I need a new web design program (WYSIWYG, free if poss)

My website has grown considerably of late, and the limitations of the design tool I currently use (Namu6)are starting to become a burden.

Namu6 is a very simple, idiot-proof WYSIWYG website management tool - its simplicity could be mistaken for incompetence, but that’s not the case. What it does really well is produce clean, consistently-styled web pages, most of which is achieved by denying the user the opportunity to do anything like using lots of different fonts or colours, or using complicated tables, frames, layers, animated content, drop-down menus etc - it just doesn’t do any of those things, and on the whole, that is its strength.

One little thing it doesn’t do, though, is becoming a nuisance. It doesn’t permit the insertion of blocks of custom HTML - so it’s impossible, for example, to natively embed a video, an ad banner or a web form.

I’m not frightened of HTML, so I’ve been working around this limitation by inserting such custom code blocks by hand, after publishing it from Namu6, but this has disadvantages:
-If I leave these modified pages in situ, they just get overwritten by the unmodified pages next time I publish
-If I break the pages off to prevent them being overwritten, then they’re no longer editable in Namu6 - also, they don’t inherit changes to the menu bar on the rare occasion that I change it.
-If I break the pages off, then the only way to link to them (from other pages still managed in Namu6) is a fully-qualified URL - and this could spell trouble in future.

So, I’m in the market for a new web design tool - I think the virtues of simple layout have now been sufficiently instilled in me that I can be trusted to responsibly use something that would let me make bad design choices.

Criteria:
–I am looking for a graphical design interface (or at least a package with that as an option) - although, as I say, I’m not frightened of HTML coding, I have no desire to try to construct a whole site that way. I understand that this is something that some people might choose to sneer at. I don’t really care if this loses me any respect - I want (primarily) to create web pages, not edit code.

–I need something that’s site-aware - that is, something that will manage the whole site, but without being overbearing - many of the tools I’ve been checking out are fantastic at creating pages, but leave the site structure entirely up to the human editor, either that or they impose a rigid way of working (such as insisting that every page you create must create a corresponding entry in the drop-down menu structure accessible from the front page - I don’t need that, and in fact it would soon be a problem).

–If it can import my existing site (even if it needs a fair bit of work to whip into shape), that would be a plus

–I can’t use a CMS without upgrading to a significantly more expensive hosting package.

–I don’t have a massive budget for this - inexpensive would be nice, free would be even better - anything that requires ongoing costs - such as license subscriptions - is right out.

So… I realise that’s quite a laundry list of requirements - but has anyone any suggestions? (NB: if your suggestion includes the word ‘notepad’, there’s a strong possibility you didn’t read the question properly).

Have you taken a look at Nvu? I’m not sure about it being site aware, so to speak, but it’s free, easy to install, and might be worth looking at.

I had a play with it - it looks very capable (I’m going to take a look at Kompozer, which is its unofficial successor/bug fix). I couldn’t find any way of setting up a template to impose a common theme across all pages.

But in some ways, it would be good - it can pull down the whole site from the web, allow changes, then re-upload the changed bits - a bit like having a CMS, but running client side - this would be good for me, as I would like to be able to edit my site from multiple locations without having to carry the source about.

Oops, yeah, I hadn’t been paying attention for a while now, it seems. I mainly user Dreamweaver when I do what little editing I have to do, so I hadn’t kept up with Nvu’s lack of development. Kompozer looks cleaner, anyway.

While Nvu is free, it does not come highly regarded. I used to recommend Nvu without reservation. Not so much now. As already stated, Kompozer is an open source fork of Nvu. It’s worth a look.

Yet the free web tool that continues to receive raves is good ol’ Mozilla SeaMonkey.

I just stumbled across Amaya

Plus points:
-It’s created by W3C - that’s got to be a good thing in terms of standards compliance
-It allows editing of sites directly on the web (well, effectively that) - like a client-side CMS

Not-so-plus points:
-It doesn’t seem to actually render web pages correctly ??
-I can’t work out how to use it! (probably easily remedied…)

Phew. This is getting to be quite tricky.

It looks like I need to abandon the idea of importing the existing site. Although Namu6 uses its own implementation of templates, internally, it doesn’t produce pages with reusable template objects (at least not all of them, and notably, not the menu)

That’s all well and fine when using the program to edit every page, as it will generate a new version of every page, including any changes to the menu, but although Kompozer and Amaya can edit everything about my site, they see the menu as just a row of links on each page - to add an item to the menu, I’d have to manually paste the new code into each and every page. Clearly that’s a non-runner - especially as the site is growing.

