Overview of Web Building Editors
Fundamentally, most web pages are created in HTML, or HyperText
Markup Language. There are a number of ways to author web pages.
They vary in complexity, cost, power and the degree to which they
create "clean" HTML code.
They include:
 Notepad
Microsoft
Word
Microsoft
PowerPoint
Adobe
Acrobat
Microsoft
FrontPage
Macromedia
Dreamweaver
Notepad
The most basic way to create a web page is to "hand" code it using
a text editor such as Notepad (included free with every Windows version). Knowing
something about the basics of HTML can allow you to directly insert HTML code
into such environments as the message boards in WebCT. This will allow you to
control the font size and colour in messages you post. Introduction
to HTML.
Microsoft Word
Microsoft Word allows you to quickly create a document and then save it as
an HTML page. To do so, once you have created a document in Word, instead of
saving it as you normally do, go to File and select Save as Web Page.
Although this method works for creating a basic web page with text, links and
images, Word is not ideal for creating multiple web pages with navigation links
between them. Another drawback of Word is that the HTML code it creates is "messy",
including extra code that may not allow it to display properly in all browsers.
Microsoft PowerPoint
PowerPoint is known as an application that creates presentation slides quickly
and easily. Those same slides can be posted to a website. These slides, however,
are non-interactive and very limited in flexibility. They are also large in
file size, making them slow to download. In short, although it is possible to
quickly convert an existing face-to-face PowerPoint presentation to a web format,
it is not recommended. PowerPoint presentation example.
Adobe Acrobat
Adobe Acrobat software lets you convert any document to an Adobe Portable Document
Format (.PDF) file. Similar to a kind of photograph of your document,
it will then be viewed by anyone exactly the same way using the
free Acrobat
Reader. An advantage of this medium is that it controls of layout
to ensure proper printing of a document from the web. A disadvantage
is that it will be viewed as one entire document and cannot be broken
into pages. .PDF files also require more computer system resources
and longer to download. Finally, it is to view the files but costs
$400.00 CAN for the software
to produce them..PDF
example.
Microsoft FrontPage
For more sophisticated web authoring projects, there are specialized applications
called WYSIWYGs (What You See Is What You
Get). These powerful tools ensure that a web page you create using them
will display in a web browser the same way you have designed them. They also
support in inclusion of such multimedia elements as video, Flash movies, and
sound. The two most popular tools in this category are Microsoft's FrontPage
and Macromedia's Dreamweaver.
FrontPage is popular because it is included with the premium versions of Microsoft
Office, and the interface closely resembles that of other Microsoft applications
such as Word. The familiarity of this interface allows new users to quickly
adapt to this program. The drawback is that FrontPage sometimes creates proprietary
HTML code that prevents proper viewing in non-Microsoft browsers (e.g. Netscape).
Another characteristic of FrontPage is that the speed with which a person can
create a web page is offset by a lack of full control over what kind of web
page can be created. In other words, it is easy to make a simple website quickly
with FrontPage.
Macromedia Dreamweaver
Dreamweaver is the professional's choice for a web authoring tool. It is available
for less than $250.00 CAN (educational price). Macromedia has recently released
the latest version called Dreamweaver FX (still in beta) which now includes
support for developing database-driven websites. A fully-functional trial version
can be downloaded here
and is free to use for 90 days. The Dreamweaver interface is simple and elegant,
allowing high school and elementary school students to create pages with it
as well. It includes a feature that will clean up the HTML code produced by
other applications such as Microsoft Word and FrontPage.
For more on the differences between Dreamweaver and FrontPage go
to my Dreamweaver vs. FrontPage comparison.
Web Building Software Summary Table
Other Web building editors
You can also create web sites with Adobe GoLive, Adobe PageMill,
and even Microsoft Word and Corel Wordperfect. Dreamweaver has a
feature in it that allows you to clean the messy HTML code that
these products create.
In the final analysis, however, if you are going to do any real
amount of web building, you'll be much better of going with Dreamweaver
because of its simplicity, power and intuitiveness.
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