Web Development Tools
Expression Web is part of Microsoft's media-creation suite. They've finally abandoned FrontPage, which for years produced some of the worst-coded, Internet-Explorer-only sites on the web. Expression Web is more compliant with web coding and hosting standards.
close match high quality challenge MS Macromedia's DreamWeaver is a WYSIWYG tool for people who don't like WYSIWYG tools (or those who do, I suppose). It gives you the point-and-click ease of FrontPage, but still gives you full control over everything. You can tell DreamWeaver what standard JavaScript effects you want to use, and it will write the code for you. But if you want to do some hand-coding (of HTML or JavaScript), DreamWeaver will let you, and it will leave it alone. Its also far more than just a web-page editor; its site management tools are first-rate, and it includes powerful database, Dynamic HTML, and scripting capabilities using JSP, ColdFusion, and PHP (or ASP). my choice Windows Mac OS
high quality challenge MS Apple iWeb is included in the recent versions of the iLife package that comes with each new Mac. It comes with a collection of great-looking templates that can be manipulated and customized easily, and provide easy access to your photo collection and other media. Then with a few clicks iWeb generates the code to run it, and uploads it to your web host. Mac OS
high quality TopStyle is developed by the person who created the classic HTML editor HomeSite, and it's nice that he hasn't been restricted by a non-compete clause in the sale agreement, because he's gone on to produce a worthy "upgrade" for HomeSite users. One of its key benefits is strong support for cascading style sheets; it can even be configured to act as an auxiliary CSS editor for other HTML editors that aren't as strong in this area. Windows
high quality HotDog Professional is the latest incarnation of what Web old-timers will remember as the first really good HTML editor for Windows. It provides all the tools you need for coding with HTML, JavaScript, Cascading Style Sheets, PHP, and (if you must) Microsoft's Active Server Pages and VBScript. They offer a version called HotDog PageWiz that offers templates and "wizards" to help novices get started, then helps them maintain and fine tune the site. HotDog Junior is designed to help kids design their own web pages. Windows
close match high quality challenge MS Softpress Freeway is a WYSIWYG tool for Mac OS with some remarkable features, including drag-and-drop of files of nearly any type, the ability to use whatever fonts you have on your computer (which it will convert into image files for the actual web page, but leaving the original text editable), and on-the-fly compositing of transparent (and partially-transparent) images in native Photoshop format. Although it's most appealing to those who favor the DTP approach to web design, it still offers a lot to code geeks. Available in "Express" and "Pro" versions. Mac OS
high quality low price Evrsoft 1st Page is a professionally-developed free (but not open source) HTML editor for Windows that can operate in any of several different modes, ranging from "easy" (with big friendly buttons) to "expert" (tabbed button bars like HomeSite) to "hardcore" (a nearly icon-free keyboard-driven interface), so it can be useful for new coders and "grow up" with them. It comes with a complement of scripts (including JavaScript, Perl, VBscript, DHTML) that can be used in your sites, and lets you build your own library of code snippets to draw from. Windows
high quality SubEthaEdit is a text editor for Mac OS X with built-in collaboration capabilities. Imagine allowing multiple people in different locations simultaneously work on the same file. It's a methodology known as "Extreme Programming" (XP), and SubEthaEdit makes it easy. Mac OS
low price Taco HTML Editor is an HTML editor for Mac OS X. It's developed by a college student in his spare time, but it has a lot of handy features (some of which simply take advantage of toolkits built into OS X), including colored code, live previews, and drag-and-drop linking of pages. Mac OS
close match low price challenge MS If you don't want to get into coding or do anything especially fancy, Kompozer is a good choice, especially since it's available free of charge. It's based on Nvu, a stand-alone component of the open source Mozilla Seamonkey package. It's about as perfect a WYSIWYG tool as you can get, because the editing tool is itself a web browser. It's a great tool to give to non-computer-savvy people who need to update web content, because it lets them see exactly what they're doing as they do it, and it will generally keep them from seriously mangling the underlying HTML code. Windows Mac OS Unix-like OS/2 BeOS VMS
close match low price Serif WebPlus is geared directly to substitute for FrontPage, serving as a handy tool for novices to set up web sites, with enough features to make them look snazzy if you're so inclined. It includes a multiple-document WYSIWYG interface, and a bunch of graphics and wizards to make it easier to setup various kinds of pages, but it still gives you the ability to edit the HTML code directly. And it's fairly cheap. Windows
close match high quality Namo WebEditor is an affordable tool that balances ease-of-use, quick-start features like site-building "wizards" and WYSIWYG manipulation of the design, with advanced features such as direct HTML editing (and preservation), support for database publishing using PHP or JSP (or ASP), and built-in graphic manipulation tools. Windows
low price CoffeeCup HTML Editor is one of the grandaddies of web creation software, dating back to 1996. Originally for Linux, but now available only for Windows. There is a free of charge version as well. Windows
close match high quality NetObjects Fusion makes it easy to quickly build web sites by dragging and dropping things where you want them. It's designed for both power and efficiency, and they claim some incredible productivity advantages over other development tools. By taking advantage of it's "wizards" and pre-defined style sheets, you can save a lot of time. Windows
low price challenge MS BlueFish is an HTML editor for Unix-like systems with the GNOME environment installed. It will look very familiar to former HomeSite users who've migrated to Linux. It even has the custom keyboard-usable menu that was available in earlier versions of HomeSite, but has since been dropped. Although it's still on less-than-1 version numbers, it's already very usable. Unix-like
low price challenge MS Amaya is a project of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C, the body that sets standards for the web), to produce an open-source tool featuring integrated web-browsing and web-authoring. This was Tim Berners-Lee's original conception of how one would use this "Web" thing he invented (and since he's a member of the W3C, it makes sense that they'd produce a tool of this sort). It's available for Windows, NT, Linux, Solaris, and AIX (and can be compiled for any other Unix). Windows Unix-like
low price challenge MS Much of the early Web was built using GNU Emacs. It's one of the quintessential geek tools, an editor that can be programmed to aid in a wide variety of tasks that involve editing text. Naturally, there are HTML-editing packages for it. Not recommended for the technologically challenged; highly recommended for those who demand full control of their working environment and can handle that responsibility. XEmacs is a graphical version. Like most GNU tools, it can run on nearly any Unix-like operating systems (plus a few others), and like all GNU software, it's free. Unix-like Windows Mac OS DOS RISC OS AtheOS
low price challenge MS The other classic geek tool for web development is vi (pronounced "vee-eye"), short for "visual interface". It was the first usable screen-based (rather than command-line-based) text editor for Unix. It - or vim ("vi improved") - is included with nearly every Unix-like system, and ported or cloned on most other operating systems. Although it's not very intuitive, it's fairly easy to learn the basic functions, and there's a lot of speed and flexibility in it for those keen on learning it. Vim is charityware. my choice Unix-like Windows Mac OS BeOS Amiga DOS RISC OS VMS OS/2
close match a close match or substitute for Microsoft's product
high quality an especially high-quality alternative
low price an inexpensive (or even free) alternative
challenge MS offers a strong challenge to Microsoft's influence
my choice my personal selection
Runs on: Windows Windows, Mac OS Mac OS, Unix-like Unix-like systems, Java Java-compatible systems, Symbian Symbian OS, Palm OS Palm OS, Netware Netware, OpenVMS OpenVMS, BeOS BeOS, OS/2 OS/2, Amiga Amiga, RISC OS RISC OS, DOS DOS, AtheOS AtheOS
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