Web Software

[patrickrd]

Like Lora and Brandon, I recommend not using commercial HTML editors such as Frontpage... unless you are in a huge rush. HTML is not hard to understand (half of the tags are simple english words). Basically, the more complicated of a site you want, the less and less I recommend commercial HTML editors. If you happen to have Visual Studio and happen to use a Microsoft server, I highly recommend using Visual InterDev... But I mostly edit the raw HTML, even in that program. For example, the Buzz U page has some automated features such as CGI so It'd be much better to learn the raw HTML.

Now, personally, I think you have to throw away the HTML altogether Using XML along with XSL transforms & style sheets allows you to completely separate content from layout and formatting. For example one change to the XSL transform would instantly change the way all pages on your entire site look. Unfortunately this technology was only standardized in the past year so very few browsers yet enable it, so for now the transformations need to take place on server side. Also, CGI is quickly becoming a thing of the past... On UNIX, PHP is now popular and ASP is popular on Windows servers.