Anyone Know Of Good And Free Webdesign Software?

[arminbkk]

Looking for one that can make decent webpages with banners and such for a company. Then upload via ftp. Not a program that requires membership or includes hosting etc. Also, one that can make webpages that can be viewed with any browser, not just MS IE.

Tried MS Publisher and some online website builders, but when you want to publish they require you use them for hosting.

Alternatively, anyone know where to get Dreamwever CS at cheap price?

Thanks.

[CharlieH]

Try yahoo sitebuilder, suggestion, its basic but will do all you need withiut frills bells and whistles but is very effective anf Free

[JSixpack]

http://bearware.info/webdevelopment.html

[innerspace]

Adobe cloud suite.... about $20 a month for a full, legal license of dreamweaver.

Or a few hundred baht at any computer shop in thailand.

But if you want to make money from the website might be best to spend some money on doing it properly.

Avoiding the freebie hosted and ad supported options is certainly a good first step you have made though.

[driedmango]

Wordpress all the way... trust me after 15 years of website design, there is nothing that comes close to it. If you confused about the software and hosting just keep in mind this is a free open source software you can do anything you wish with it has no limitations, you can do everything and anything you want and is by far your cheapest, best, and most reliable option. Everything else is a joke compared to it. Your are always able to FTP things to your web hosting, that is no issue.

[endure]

http://netobjects.com/html/essentials.html

[driedmango]

ps. with wordpress you just download the open sourced files and install them on any server you wish, as some people are confused about the difference between "wordpress blogs" at the wordpress site and the actual code and extensions you can take in install or edit as you wish for your own complex websites, as it is open source.. it has a huge following of active users and support.. most people can be up and running in a few hours with wordpress.

[bangkockney]

I think Joomla's more versatile TBH. It's a fully-fledged CMS, whereas Wordpress is primarily a blog platform. Granted it can be manipulated to perform other functions, but having used both extensively I prefer Joomla.

I didn't always think that however, as Joomla has a much steeper leaning curve. However, now I know it well, I rate it highly.

[dave111223]

I agree with driedmango. Get Wordpress, install a free theme, or a $50 paid theme and you have a professional looking site within a few hours.

If you have never done any webdesign, getting Dreamweaver will result in a few weeks worth of work and end up with a crap website that looks like it comes from 1995.

bangkockney I'd be interested if you can name one thing that you can do with Joomla that you can't with Wordpress.

I'll name something you can't do with Joomla...keep it up to date easily. Even with 2.5 their update system is still junk, it never automatically find updates, and you still have to manually find and upload the correct upgrade package. They constantly bringing out new incompatible major release versions and maintaining them all concurrently, so you have to try and figure out which branch you want to be using (you want 1.6, 1.7, 2.5, 3.0?)

Edited February 26, 2013 by dave111223

[draftvader]

I agree with driedmango. Get Wordpress, install a free theme, or a $50 paid theme and you have a professional looking site within a few hours.

If you have never done any webdesign, getting Dreamweaver will result in a few weeks worth of work and end up with a crap website that looks like it comes from 1995.

bangkockney I'd be interested if you can name one thing that you can do with Joomla that you can't with Wordpress.

I'll name something you can't do with Joomla...keep it up to date easily. Even with 2.5 their update system is still junk, it never automatically find updates, and you still have to manually find and upload the correct upgrade package. They constantly bringing out new incompatible major release versions and maintaining them all concurrently, so you have to try and figure out which branch you want to be using (you want 1.6, 1.7, 2.5, 3.0?)

With 14 Joomla! sites out there (11 on 2.5 and 3 on 1.5...being upgraded) I can say that 2.5 has never had an issue with the upgrades (not something that I could say I was convinced about with 1.5) though I would still recommend running a 'localhost' like XAMPP to check your sites before an upgrade. Once you have the workflow it takes about 5 minutes to check each site locally before an upgrade, then I head online let Akeeba backup the site as part of the upgrade path. Brilliant and simple. The component they are using for their upgrade engine is based off Akeeba backup and is VERY well written indeed. As always with Joomla! though it takes a little longer and you need more commitment to get your results. The results are certainly more flexible though.

In reality the "easy" website will look like an "easy" website. My customers could install Joomla! themselves, buy a template and go from there, but they have businesses to run so they pay me to do that for them. Because of that I am better than they can be as I give 10+ hours per day to understanding and working with it. How much money does the OP want to make from this site and what kind of sites does he buy from/develop trust in?

[dave111223]

With 14 Joomla! sites out there (11 on 2.5 and 3 on 1.5...being upgraded) I can say that 2.5 has never had an issue with the upgrades (not something that I could say I was convinced about with 1.5) though I would still recommend running a 'localhost' like XAMPP to check your sites before an upgrade. Once you have the workflow it takes about 5 minutes to check each site locally before an upgrade, then I head online let Akeeba backup the site as part of the upgrade path. Brilliant and simple. The component they are using for their upgrade engine is based off Akeeba backup and is VERY well written indeed. As always with Joomla! though it takes a little longer and you need more commitment to get your results. The results are certainly more flexible though.

I think you just reiterated my point...all that compared to clicking one button in Wordpress "Update". And a properly built Wordpress site will never be broken upon upgrade because you never have to edit any core files or database tables ever to do anything, and Wordpress always depreciate functions very gently over time. Plus all official plugins are stored in a centralized depository so all plugin are also automatically updateable with the same one-click procedure.

In reality the "easy" website will look like an "easy" website.

This seems like an overly broad statement. Building a site more easily/efficiently does not necessarily mean it will be any worse.

