Website Authoring Software I – January 11, 2010
I am in the process of trying out a number of free or reasonably priced website authoring programs. There seems to be some truth to the axiom “you get what you pay for”. In past years, I have recommended NVU . It seems to have most of the important features including a publishing function and direct editing of the html source code. I recall that it has a bit of bug related to path to images. If anyone has experience using NVU in past years, please share your experience.
At the moment, I am reviewing NetObjects Fusion Essentials . Like NVU it is free. It has many “built in” components and makes building an attractive and functional website fairly easy. But on the down side, it appears you are not able to edit the html source code. It is almost like working with MS Publisher. You get several things such as a great looking navigation system created for you, but you give up the ability to tweak the website. Of course this is likely not important for most VSF participants.
WYSIWYG Web Builder has been highly recommended by some teachers. It is priced at $40.00 and come with a 30 trial.
Another free one is Trellian , which I have downloaded but not used.
I use Dreamweaver but it is quite expensive. Frontpage and it’s replacement Expression is used by many schools. I have some experience with Frontpage.
Those from the dark side use iWeb . I do not have experience with iWeb, but some VSF teams have used it successfully.
Of course, much less desirable than dedicated website authoring software mentioned above, is the use of standard office applications such as Publisher, Word, and PowerPoint. Websites can be created using the “save as webpage” feature of these applications.
