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Hi

Is there a free product close to dreamweaver for editing websites. Someone here would be kind enough to let me know.

Thanks
#dreamweaver
  • Profile picture of the author HorseStall
    There are free HTML editors but they pale in comparison to Dreamweaver. You are unlikely to find something free with that level of functionality.
    Sorry.
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    • Profile picture of the author Merlina
      Originally Posted by HorseStall View Post

      There are free HTML editors but they pale in comparison to Dreamweaver. You are unlikely to find something free with that level of functionality.
      Sorry.
      I've searched for ages for something like this and I'm afraid you're right.
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  • Profile picture of the author garfield29
    You can try searching Google for it. I tried it and some free software actually exists. But I would agree that Dreamweaver will be far better from any other editors.
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  • Profile picture of the author javadth
    illuster is the one of them
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  • Profile picture of the author oliviacis
    Originally Posted by spaceboos View Post

    Hi

    Is there a free product close to dreamweaver for editing websites. Someone here would be kind enough to let me know.

    Thanks
    With all of the tools and benefits of Dreamweaver, there are still designers who prefer another popular site editor: Microsoft FrontPage. It is advisable to take a look at both products, as well as other products in the market, before making the choice for what suits your individual needs and website design goals.

    Check this out: matthewbredel.com/96/is-dreamweaver-the-best-option.html
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    • Profile picture of the author ronc0011
      There is another Microsoft editor that is every bit as powerful ad Dreamweaver My favorite is Microsoft Visual Web developer. It much more powerful than DW and it's FREE just Google it.
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    • Profile picture of the author Brandon Tanner
      Originally Posted by oliviacis View Post

      With all of the tools and benefits of Dreamweaver, there are still designers who prefer another popular site editor: Microsoft FrontPage. It is advisable to take a look at both products, as well as other products in the market, before making the choice for what suits your individual needs and website design goals.

      Check this out: matthewbredel.com/96/is-dreamweaver-the-best-option.html
      FrontPage has not been updated since 2003, and the HTML code that it spits out is awful (it produces sloppy code that's about as non-standards-compliant as you can get).

      As Ron mentioned, MS Visual Web Developer would be a FAR better choice, and is probably about the closest you can get to Dreamweaver-like functionality in a free program.

      Also, there are some other free HTML editors out there that are pretty decent. While they don't compare to DW, they also don't have the steep learning curve that DW has...

      Best Free HTML Editor
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      • Profile picture of the author Joshster
        Hi,

        When you refer to MS Visual Web Developer, I presume you mean (naming convention is a bit confusing)

        Visual Web Developer 2010 Express

        Microsoft Web Platform

        Can you confirm?

        Thanks

        Originally Posted by Brandon Tanner View Post

        FrontPage has not been updated since 2003, and the HTML code that it spits out is awful (it produces sloppy code that's about as non-standards-compliant as you can get).

        As Ron mentioned, MS Visual Web Developer would be a FAR better choice, and is probably about the closest you can get to Dreamweaver-like functionality in a free program.

        Also, there are some other free HTML editors out there that are pretty decent. While they don't compare to DW, they also don't have the steep learning curve that DW has...

        Best Free HTML Editor
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        • Profile picture of the author ronc0011
          Originally Posted by Joshster View Post

          Hi,

          When you refer to MS Visual Web Developer, I presume you mean

          Visual Web Developer Express

          Microsoft Web Platform

          Can you confirm?

          Thanks
          Yep, that's the Free one. I actually have a copy of Visual Studio, the company I used to work for bought it. But I have since discovered that the express edition does everything the $3,000 version does. For the price you won't find a better IDE
          There for sure is no reason to pay $400 to Adobe for Dreamweaver
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          • Profile picture of the author Joshster
            Ron, thanks for the super useful info

            Cheers,
            Josh

            Originally Posted by ronc0011 View Post

            Yep, that's the Free one. I actually have a copy of Visual Studio, the company I used to work for bought it. But I have since discovered that the express edition does everything the $3,000 version does. For the price you won't find a better IDE
            There for sure is no reason to pay $400 to Adobe for Dreamweaver
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          • Profile picture of the author Steve Wells
            Originally Posted by ronc0011 View Post

            Yep, that's the Free one. I actually have a copy of Visual Studio, the company I used to work for bought it. But I have since discovered that the express edition does everything the $3,000 version does. For the price you won't find a better IDE
            There for sure is no reason to pay $400 to Adobe for Dreamweaver
            Nope, be like me, get the entire creative master suite for $125.00

            Yep, it's the original non bootlegged version and disc.

            How did I get it? Well, I believed God to get it to me for cheap. And he did, via craigslist.