So I think I’ll have to grasp the nettle and start over (obviously I can copy/paste a lot of content), or stick with what I have at the moment.

I’ve hated Microsoft’s web development tools in the past, but I’m hearing good things about Expression Web. It’s not free, but there’s a free beta you can try out and if you’re an MSDN subscriber you can get it from there as well.

Microsoft Visual Web Developer (Express Edition–2008) is entirely free, and has basically all the bells and whistles of Dreamweaver (maybe then some.) It does have “Design” “Split” and “Code” views like Dreamweaver does, but I just use the code view, so I don’t know how well it does with the design view. It’s free and reliable, though.

I’ve also been impressed by the videos I’ve seen of Expression Web, too–it seems like there might possibly maybe eventually be a WYSIWYG editor on the market that might possibly maybe eventually NOT write horrible code. You could test a trial version?

Also I wonder:

have you considered using SSI? ETA: or PHP would work, too. Sure, doesn’t solve the software issue, but you’d only have to change the navigation code in one place.

I know you don’t want to hear this but beanpod has started hinting at it…

Your site could really, really benefit from a custom CMS. The site is simple enough that you could totally learn the PHP needed in a weekend to pull it off. You’re definitely smart enough. If you do not have a hosting package that offers PHP and MySQL you could upgrade pretty cheaply.

You could either build a PHP template and directly edit the DB using phpMyAdmin, or you could go a step further and build yourself an actual CMS where you just go in and fill out web-based forms and there’s your data.

You would then be able to use any cheapy HTML editor you want that supports PHP.

You like to do projects - why not make this a project?

I’m really flattered by your apparent confidence in my abilities, and I truly appreciate the suggestions. I’m not so sure I’d find it all that simple. I guess I could muddle my way through it (everything else I’ve ever done has been like that), but… I dunno… thing is with these projects of mine: necessity is seldom the driver - I do them because of some bloody flight of fancy. Knuckling down to do the things I need to do is not my strong point.

There was a time when I’d have leapt in the air and shouted “whoopee!” at the prospect of learning a new language - and I’m sure I could do it, I’m just not very sure I would. The website is a means - I don’t have the time for it to be an end.

I might be forced to revisit the idea though, if all else fails…

(Not to push, I promise, but…) SSI (Server Side Includes) are pretty easy, though–really more like learning the function of another HTML tag rather than a whole language. PHP, I don’t blame you, but these would work for now and would probably help you in the short term. Here’s a link: Server Side Includes - Wikipedia

Either way, hope you find software that works for you.

beanpod’s recommendation of includes is spot on, too. Once you start using them you’ll wonder why anyone ever did it “the long way.”

If you need a little encouragement to decide to tackle PHP…well, I’ll do what I do with my business partner when I need him to do something for me: I can see why you wouldn’t want to learn PHP. It’s a language for guys with big dicks.

did that reverse psychology work?

That does look simple… I think that might be the way forward - it looks like it might actually be relatively painless to carve up elements of my current site to fit SSI too.

Nice try, but not really. I might have to take a look at PHP at some point in the future though, as part of an escape plan from my current job (developing and maintaining someone else’s business-software-baby, written in a language that was obsolete ten years ago).

That does look a lot simpler than I feared it might be - time to give that a look, I reckon.
The other possibility I’m just starting to consider looking at is turning my site into a proper blog - it’s already quite bloggy in style and content anyway…

Just discovered that my hosting package didn’t support SSI (or actually, very much else) - forcing me to upgrade to the next one up (which is still very reasonably priced, and there’s a special offer - so I got the first three months free).

The new package includes some other potentially useful stuff like a shop engine, blogs, message boards, etc.

My upgrade went through really smoothly - massive upside from all the extra features, including native statistics (I had been using Google Analytics, but it’s a nuisance to set up) - looks like they’ve always been storing the stats - just not letting me see them - as the figures go right back. My site is getting 1000+ visitors a day, sometimes a lot more.

Well… that was easy.

I just made an SSI test/template page, and it works (I’m always a little bit amazed when something works first time). of course, there’s nothing much to see in that page that looks any different from the rest of the site (but I guess that’s kinda the point).

Thanks folks!

Another update on this… I’m looking at moving the site onto a flat-file CMS (my hosting upgrade includes PHP, but not databases). I found what appears to be a really good one called FuzzyLime, which is self-installing and quite configurable (although not very well documented, as far as I can tell).

Looks like it might be a good way to dip my toe into PHP as well.

Whoo hoo! Another convert!

Good web design: +1