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**Category:** In My Humble Opinion\
**Created:** [July 3, 2007, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-some-cheapie-but-good-html-authoring-software/410396 "2007-07-03T20:17:50Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 7\
**Page:** 1
**Author:**  [@Belrix](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Belrix)\
**Post date:** [July 3, 2007, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-some-cheapie-but-good-html-authoring-software/410396/1 "2007-07-03T20:17:50Z")
I maintain a [website](http://www.phattats.net), just one, for a tattoo artist friend if mine. I emphasize “just one” because it’s just a thing I do as a trading favors thing (two tats on that site are mine and I didn’t pay retail for them).
The site was created using a combination of Netscape composer and some shell scripts written using [cygwin](http://www.cygwin.com). It’s a clunky way to do it.
Is there some cheapie but good software I could use to help out? The gallery pages are the most work, creating and linking the thumbnails is a real PITA. Everything else is small in comparison.
I know that there’s Dreamweaver and Front Page out there but shelling out $400 for an all-dancing, all-singing piece of authoring software is a bit of overkill for maintaining one website.
Any suggestions?
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**Author:**  [@wasson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wasson)\
**Post date:** [July 3, 2007, 9:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-some-cheapie-but-good-html-authoring-software/410396/2 "2007-07-03T21:17:19Z")
Most image editors have basic gallery making functionality built in. Photoshop does, and so does IrfanView.
FrontPage is free I believe, but it’s total and complete garbage.
I have no experience with anything other than Dreamweaver and Notepad (and way back in the day, Hot Dog), so I can’t comment. However, I have seen this topic pop up a bunch in this forum in the past. You may want to check back on those older threads and see the recommendations there.
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**Author:**  [@Arnold\_Winkelried](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arnold_Winkelried)\
**Post date:** [July 3, 2007, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-some-cheapie-but-good-html-authoring-software/410396/3 "2007-07-03T22:23:48Z")
Are you talking Windows, Macintosh OS, Linux?
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**Author:**  [@Duckster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duckster)\
**Post date:** [July 3, 2007, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-some-cheapie-but-good-html-authoring-software/410396/4 "2007-07-03T22:50:15Z")
[QUOTE=Arnold Winkelried]
Are you talking Windows, Macintosh OS, Linux?
[/QUOTE]
Do you have FTP access to the web server?
Does that server run ASP, Linux, PHP, Python, Perl, and/or MySQL?
The point of the questions is that the capability to manage/maintain a site may already be built-in by the web host.
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**Author:**  [@Belrix](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Belrix)\
**Post date:** [July 4, 2007, 1:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-some-cheapie-but-good-html-authoring-software/410396/5 "2007-07-04T01:04:35Z")
My desktop where I do the composition is Winders. The site is hosted by GoDaddy on one of their linux servers that’s supposed to have the standard toolsets installed.
Hmmmm…
Some poking about their site seems to indicate limited tools on the plans we chose.
SSI, Frontpage server extensions, PHP4 & PHP5, and “Custom PHP4.ini/PHP5.ini”.
Looks like perl, python, java & ruby come for another $3 per month.
Hmm. Under “Free Add-on apps” is:
Nucleus, geeklog, pLog, Serendipity
WordPress, Gallery, Coppermine Photo Gallery
4images, Joomla!, Mambo, Xoops
PostNuke, WWW Paint Board, SMF, PHPOpenChat
AzDGDatingLite, Advanced Guestbook, Advanced Poll
phpCollab, SiteBar, Aardvark Topsites, PaFileDB
phpMyFAQ, Noah’s Classifieds, OpenDB
So, any love there?
Looking about, this [Gallery](http://gallery.menalto.com/) tool looks promising…
(oh - and, yes, the site supports direct ftp)
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**Author:**  [@Duckster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duckster)\
**Post date:** [July 4, 2007, 6:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-some-cheapie-but-good-html-authoring-software/410396/6 "2007-07-04T06:29:46Z")
Build the site with Wordpress.
If you want a photo gallery, Coppermine is the best open source gallery program around.
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**Author:**  [@Green\_Cymbeline](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Green_Cymbeline)\
**Post date:** [July 4, 2007, 7:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-some-cheapie-but-good-html-authoring-software/410396/7 "2007-07-04T07:11:49Z")
Web Album Generator is really good - [http://www.ornj.net/webalbum/](http://www.ornj.net/webalbum/)
[Here](http://brookenelson.com/photos/babies-march07/index.html) is an example of a photo album I made with it.
I also highly recommend Coppermine ( [http://coppermine-gallery.net/](http://coppermine-gallery.net/) ). [Here](http://brookenelson.com/albums/index.php) and [here](http://blakeandadele.com/photoalbums/) are two albums I made with Coppermine.
In addition to Coppermine, I also tried Gallery, and Coppermine was better IMHO. Keep in mind, also, that you need to know CSS/HTML to customize the look of your gallery like I did, but you can also get lots of really nice already-made templates.