            A person who had the corporate version of CS3 Master Collection, just moved to town, because of a divorce, he and his wife had planned on starting a business, but didn't and he needed the money which I gladly gave him.

            Now I own the corporate version, which allows me to use the software on up to 5 different stations.

            God is great!
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  • Profile picture of the author blogfreakz
    Just wondering why your looking for other editor? dreamweaver is good enough..
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    • Profile picture of the author ScottieDog
      Originally Posted by blogfreakz View Post

      Just wondering why your looking for other editor? dreamweaver is good enough..
      I don´t think it´s about it being "not good enough" - It is because he doesn´t want to pay the Dreamweaver price.

      For me, its Dreamweaver every time. The only other program I used to any degree was Cyberstudio, yessssss... that was a long time ago. LOL. It was more user friendly than Dreamweaver, but not as powerful - When I first moved to DW it took some learning but never looked back.. DW is everything I need and more.
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      • Profile picture of the author spaceboos
        Wow great feedback Thanks All.
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  • Profile picture of the author SoundsGood
    What about Komposer? (or something like that??) Anyone recommend that one over the MS one?
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    • Profile picture of the author ronc0011
      Visual Web Developer has all the drag and drop functionality of most modern WYSIWYG editors such as Dreamweaver and the only weird code I've ever seen it do is to add a z-index for no apparent reason to elements that you drag onto the page However since I code everything by hand I am always working in the code view. so I don't get that. though now I know to watch for it if I drag an element onto the page from the tool pallet.. That's one of the things I really like about Visual Web Developer is working in code view it validates your code on the fly so you always know you are writing W3C compliant code. It also flags any typos or code errors on the fly, it catches everything, nothing gets by.

      So here's the only reason to pay any money to Adobe and that is to get one of their bundled packages like CS 6 Design and Web premium but even then you need to get it through the academic pricing option. Find yourself a student or a teacher to help you get it. You should be able to get the academic version for around $400. This option will get you Flash and Photoshop and Illustrator and several Adobe softwares including Dreamweaver. that is the only you can realistically justify paying that kind of money to Adobe.
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      • Profile picture of the author SoundsGood
        Could someone please link to the download page for this recommended free Microsoft software? I searched for it but found several similar products. I want to make sure I'm getting the right stuff.

        Thanks!
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        • Profile picture of the author ronc0011
          Originally Posted by SoundsGood View Post

          Could someone please link to the download page for this recommended free Microsoft software? I searched for it but found several similar products. I want to make sure I'm getting the right stuff.

          Thanks!
          Yeah Microsoft's download page can be confusing I found teh best path is to install MSSQL Server Express first So that Visual Web Deveoper finds it when you do the install


          MS SQL Server Express Download; Download Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 - Express from Official Microsoft Download Center

          MS Visual Studio Express 2012 for web; Microsoft Visual Studio Express 2012 for Web | Microsoft Visual Studio


          Looks like 2012 has brought a new naming convention for the Visual Studio product set.
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          • Profile picture of the author ronc0011
            BTW, if you start using VS there's a very good site to help you get up to speed on it

            OK after looking over all this I found Microsoft's ASP.NET website has started focusing more on WebMatrix. I'm not real clear exactly what the differences are I suspect WebMatrix may be part of Visual Studio 2012 Web . Actually I think I'm gonna upgrade my install. I'll let you know what I find out.

            Anyway ASP>NET has tons of video tutorials on using these platforms. But as usual their site structure is horribly confusing and non-sensecal . So they have revamped the site in order to make even more difficult to navagate. Once upon a time they had all these video as thumbnails on one page or almost one page. And though you wouldn't know it to look at this page there are actually hundreds of video tutorials on this site your challenge is to find them.

            http://www.asp.net/web-pages/videos
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            • Profile picture of the author ronc0011
              Another note about Microsoft's IDE : it was originally designed to support Microsoft's .NET platform i.e. VB.NET and C#.NET and ASP.NET So the short version of this is that Visual Studio is a programming iDE with support for the .NET Framework. So the web IDE gives you an HTML and CSS coding /designing interface that also includes support for . Net if you wish to use it. However you are perfectly free to develop strictly HTML /CSS the design /code window is ideal for this.
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          • Profile picture of the author SoundsGood
            Originally Posted by bhmseoservices View Post

            I believe this is what you're looking for,
            WebMatrix 2
            Thanks, but I guess I'm confused. Are you guys suggesting we use "Microsoft WebMatrix 2" or "Microsoft Visual Studio"?
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            • Profile picture of the author ronc0011
              actually Microsoft is unsurpassed when it comes to making this sort of stuff confusing. I've been working with Microsoft stuff for many years and it's always been that way with their website. You gotta figure Microsoft's website is probably the biggest site in the world and has thousands and thousands of pages of data. So no surprise it's a challenge to find stuff on their site.

