Web authoring system: Difference between revisions
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== Useful browser extensions == | == Useful browser extensions == | ||
Many authoring tools don't provide you with enough information about what you are doing. | |||
Browser extensions, in particular for Firefox, can help. | Browser extensions, in particular for Firefox, can help. E.g. if you develop web page, [http://chrispederick.com/work/web-developer/ Web Developer] is a '''must have'''. | ||
Read more in the [[browser extension]] article ! | |||
== Software of particular interest to education == | == Software of particular interest to education == | ||
Revision as of 12:09, 19 March 2009
Definition
A web authoring system is software to produce webcontents. They range from simple HTML editors to fairly sophisticated integrated development environments.
Today, a lot of web contents are not produced with web authoring systems, but with portalware of various kinds (and that include learning management systems
See also: Text editor (for more technically minded people)
List of editing software
Specific tools for web programming are not included here.
Free HTML structure editors
There are dozens of available systems. We don't have time to evaluate these.
See also XML editors to edit XHTML, SVG etc.
Daniel K. Schneider can recommend both these systems, but prefers to use a programming editor, e.g. (X)Emacs.
- AceHTML (HTML only)
Programmer's editors with HTML support
There are lots of text editors with HTML support, e.g.
- Notepad++ (Windows)
- Lightweight and easy to use, does good syntax highlightning but no indentation
- Has a rather large library of plugins.
- PSPad (Windows).
- Lightweight and easy to use, does syntax highlighting, but no indentation (too bad !)
- Only thing you need to know is: "CTRL-space" will open a popup for contextual code completion
- (X)Emacs (Most systems, that's what I prefer, but young people have trouble with this.)
- JEdit (Most systems)
- This is a more complex editor than PSPad or similar, ok for programmers.
- BBEdit (commercial) is popular with Mac users. The free TextWrangler has some HTML support.
See the text editor article for more information about text editors.
Free HTML WYSIWYG Web Editors
- Kompozer (formerly NVU). A fairly nice editor. Good for beginners.
- Mozilla SeaMonkey Suite (a followup from the earlier Mozilla browser that includes a navigator, a composer and an email client).
- Amaya, The W3C sponsored test browser and editor.
Wikipedia has a list of some Free HTML editors
Through the web editors
See JavaScript links. These systems usually are installed on some web page with a server-side connection (e.g. in a CMS. But nothing prohibits someone to use them client side only (and copy/paste the HTML code)
Commercial Mid or High End tools
- Microsoft FrontPage
- GoLive is a dead product since April 2008. See Dreamweaver.
- Dreamweaver
Other editing software
- Some word processors like Adobe FrameMaker can be configure for single source HTML/XML/PDF production.
- (future?) versions of Office XP.
- Open Office
- Presentation software can export to HTMLweb authoring
See also document standard, since one can produce HTML from any reasonbly well defined document format.
Useful browser extensions
Many authoring tools don't provide you with enough information about what you are doing. Browser extensions, in particular for Firefox, can help. E.g. if you develop web page, Web Developer is a must have.
Read more in the browser extension article !
Software of particular interest to education
These systems offer additional functionality, e.g. can export to IMS Content Packaging.
- Commercial
- Adobe Dreamweaver (with the free CourseBuilder extension)
- Free