FP - Please recommend your favorite FREE wysiwyg editor

[succor]

I need to create a few simple static pages.

I could do them is straight html, but I would like to try a wysiwyg editor. I have a feeling that after I learn to use the wysiwyg editor it will be faster to use on future projects.

I have both windows 7 and ubuntu. So recommendations for both are welcome; actually it's down right encouraged. I know I can use Google to find one, but I'm really looking for recommendation here.

[succor]

To my new captive audience:

mmwhahaha

Okay, now that's out of the way, do any of my new EP associates have any recommendations?

[TheodoreK]

Hey Succor,

I've tried a few free editors (mostly going through this wikipedia list: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_HTML_editors )
and in the end I stuck with SeaMonkey Composer. It's bug-free and frequently updated. 100% satisfied with it.

[succor]

@TheodoreK

Thank you for the FAST reply; the quickness totally caught me off guard. I appreciate the link. SeaMonkey Composer looks good; it's wysiwyg, it's free, and it will work on both windows and linux, it supports css and java script, it supports gif and png images. Hopefully html5 support will be forthcoming soon; I found a way to do frame looking pages without using frames in html5; I like frames but too many other things don't.

I'm out of [thanks] button ability for today. No worries, I'll be back and thank you properly once my ability to do so returns.

Anybody else have any recommendations, for SeaMonkey Composer or another editor?

[Clinton]

Everybody is going to laugh, but I use Frontpage as the others are too complicated!

[succor]

@Clinton

I own both FrontPage and Dreamweaver myself. Neither of which is free by the way.

I too use FrontPage and I like it very much. It's balance of simplicity verses flexibility is... well... balanced. Alas, I have noticed that some hosting providers are dropping support for FrontPage. Besides that, the version I have is old... very old.

I have used Dreamweaver, and the amount of options can be overwhelming. I just want to make some mostly static pages and it feels like using an elephant gun to kill a groundhog. Besides that Adobe bought them out a few years ago and I absolutely REFUSE to support Adobe.

[akirk]

I would ditch Front Page personally - it has improved a bit in later versions - but Microsoft persist in their belief that they can set international standards on the internet - so their systems put up all sorts of strange code into a website you don't realise is there - works fine with internet explorer - causes issues everywhere else...

Dreamweaver - fantastic software, especially if doing multiple sites (I have 130 on the go currently) - or if a number of you are coding and you need checking out / version control / etc. otherwise can be overkill...

Notepad++ is very good - we have used that in the company as well (and free)

Alasdair

[Kay]

FrontPage is a nightmare! DreamWeaver isn't hard to learn. I switched from FP to DW back in 2000, it only took a me week or so to get the hang of it and I'm a technophobe. Haven't used it for ages, though, as WordPress just makes everything so easy I never use anything else these days.

[succor]

@akirk

Thank you for the assessment. I agree with the code not working well everywhere using FrontPage; it also generates a TON of code. I have used Word to create webpages and while it is wysiwyg it generates megatons of lines of code and editing the code takes longer than writing it all from scratch.

I am currently using Notepad++. Great program, but alas not wysiwyg. It has been working well for me for a while now, but I wanted to try a wysiwyg editor to see if it is any faster; as long as I can edit the code directly to fine tune stuff like placement and sizing.

Keep the recommendations coming. I am loving all of this interaction!

[Clinton]

Kay's obviously a lot smarter than I am

I tried Dreamweaver and gave up in frustration.

Once I've done my design and tweaked it in Notepad++ or something else, I stick it in FP and FP doesn't add any code. So I don't see what all the fuss about FP code is... that applies only to the raw newbie who is creating everything from scratch in FP or copy/pasting into FP from a Word doc! But that's not how it works on the 'net. You usually download or commission a design and then create further pages based on that template. Once you've done that FP's tools and facilities are pretty good. Quite awesome, actually. Just avoid using FP specific features and you won't need FP extensions or suffer code bloat.

If you're designing from scratch you can do that in FP as well, but you need to do some of the work in HTML mode to stay safe.

When this forum's php code needs alteration, I do it in FP! You have nothing to fear