              I'm redoing my install because i just found out the Visual Studio Express 2012 for Web R2 was a trial version and not the express edition I thought it was . I will be back with further updates.
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              • Profile picture of the author ronc0011
                actually Microsoft is unsurpassed when it comes to making this sort of stuff confusing. I've been working with Microsoft stuff for many years and it's always been that way with their website. You gotta figure Microsoft's website is probably the biggest site in the world and has thousands and thousands of pages of data. So no surprise it's a challenge to find stuff on their site.

                I'm redoing my install because i just found out the Visual Studio Express 2012 for Web R2 was a trial version and not the express edition I thought it was . I will be back with further updates.

                VWD 2010 Express.
                Microsoft Web Platform

                Well Looks like WebMatrix 2 is what you want. It appears that the install will also install Visual Web Developer. I think this is the download for WebMatrix. I'm not sure if it actually installs VWD or not but just in case the other link will get VWD for you The two are integrated kind of like the Adobe suites.
                WebMatrix 2
                But here's the really cool part. Web Matrix also supports PHP and, get this, it will run it in its test server so you can build PHP pages and run them from inside the applacation. Now That is way cool.
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  • Profile picture of the author bhmseoservices
    I believe this is what you're looking for,
    WebMatrix 2
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  • Profile picture of the author IMDESTROYER
    Banned
    expression web and i think the other is called coffee cup.
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  • Profile picture of the author Raindance
    There is nothing on the internet that is even remotely close to Dreamweaver, but have you given KompoZer a try?
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    • Profile picture of the author SoundsGood
      Originally Posted by Raindance View Post

      ...have you given KompoZer a try?
      How does Kompozer compare to WebMatrix 2 ?
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      • Profile picture of the author Raindance
        Originally Posted by SoundsGood View Post

        How does Kompozer compare to WebMatrix 2 ?
        WYSIWYG. KompoZer is. WebMatrix 2 isn't.

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        • Profile picture of the author SoundsGood
          Originally Posted by Raindance View Post

          WYSIWYG. KompoZer is. WebMatrix 2 isn't.
          Ahhh... I see. Thanks!
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  • Profile picture of the author kazim
    I don't use dreamweaver. After testing I see that site becomes slow if it is doing design by dreamweaver.
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  • Profile picture of the author Peter Szabo
    Haha there is and is actually better!

    BLUEVODA is it's name... however go with wordpress websites.
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    • Profile picture of the author Brandon Tanner
      Originally Posted by petike1 View Post

      Haha there is and is actually better!

      BLUEVODA is it's name...
      I've tried Blue Voda in the past, and it's not even remotely comparable to Dreamweaver.

      And if I recall correctly, the code that it spit out wasn't very standards-compliant. Not to mention you're forced to use their webhost for any sites that you build with it.

      It does have a simple, "drag and drop" interface though, so it may be useful for knocking out quick mockups. I wouldn't trust it for doing any real development though.
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  • Profile picture of the author MikeyLightning
    Search for WYSIWYG editors, they are very similar to dreamweaver without all the added features, but will get the job done.
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  • Profile picture of the author John DeNiro
    Seriously, you need to check out Apatana

    Here's the link... Aptana

    It has a lot of functionality and it's open source
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    • Profile picture of the author SoundsGood
      Originally Posted by John DeNiro View Post


      Seriously, you need to check out Apatana
      Looks like it's lacking a WYSIWYG editor. Bummer.
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  • Profile picture of the author mustbecrap
    I have been using an older version of dreamweaver for about 7 years and it still runs circles over most others.. I guess because of the WYSIWYG ability, without that I would just be a hack.. I mean I am a hack, so i nee all the help I can get, and if cannot see what I am doing then I am useless (I take my hat of to those who can code like crazy without needing the ability of WYSIWYG)..

    I have looked long and hard for other software but none come close.
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    • Profile picture of the author SoundsGood
      Originally Posted by mustbecrap View Post

      I have been using an older version of dreamweaver for about 7 years and it still runs circles over most others.
      Really? Hmmm... I actually own a copy of Macromedia Studio MX 2004 (which contains a very old version of Dreamweaver) but I've never used it since my company used MS FrontPage instead at that time.

      Question for the experts here: What would be better? This very old copy of Dreamweaver from MX 2004 that I have? Or Kompozer? Or Apatana?

      Any thoughts on this??

      Thanks guys!
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