Web Design Software???

NickNolte

8track wrote: »

Thanks NickNolte but I would need Windows software. I think Coda is for Mac.

You should have a look at EditPlus for Windows then. Nice little editor.

Pixelcraft

8track wrote: »

Point taken, Pixelcraft. Paying a developer would be my preference

Sorry I wasn't trying to be smart, this really isn't a software issue. It will need some server side development (from you or whoever), there is no piece of software that will do what you want here, it doesn't exist.

GalwayG

some good links here for free web building tools

http://www.labnol.org/internet/free-website-building-hosting-tools/4511/

Jonny Blaze

Personally i would use Dreamweaver for the coding elements and to create images and logo's etc. I use the Gimp its a useful image editor and creation package which is free!

Also, if you are having trouble getting your head around various tags etc, or ever need a reference check out W3 Schools

Hope this is helpful!

8track

Pixelcraft wrote: »

Sorry I wasn't trying to be smart, this really isn't a software issue. It will need some server side development (from you or whoever), there is no piece of software that will do what you want here, it doesn't exist.

I hadn't been thinking about the possibility of being "smart" as an issue Pixelcraft, don't worry! I appreciate the guidance offered by you and everyone else here. I am wondering, can you elaborate a little on what you mean by server side development please? Perhaps an example or two?

A reminder of what I'm interested in doing - a website consisting of a simple searchable directory of people with their names, email address etc. in different categories. The number of diretory entries/records might run into the hundreds. I had been thinking along the lines of joomla, drupal or maybe scraping a few bob together for the likes of dreamweaver, combined with basic hosting on the likes of blacknight. Maybe web development software isn't enough and I would need to develop a database as well?

Thanks to those that recommended text/code editors on this thread, but that might be a step up too far for me yet in terms of difficulty. I would be starting nearly from scratch in html for example, apart from a little mucking around changing the content and appearance on a myspace page.

Thanks all and acknowledgment to Pablod for starting this thread.

ScumLord

NickNolte wrote: »

I'm not a big fan of Dreamweaver (or any WYSIWYG editor). They can be good for improving workflow and stuff I suppose but there's no substitute for clean, neat, carefully crafted hand-coded mark-up. Coda FTW.

Trying to hand code has been doing my head in of late. Going back over what I've done looking for a mis-spelling or a missing semi colon. I think websites have gotten twice as hard to make with all these new languages. I downloaded visual web developer, html tool kit and am very slowly getting there.

8track, if your only doing something simple like described I think joomla and a standard template of the web would suit. Drupal is more flexible but also more complicated. Even making your own templates with joomla means knowing php, html, xhtml and css. But you don't need to mess with joomla templates yet, you can set up the site use a standard template and be up and running with little in dept knowledge. Then you can go onto learn the harder stuff.

The learning curve would be steep if you went for dreamweaver and you may still end up using a cms making dreamweaver less necessary.

8track

on balance at the moment I am swaying towards joomla, but as much by feeling as logic to be honest!