Amaya = Alternative to NVU or Dreamweaver?

[Knewguy]

Hello,

I'm starting to design websites and was wondering if anyone here has used Amaya (from the World Wide Web Consortium http://www.w3.org/Amaya/) in place of NVU or Dreamweaver? If so, did it create more compliant code verses the other two programs?

Thanks.

[jammodotnet]

most developers would not want to use a WYSIWYG editor, well, me anyways.

the biggest shortcoming of then is that i dont have full 100% control of what is being created. for years, and this seems to be consistent with many developers, i have used just a plan text editor.
on windows, i used: notepad, notepad++, editplus, and finally pspad.
on ubuntu: i stick to BlueFish.

everyone has their favorite editor, as well as their least favorite editor.
while there is nothing wrong with WYSIWYG editors, it is actually better to know, precisely, exactly, where every single variable, instance, and/or tag resides in a (X)HTML/PHP/CSS page.
if you code it by hand, it is easier to locate.
if the program does it for you (WYSIWYG), it is harder to correct.

you just mentioned that you just started in web design?
i'm sure you have a few select sites with tutorials on them to aid you along the way?
here are a few more for your bookmarks:
www.w3schools.com = tutorials in html, xhtml, css and more
www.htmldog.com = the web designer's resource for everything HTML and CSS

after youve covered the basics, and understand the tags and methodology, you can then venture into the WHY & HOW of web design. there are many many sites dedicated to this. im sure the posts that follow will contain plenty of advice and links to other sites for you to read.
a few of my true favorites are:
www.456bereastreet.com = web standards, accessibility, usability, and other things related to web development and web design.
www.thinkvitamin.com = resource for web developers, designers and entrepreneurs

while on the homepage of thinkvitamin, look on the right sidebar, their Advisory Board. take the time to visit and learn from them. it takes aLOT of TIME and EFFORT to put build a compliant, cross-browser & useful website.
Dan Cederholm, Molly Holzschlag, Shaun Inman, Eric Meyer, & Dave Shea are my personal favorites.

if you venture into the area of BOOKS, a few of keen interest (mine) are:
*- Web Standards Solutions: The Markup and Style Handbook by Dan Cederholm http://tinyurl.com/2gu4ry
*- Bulletproof Web Design: Improving flexibility and protecting against worst-case scenarios with XHTML and CSS by Dan Cederholm http://tinyurl.com/2a5lse
*- The Zen of CSS Design: Visual Enlightenment for the Web by Dave Shea, Molly E. Holzschlag http://tinyurl.com/2z48pn


best of luck to you!
please let us know how your tutorials go!

[Knewguy]

Jam,

Thanks for the links. I was recently referred to the www.w3schools.com site. I like its "streamlined" tutorials. Those other links sound really great, too. I'll definitely check them out.

A tech friend of mine gave me the same advice - learn to hand-code first, then maybe use the WYSIWYG editors, BUT in order for me to gain some ground quickly now he suggested the opposite (of an editor first, and learning the coding part, secondarily, as I work on a project).

I do have a "tome" on html, xtml, & css but I used it somewhat. I think the tutorials on w3schools.com might be more of my learning style.

Since you're a web developer I have a question for you (or any other web dev. that wants to help)...Is the field of Web Design still a solid field to get into? It seems as technology grows (and get easier for everybody) the salaries and job opportunities for Web Designers lessen?? Practically anyone can make a fairly eye-pleasing web site with pretty good content??

Thanks for all your help and advice.

[jammodotnet]

Originally Posted by Knewguy Since you're a web developer I have a question for you (or any other web dev. that wants to help)...Is the field of Web Design still a solid field to get into? It seems as technology grows (and get easier for everybody) the salaries and job opportunities for Web Designers lessen?? Practically anyone can make a fairly eye-pleasing web site with pretty good content?? Thanks for all your help and advice.

Is the field of Web Design still a solid field to get into?
YES.
But if you are asking, "can i make enough money to quit my full-time/part-time job?"
then the answer would be NO (at least for me).

I greatly enjoy doing that I do in this field. I've come along a great great way from my old methods and style of work. When I started, I never cared or knew about: doc types, frames, applets, marquee tags, etc.

I'll answer another one of your questions here aswell: It seems as technology grows (and get easier for everybody) the salaries and job opportunities for Web Designers lessen?

Number one, I don't think it is getting easier. For me, and others in this field who are established (experience & knowledge), it IS easy, because we saw the Web 2.0 craze, we saw the depreciation of tables, fonts tags and so many other "useless" tags.
But it is by no means easy. There is a common saying amongst coders and programmers: we spend 10% of our time writing the code and 90% of our time debugging it.

That's true.

