonderful iMac, but don't know what software would work as easily. I know nothing of HTML, so I need something easy. Does any such software exist for the Mac?

Thanks for any advice.

You should try Macromedia�s Dreamweaver MX.
It�s a very good html tool:
http://www.macromedia.com/software/dreamweaver/