Hi everyone I recently signed up for cox highspeed internet, and I'm currently trying to start a personal webpage. It says i need a Html editor. Iwas wondering if anyone could recommend a good free one. This is my first attempt at any kind of webpage, and I don't have any experience in html, so if someone could recomend some reading material that would be appreciated as well.

thanks
swas

Well, if you're going to be actually writing the code, you can't go wrong with Notepad++. It automatically colors your tags and makes it easy to find what you're changing. But, for your case, if you want simple, there's NVu. I've only used it once or twice, but it's pretty simple to use for newbies. Or, you could drop about $100 for Macromedia Dreamweaver. I use it most of the time, and it's pretty much amazing.

Check out W3 School for tag help. It's the group who MADE the internet, so it's pretty good.

Good luck! PM me if you want any specific help with an item or something. I'm always willing to help with HTML.

The W3 did not make the Internet. The W3 is a group of independant international organizations that come together to define web standards. Tim Berners-Lee is one of the founding members of the group, and he had a bit to do with the birth of the WWW, which is not the same thing as the Internet (although these days they are used interchangably). ARPAnet, which was the original Internet, was already 20 years old by the time the World Wide Web came into its own (Which is arguably only one implementation of an Internet).

@swas: Your provider is recommending an HTML editor because it is the easiest way to produce working web pages. But in reality, HTML is a plain text language which means you can use notepad if you want. All you need to do is save the file with an .html extension, and you have a web page. However, if you don't wnat to really learn html, then you will need to sue some sort of a tool. There are plenty of free html development environments, and I can't say that one is necessarily any better than the other. IMHO, Dreamweaver is overated. I do know lots of people that use it though because it is quick and easy. But they are only quick and easy once you have some basic understanding of HTML.
http://www.web-source.net/html_codes_chart.htm
There are not very many tags for HTML. I've always told people that wanted to learn that it is simple enough for a monkey to learn, and if one looks at the quality of many pages on the net, it can easily be proven that most monkeys do.

Wah, wah, wah. What I meant was they're the ones who made the internet what it is.

Remember, HTML is a lot more complicated than just knowing the code. Structure is the key to a great site.

I used "Cute HTML" awhile ago, it was nice. There were several "CUTE" applications, such as CUTE FTP (you will have to upload your files to the ISP that is hosting your website).

Anyway, now its free to try, $20 to buy, check out http://www.download.com/Cute-HTML/3000-2048_4-7495754.html.

Then I got Adobe Page Mill. Very user friendly. Not sure the cost these days.

When I taught HTML in a college class, I found Dreamweaver a bit complex for the novice. Why don't you get a Geocities website and practice with their software. Then you can see what HTML looks like. Geocities is free through Yahoo.

Good luck!


PS: Al Gore said HE invented the Internet. (Please don't reply to me on this...)

If that was what you meant, then that's what you should have said. But I guess what you really meant by that statement is that their recommendations have helped provide a set of standards for the world wide web; they didn't 'make' anything, nor does anybody 'have' to follow their suggestions. Internet is a vernacular for inter-connected networks, on which the world wide web resides. The standards for the Internet are the TCP/IP protocols, which were established by many people, including Stanford University, The University of College London, and BBN Technologies. RFC 793 deals with TCP, and defines connection standards to be used, which is what makes the Internet work, and allows for the existence of the World Wide Web. This was proposed to DARPA by ISI in 1981. The The W3 has nothing to do with this (Since it wasn't even in existence at the time).

It's a pet peeve of mine when people give incorrect advice an information while trying to pass it off as the truth. We rather enjoy the opportunity to show our other members how much care we take to make sure all information on BleepingComputer is as accurate as possible. So if you want to be part of that, then say what you mean. Surely you can't expect us to guess what you mean? So cry all you want, but at least be mature enough to admit that you were not completely accurate.



I was going to mention that too.

Banana anyone?

Tell me, what was the World Wide Web like before 1995?

You're looking purely at the networking side of the internet. Look at what we're dealing with in the HTML board, the World Wide Web. W3C is the reason our web pages look consistent on each browser. They are the group who have set standard universal HTML tags so there is no cross-platform confusion (or very little). Prior to the group's creation, there were quite a few different versions of HTML that were incompatible with eachother.

Without the W3C, the internet would merely be text dumps or pages that look great in one browser, and are scattered with unknown tags in another. In other words, browsing wouldn't be what it is today.

The internet would easily be around without W3C. It just wouldn't be any fun - having to switch between programs to view individual pages built with different tag sets.


Nevertheless, if you want to learn html, W3Schools is the place to check out. And Dreamweaver is more for multimedia pages, whereas Frontpage is more for your formal business sites. I prefer to code by hand though, it's just preference.

First you started out by saying that the W3 made the Internet, which was 100% wrong. I tried to point out that the Internet and WWW are two different things. I even pointed out that they are often used interchangably though. Then you went on to say that they are responsible for what the Internet is today. Again, that is 100% wrong. They have nothing to do with the Internet at all. I tried to explain thet the Internet, and the WWW are two unique entities. The Interntet would exist without the WWW. The opposite is not true.

