Ask Slashdot: Best Open Source Answer to Dreamweaver? 300
An anonymous reader writes "I've been looking for an open source alternative to Dreamweaver, and haven't stumbled upon anything that works the way I need. Aptana and Bluefish are fantastic tools, but I cannot work exclusively with them, since Bluefish doesn't have that WYSIWYG functionality that is so important when you're also dealing with design, and Aptana doesn't have classic ASP support. I don't care much about the classic ASP support, but, even though I'm a PHP developer, I give support to classic ASP code on a daily basis. What open source tools are you guys working with out there? I'm really not looking for a Dreamweaver clone, just a tool that gets closer to cover my needs: WYSIWYG, PHP, HTML, CSS support, and less important, classic ASP support."
KompoZer (Score:5, Informative)
Is quite nice, not sure if it meets your ASP needs though
WYSIWYG mode isn't all that... (Score:3, Informative)
Just a comment on WYSIWYG, I'd recommend opting for the browser instead. I've found that most tools that put a WYSIWYG mode into their UI end up mis-implementing parts of the rendering engine, and you end up opening 3-4 different browsers to figure out javascript and css "bugs" (more like oddities in how the browsers render code) anyway. It's convenient for simple things, but if you're doing anything sufficiently complex on the front-end, there's no substitute for good old fashioned cross browser compatibility testing.
BlueGriffon (Score:4, Informative)
BlueGriffon [bluegriffon.org], developed by the guy who gave us Nvu is well worth a look. It's a free open source WYSIWYG HTML editor.
Amaya (Score:4, Informative)
You should definitely try Amaya [w3.org]
Re:It's not open source, but here it goes (Score:5, Informative)
How can it? In terms of car analogies, the comparison for the GPs answer is:
Question: "Hey, I need to buy a new vehicle. I need a dealer with a good price, stands behind their warrantees, doesn't have high pressure sales people, and sells Toyotas."
GPs Answer: "I really like the Subaru Impreza."
Re:notepad++ dude. (Score:0, Informative)
BlueGriffon (Score:5, Informative)
Re:notepad++ dude. (Score:4, Informative)
Sometimes fast beats hand codeing everything.
As in "fast, cheap, or good -- pick two?" I
I've notices that ten years ago before these types of programs became widespread, pretty much any page would render well on pretty much any browser or monitor. Now, I go to Yahoo News using FF on IE7 and the goddamned video window covers the text. I go to most sites with my phone and it won't render at all.
Fast and lazy produces junk that kinda sorta works sometimes under some circumstances. Write your code by hand and stick to standards, and it will render well anywhere. Whether or not to use a tool like Dreamweaver depends on whether or not you want quality, and whether or not you know how to code. And IMO if you don't know HTML and CSS you shouldn't be producing web pages in the first place.
Re:notepad++ dude. And an answer... (Score:5, Informative)
I agree with but since no one seemed to have any answers for this person...
I have not used these but they seem to be options a Dreamweaver replacement.
NVU http://net2.com/nvu/ [net2.com]
Quanta Plus http://freecode.com/projects/quantaplus [freecode.com]
Amaya http://www.w3.org/Amaya/ [w3.org]
Blue Griffon http://bluegriffon.org/ [bluegriffon.org]
Hope this helps the original poster.
Oh and if you just want free as in beer.
http://www.microsoft.com/visualstudio/en-us/products/2010-editions/express [microsoft.com]
I have used any of them but out of this is you will probably find something that will fill the bill.
Anybody check OSALT? (Score:4, Informative)
I don't know if I've seen this site posted here before, but has anybody checked the Open Source Alternatives site, www.osalt.com? Sure, they're not always totally up-to-date, but the do accept software suggestions if your favourite application is missing from the list...
They also only identify open source alternatives, not freeware alternatives (e.g., Paint.NET is not listed as an alternative to Photoshop, since it is simple freeware now and no longer open source). This can be a good thing or an annoying thing, depending on your goals (I use Paint.NET because it's a helluva program, despite not being OS any longer, and the user base/plugin support is amazing).
From the Dreamweaver page [osalt.com], alternative options include:
Quanta Plus 3.5
Available for: windows mac linux unix java
For quick and effortless web development - Quanta Plus is steadily becoming a worthwhile competitor to the commercial web editors on the market. Quanta Plus's features include multi-document... Read more
Aptana 2
Available for: windows mac linux unix java
Aptana is an html/javascript editor, however, it does not provide any WYSIWYG feature - but it is still an amazing editor with many advanced features. Aptana is intended for people developing dynamic... Read more
Bluefish 1.0
Available for: windows mac linux unix java
Eventhough Bluefish is not a WYSIWYG editor - it is still considered a strong tool, however, mainly for experienced web developers/designers. Has support for unicode - and provides wizards for -... Read more
Mozilla SeaMonkey 2.0
Available for: windows mac linux unix java
SeaMonkey settles all of your internet application needs in own package. Its a web-browser, email and newsgroup client, HTML authoring program and IRC chat client all-in-one. In most areas -... Read more
Amaya 10
Available for: windows mac linux unix java
Amaya, developed by W3C, is a web editor/browser that creates and updates documents directly on your website. W3C (WWW Consortium) needed a framework that could include as many of their technologies... Read more
Nvu 1.0
Available for: windows mac linux unix java
Nvu is a web development system primarily developed for Linux but is now also available for windows and mac. The project aims to be an open source alternative for the major commercial web authoring... Read more
KompoZer 0.7.7
Available for: windows mac linux unix java
Kompozer is an open source web development tool built on NVU. The project strives to fix bugs in the NVU project and added new features to it. Both the HTML editor as well as the CSS editor has so... Read more
Re:notepad++ dude. And an answer... (Score:4, Informative)
I agree with but since no one seemed to have any answers for this person... I have not used these but they seem to be options a Dreamweaver replacement. NVU http://net2.com/nvu/ [net2.com] Quanta Plus http://freecode.com/projects/quantaplus [freecode.com] Amaya http://www.w3.org/Amaya/ [w3.org] Blue Griffon http://bluegriffon.org/ [bluegriffon.org] Hope this helps the original poster. Oh and if you just want free as in beer. http://www.microsoft.com/visualstudio/en-us/products/2010-editions/express [microsoft.com] I have used any of them but out of this is you will probably find something that will fill the bill.
I hadn't heard of Blue Griffon, so I looked it up and found that it is made by the same guy who made Nvu all those years ago. Nvu hasn't been updated for over 6 years, so as a result the community forked it and it became KompoZer [kompozer.net]. Now, though, KompoZer hasn't been updated in almost 2 years. The other options don't appear to be faring much better on the release front. It looks like Blue Griffon might be the way to go at the moment.