My customers could install Joomla! themselves, buy a template and go from there, but they have businesses to run so they pay me to do that for them. Because of that I am better than they can be as I give 10+ hours per day to understanding and working with it. How much money does the OP want to make from this site and what kind of sites does he buy from/develop trust in?

Sure I can understand that as I do the same thing, but the OP is asking to build his own site, not asking "Where can I find someone to build/maintain my site for me"

Another complaint with Joomla is their template system uses a tag replacement (ie <jdoc:include type="component" />) instead of straight PHP, meaning you cannot modify any of the content from directly in the template, instead have pre-load format it with a plugin, which adds unnecessary work.

Also the Joomla menu system is clunky at best. You have to assign pages to a menu item in order to access the page via an SEO path...even to the point of having to create hidden menus for pages that you want to access, but don't want them in your actual menu (for example if you want to link to a page via a banner image)...

[dave111223]

And to the OP, Wordpress also has a built in theme editor, so that if you want to edit the code on your theme you can do it without needing any other programs (Dreamweaver etc..)

Wordpress also allows you to search for and install plugins directly via your site admin. You never need to leave your site, for example, want a different WYSIWYG, just search the plugins admin for ckeditor, and click "Install"...done... can you do that with Joomla? With Joomla you'd have to go to Joomla.org or Google search for ckeditor...go to the ckeditor patch site, try and find the correct package that goes with your Joomla version, download the package, upload the package, configure your Joomla setting to use ckeditor.

Edited February 26, 2013 by dave111223

[kevinsan]

Free Dreamweaver but better than Dreamweaver.

http://www.aptana.com/products/studio3/download

[JSixpack]

I see netbeans has a new release: http://netbeans.org/

OP seems a naive user and his post implies a simple site. If he wants to go the CMS route, Wordpress or Joomla would be like using a sledgehammer to kill a fly. There are numerous lightweight brands out nowadays, some of which use flat files rather than a database.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=lightweight+cms#q=lightweight+cms&hl=en&source=lnt&tbs=qdr:y&sa=X&ei=F8MsUeXAMYvJrAe314H4Ag&ved=0CB8QpwUoBQ&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_qf.&bvm=bv.42965579,d.bmk&fp=6a0409985b12e545&biw=1333&bih=540

I prefer Joomla for the heavy stuff (extensions galore!) though I concede that Wordpress is simpler to work with. Recently, though, I did small site using one of the lightweights, gpeasy, and was astonished at how fast and easy it was. Maintenance is a breeze and can be offloaded to the users.

[draftvader]

I see netbeans has a new release: http://netbeans.org/

OP seems a naive user and his post implies a simple site. If he wants to go the CMS route, Wordpress or Joomla would be like using a sledgehammer to kill a fly. There are numerous lightweight brands out nowadays, some of which use flat files rather than a database.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=lightweight+cms#q=lightweight+cms&hl=en&source=lnt&tbs=qdr:y&sa=X&ei=F8MsUeXAMYvJrAe314H4Ag&ved=0CB8QpwUoBQ&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_qf.&bvm=bv.42965579,d.bmk&fp=6a0409985b12e545&biw=1333&bih=540

I prefer Joomla for the heavy stuff (extensions galore!) though I concede that Wordpress is simpler to work with. Recently, though, I did small site using one of the lightweights, gpeasy, and was astonished at how fast and easy it was. Maintenance is a breeze and can be offloaded to the users.

Thanks for the reference, off to check gpeasy!

[draftvader]

@JSixPack Nice spot. I think this might be a FAR shorter learning curve than any of the BIG CMS out there. If the OP wants to be able to edit, tweak and tune his site I think that JSixPack's suggestion of gpeasy could be the OP's answer.

[arminbkk]

Thanks for all the replies guys!!

I'll have a look at all of them.

From some of the comments, I must add that I do not intend to make money with the site.

I intend to make a website for the company that I work for.

Primary use is to present the company: give some background, state services, contact details and such. I'm thinking of some 8 to 10 pages at most.

But of course want it to look nice, have some scrolling texts, add gifs, normal pics, maybe e-mail function (visitors can send enquiry from website).

I'm not completely naive about websites, have worked on a few like 15 years ago.

I just don't want to go to deep into HTML code.

Ideally, I would like to copy my draft in Word into some application that then sort of converts it into webpages.

I'm doing this aside from my normal busy work, so that's why I'd preferably like to avoid a steep learning curve.

Currently I'm looking into MS Expression Web 4. But with this I somehow think a designed website will work on IE only, no?

I tried MS Publisher but then found out some features will only reveal on IE, so I dropped Publisher.

I have a book on Dreamweaver CS4, but have the idea that this program is rather expensive, hence my request for alternatives.

[JSixpack]

You can try out various CMS's at opensourcecms.com. Here's the lite category:

http://www.opensourcecms.com/scripts/show.php?catid=9&category=Lite

[driedmango]

Joomla is nice but most people dumping it. WordPress is just to good.

Best ways is spend $20 on a pro wp theme that already has most of the functions and design you want. Change the logo and colors..

Spend your time on content is the important thing. To fancy of a design can consume all your che.

Keep it simple focus on content and get past design.

I like joolma would never recommended for beginners.

I switch a joomla site to WordPress every month never visa versa.

WordPress is way better supported and in my opinion then only way for the average website owner to go.

[driedmango]

Dreamweaver is pro softwear takes time to learn.

You could waste all your time learning it.

WordPress is so easy to update your site from any computer or smart phone.