My mother's been looking at buying Frontpage, but I'd like to know if anyone has any suggestions of an alternative. Nobody wants to pay such an enormous sum of money for something that's going to become outdated faster than you can say "$400 for this?!"*.

Naturally I'm looking for something cheaper, with good tech support/updates and such.

Any recommendations?

Thanks in advance.

* NZ dollars (aka monopoly money)

Nobody needs web designing software. Just download a free text editor (try crimson editor).



(If you really want one, dreamweaver)

Yeah, a text editor is your best bet. Frontpage is always outdated. I don't think any version of it has ever produced code that's valid or up to modern standards.

Although not exactly web page builders, I think Word has limited web page creation capability.

NVU

Free

The only text/code editor you will ever need: http://kate.kde.org/

If you REALLY have to, go for Dreamweaver.

Dreamweaver.

Ask me to write a complex Web page using a text editor, it's going to take me ages. With Dreamweaver, you practically don't even have to remember the code, you can practically insert anything with buttons. It's time saving, too.

Try the 30-day trial first, though.

Anyone remember editpad? I used to use that for a while. I also used another program that my java class was using but I forgot the name. I only used those programs for when I'm lazy and don't want to code it all by myself. Most of the time though I just use notepad.

I used Frontpage to put a submission form on one page I did, looked at the code and saw this:

So basically it forgoes any modern/sensical form design that hides the destination file.

Immediately ditched that.

If you're really in to spending your hard-earned, you should go with Dreamweaver or GoLive. Otherwise there are tons of free options.

Thanks a lot everyone!

I use notepad. But your mother probably won't be able to.

NYU is supposed to be good. It's free at least, so no reason why she can't try it.

Netscape 7 has Netscape Composer for free. I haven't looked at Netscape 8.

Word is a POS at HTML. The Registrar Office uses it to make it look like they can make HTML documents. But it is painfully obvious it was Word generated. Tabular data is not stored in a table, but in 100s of absolutely positioned DIVs of absolute size... TOO SMALL FOR THE DATA IT CONTAINS, so Word replaces the end of each cell with elipisis points, in some cases wiping important data (such as the time or course numbers or room numbers on my class schedules). In short, nothing says "I know all about the internet! Oh look, I got free software offers in my e-mail! Ooh and this website has some '\/1|2|_|5.exe' downloads! The internet is so easy and safe!" like Word. (Maybe.)

Frontpage might be ok... but it costs $$$ that's probably enough to buy a new low-end PC nowadays.

Try NYU or other freebies first before looking at commercial options.

I'm a fan of SciTE myself.

I have tried Dreamweaver, and it was a decent piece of software. Powerful and relatively easy to use.

I still use it.

Notepad :em321:

you guys dont seem to get it.

you guys think a mother would want to or could use notepad or any other goddamn text editor to create her silly little homely webpage?

also, it's a pretty dumb idea anyway to start making a webpage with a text editor from scratch, when you can create most of the html code, that isn't bloated, through dreamweaver in about a tenth of the time.

EditPlus FTW!

But seriously, your mom is creating a website? Unless she's technically inclined, frontpage might not be easy enough.

Neither would a text editor...

Only if you know some html anyway. In its default state Dreamweaver produces almost as much crap as Frontpage. I once had the honour of working on a page another apprentice had made with Dreamweaver. After cleaning them up a bit (only a bit, not everything) they were only 3/4 their original size.
I like Dreamweaver's text-editor, but that's about it. Though a co-worker told me that it is possible to set up Dreamweaver so that it produces the code the way you want. Perhaps he's right and it does work, but the default settings are horrible.

Do like me, make your first webpage in Microsoft Publisher! LOL.

Ah the memories.

Trellian Internet Studio is the WYSYWIG I have, although that hasn't been started up in ages

Openoffice does html.
I've never used it so I don't know how good it is but it's free.

PEBKAC on his end, then.

Also, Dreamweaver is most useful for editing code anyway. Far better for markup languages than anything else I've ever used.

Notepad for the win.