I foucused on networking because when you are discussing the Internet, that was what you were incorrectly attributing to the W3. Internet =inter-connected networks. The integral part of that phrase is 'network', which is all the the "Internet" is. The WWW deals with the content. You can try circular logic all you want, it doesn't change the fact that your statement about the W3 making the Internet is wrong. Which I was trying to be nice about. You'll have to pardon the fact that I initially assumed you knew what you were talking about.

aside from the arguing (although i certainly believe groovicus since the w3c i sthe group that sets the standards for the web, not the creators)

anyways there are many free html editors out there, however you can create html coding in any wordpad or microsoft word, when you save save the file with a .html extension, and if you would like to view theese files before you get it published i would recamend you open up your internets click
File > Open File and find the file you created and chekc it out, thats what it will look like to others, building webpages is fun and fairly easy, i would recamend you learn CSS and i believe xhtml (xhtml is just a cleaned up ver. of html and is a bit more specific) css is a great thing to use becuase after you build a few pages you realize you have many tags that you have to reuse and can take alot of time, yet with CSS you can fix that.

i would recamend theese sites to help you get started
for basics go to how stuff woks and type in the search " html"
also http://www.w3schools.com/default.asp
r

Aswas, did you get an answer yet? This is a wild discussion of history. To clarify the last post, you need to use your browser to look at your file. Basically, you create your file in an ASCII program (not word processing program because it has its own code built in). An example of an ASCII program is Notepad. Make a folder to save your test pages and your links, although the link addresses will change when you upload to the host server's folder reserved for you. Then open your web browser, Explorer recommended here, and type in the address such as c:\my documents and settings\myfirstwebsite\page1.html. Sometimes you see the file extension as .htm which appears to work in some places. The main page of your website must be named "index" eg: index.html or index.htm. That will be the first page that users see when they go to your website that might be named "http://coxnetwork.com/aswas"

I hope we have not scared you off. To code in HTML is a PITA; if you mess up a caret set (HTML<<tag1>words<tag2>i know this is wrong<tag2><tag1>>HTML) that must be formatted algebraically, there goes your formatting for that table, or indent, or paragraph or color or size. All this before you get to type in your message to your audience. (there is no "gag me" symbol??)

OK. Dreamweaver costs a bunch of money. Does anyone know of other free HTML program sources?

And if you want to see what HTML looks like, "view source" on any web page (unless they have it hidden).

PS: ASCII is one of the first efforts to standardize coding. It represents the "American Standard Character (set) I.. I.. to represent our alphabet. You can be proud that Computer programs were developed in the USA, and that is why you hear English words peppered in around the world when people are discussing computers.

Yes, I am a patriot. But 'green' things that grow from the Earth give me 'joy'. So that means I am a liberal conservative.

Peace EVERYBODY. These are my opinions and a bit of experience, and an attempt to keep the discussion on track.

I apologize if anybody took this to be some sort of an argument. It isn't. Those type of discussions happen in private. This is just a reminder of the misunderstandings that can arise when one becomes careless with facts.

In addition to inventing the Internet, it is common knowledge that Gore also invented Global Warming.

You did not mention, Swas, what you wanted the webpage FOR, or what content you were thinking about including in it. But if the project is to get a page up and running quickly, then the Geocities solution will do just that. Many free webpage sites have handy, free "shells" or templates that you can use; these are WYSIWYG editors that allow you to create your site without having to worry about the code behind it (which is hidden).
Regards,
John

swas,

Give coffeecup html editor a try. It's fun but it is actually a 30 day trial version. If you want to try it just click on products and downloads at the top of the page I linked to and download the html editor.

WordPress.com is technically called a "blog hosting" site (which is free) but one could create a personal web site with it I suppose, there isn't much difference really. It can be made private as well, or just parts of it. And as Jgweed has said in the above quote the coding is all done for you with a WYSIWYG editor, unless you wish to actually do the coding yourself. There are template choices, some with side bar widgets, images can be added, embedding YouTube, Google Video, Odeo podcasting and a brand new feature Sonific SongSpot
Plus much more.
It is a lot of fun!

Hello everyone. I almost spit my coffee all over the monitor when I saw the number of replies to this thread lol I apologize as I have been out of town for the past few days. I do THANK EVERYONE VERY MUCH for all of the good info. In the next couple of days I'm going to sit down and see what I can come up with as far as a basic webpage. The main reason I want to make one is well just to make one, learn all you can while you can you know. I do think trying geocities first is a very good idea so I think I'll probably start there. I have a feeling I'm going to have many more questions for all of you in the near future LOL.

Thanks again!!!!
SWAS

swas have a look at Microsoft free web hosting. It has the basic setup, with a free domain. I have signed up for it and so far no hidden fees (and yes you get your own domain).

Hi acklan thanks for the site. Seems kind of hard to believe you can do all of that for free, but I'll trust ya. I'm in the process of signing up I'll let you know how it goes

thanks
swas

Yep. I have been test driving http://acklan.com for about a week. Even if you only were to get the basic web service 500 Mbs of free web storage is awsome. Just think of the pic and docs you could link to when writing posts.

Great find acklan!

I am creating my "space"


rigel

I can't claim credit. Someone else on this site suggested first.

For the question at hand, FREE HTML Editor, the best FREE one out there has to be:

HTML Kit
http://www.chami.com/html-kit/
This FREE HTML Editor is just like a Firefox, meaning, you add what you want after you install it. This program has probable hundreds of addons, and I've used in my HTML learning days, and it's great. It's fully customizable, and you can do plenty with it. It will definitely teach you HTML. It's just like Dreamweaver or other HTML programs out there, except with this one, you install what you want and need.

If anyone is looking for a FREE HTML Editor, I highly suggest this one. I've not yet seen a FREE one on the market come remotely close to this program.

Seconded on the HTMLKIT program. The only thing that you have to be sure of is your ability to code in pure HTML and know what the tags do and how to use them. It is a great program and I recomend it to all.

I agree with you 100%.

....and guess what?............ That's how you'll learn,......... learning how to code... and this program will help you, along with hundreds of FREE tutorials on the Internet right now.