Another thing that makes it a bit daunting is the explosion of new(er) technologies.
Many sites treat AJAX as a new thing?! It's not. The DOM has been around as long as there has been HTML & Javascript (BTW: careful not to confuse Java with Javascript - two entirely different languages).
XML, CMS, DHTML, HTML, XHTML, SOAP, CakePHP, Python, Perl, CGI, CSS, Javascript libraries, LAMP, XAMPP, MAMP, Linux, Apache, MySQL, PNG, SVG, JPG, GIF, RSS, Atom, TCP/IP, ASP, JSP, WAP, .NET, W3C ... etc ... the list goes on and on and on.
I'm by no way implyng that I know all that stuff, but I have had to learn something about it all.


Allow me to go back to your first question: Is the field of Web Design still a solid field to get into?
YES, however, there are a few reasons I do not pursue this as a full-time gig:
my full-time employer has an amazing 401k plan, health benefits, sick/vacation pay, etc.
in order to DO this full-time, I want/need to go through the legal aspects of copyright/trademarking my name, screen name, slogan, artwork, etc.
Register with my local Chamber of Commerce, Better Business Bureau, etc.
Apply for an business card/loan and carefully separate my business expenses from home/personal for tax purposes. Hire an accountant, assistant, secretary, purchase new hardware/software, etc.

I know a few people who are one-person-machines, like myself, they/we do their/our own consultation, site mock-up, presentation, contract writing, graphic design, programming, debugging, etc. in essence, they do it all!
I also know a few people who work for firms in which there is someone who solely works with Photoshop, another dood who only does the CSS, some lady that takes their original photos, someone for their site maintenance/backups, etc.


For many professional freelancers, it is worth the effort and time and money they put into this, because they do something they LOVE to do. However, I don't love it THAT much, ya know?!
I enjoy it for what it is.
I'll help someone with a new site or a restructure. I'll make a few hundred for something simple, or a few geez for something complex and time-consuming.

But overall, this is a wonderful hobby/job, either way you look at it. It all depends on how MUCH you put into it.

[geovino]

I've tried using Bluefish, but everytime I tried to preview what I did in a browser, Bluefish would crash. How do you preview work so Bluefish doesn't crash?

I have also tried Quanta Plus and it seemed similar but had a better preview option.

[lyceum]

Originally Posted by geovino I've tried using Bluefish, but everytime I tried to preview what I did in a browser, Bluefish would crash. How do you preview work so Bluefish doesn't crash? I have also tried Quanta Plus and it seemed similar but had a better preview option.

I am not sure how you are doin it, but I start creating the page, then save it. I open Firefox and drag the saved webpage icon onto Firefox, that opens it. As I work, I Ctrl+s in Bluefish to save my work, then Ctrl+r Firefox to refresh the page and see what it looks like. I have had no problems, and alt+tab switching just make everything really easy, no need for the mouse. Hope that helps

[rolando2424]

Hum... I' m not a professional web developer, so I just use Nvu for my projects' page.

I have installed BlueFish though... But I like WYSIWYG type of programs

(Like I said, I'm not a professional web developer, perhaps there is another type of thing they should look when searching for a program.)

[Knewguy]

Jam,

Thanks for all the info. on web design/developing. I'm becoming a one person machine too with doing the graphic/web design, writing, etc. The clients I have all want websites so I needed a wysiwyg type of program to get a site up and running (with "decent" code) now. Then, later maybe I can tweak the sites when I gain more coding knowledge.

Also, I asked those questions because of people telling me that it's way cheaper for them to build a site through their web hosting company (vs. hiring a web designer to create it for them).

I know this isn't a career site so I'll get back to the main question of wysiwyg programs.

Thanks again.

[Garyu]

Originally Posted by Knewguy I'm starting to design websites and was wondering if anyone here has used Amaya (from the World Wide Web Consortium http://www.w3.org/Amaya/) in place of NVU or Dreamweaver? If so, did it create more compliant code verses the other two programs?

Nice. Amaya sure does show promise. However, it is very buggy. I tried to create a page just now and while the interface was rather nice with many different options, the program would suddenly copy-and-paste parts of the code to other places in the document creating lots of errors. Also, at some point or another it would just crash.

I would make Amaya my default editor if it was stable. But it is far from stable. A good candidate for future use though. Until then I am using Kompozer which is NVU with a few less bugs.
http://kompozer.net/

(To be fair, I installed Amaya with apt-get. There is a newer version on their site which might be more stable)

[Scunizi]

You can use the latest version of amaya on Ubuntu. Just download it from their site. Another alternative that looks good is Screem. It's available in Synaptic. You have to do the coding with it but it's a nice interface and has tons of features. I'm also just learning strict xhtml & css. I did design a site for a local organization with Nvu and it turned out fine... but... it was all done in tables. Nvu has a CSS editor but it's clunky and buggy.

I'm currently reading 2 books: Head First - HTML w/CSS & XHTML by Elizabeth & Eric Freeman (my preferance) & Hands on Training - CSS Web Site Design by Eric Meyer. The first has a website you download the lession files from so you can work along with the book. The second comes with a cd with all the files on it.

I find it's lots of fun & aggravation all at the same time. Good Luck!