Web authoring tools,Applications,Free web page design,Software

There is nothing like Adobe CS3 Web Premium, MS Expression suit (Most probably) when it comes to web authoring. But it’s also true these are good enough when you have it, not many web authors affords £1,400+ (CS3 Web Premium) or Ã‚£1,000+(TBA- Expression Suit). These two feature rich suit is more than everything you need for web authoring, development, but that doesn’t mean without these web authoring have to be troublesome. So here goes three free tools (PC only, have to research some more for MAC) that might not be as Dreamweaver or Expression Web, but do the job just fine. In time this list will certainly expend, so don’t forget to subscribe to my feed.

[Note: Unordered list]

EzyPage Basic Edition 9.85

Publisher:  Easyware 

Compatibility:  Windows NT/2000/XP/2003 Server/Vista.

Learning Curve:  15-20 Minutes.

Authoring standard: Basic

Ok now what this EzyPage can do for you. EzyPage is a basically WYSIWYG HTML page(s) designer tool that allows you to create up to 600 pages all at the same time(if you have less than 256 MB RAM don’t try it :P), simply by dragging and dropping each object onto the page layout using a number of scale measurements.

The coolest part is you can give each page its own configuration and all pages can be exported to HTML, PDF, BMP, GIF, JPEG, PNG and to e-mail format. Notable features are font embedding, pull down menus, scrolling tables/marquees, colour scroll bars, page centring, line art, flow charts, buttons and rollover image buttons, image conversion, spelling checker(US and UK English only), with the user having an option of editing source code for each and every object. All web pages created through EzyPage are 100% W3C HTML standard compliant.

Cons:  Only loads EzyPage designed HTML files, so other HTML page you can’t edit through it. It won’t save the true type fonts file with its own PGE file format for transportation of the EzyPage file to other machine with EzyPage. No options for CSS control. Couldn’t find any page or site templates.

WebProse Designer 3

Publisher:  WebProse

Compatibility: Windows XP (I ran it on Windows Vista Ultimate 32 bit too)

Learning Curve:  10-15 minutes.

Authoring standard: Moderate

Designed especially for beginners, this Web-page editor helps create simple, media-rich sites. Webprose Designer’s drag-and-drop interface makes it easy to move elements around and add images, sound, video, and even PayPal forms. Linking a page or a slide show with a button is easy as pie: you just have to drag an object onto the button.

In a very first addition, Webprose Designer now provides a decent dummies manual for getting started. WebProse Designer’s strongest features are its easy to use shopping cart component that supports customer purchases via PayPal, and a powerful File Transfer Protocol component that allow users to publish their web pages to their host site by simply dragging and dropping files to the appropriate folders.

Cons: First of all the lack of an undo function, probably the developer forgot people don’t like to do same thing over and over. It’s difficult to add multiple pictures to a slide show. Webprose Designer doesn’t offer page or site templates, which means you have to build pages from scratch, rather unusual for an editor designed for novice. Lastly the wacky demo restriction, the program deletes generated HTML after 10 minutes (though you can regenerate it).

MoreMotion Web Express 3.3

Publisher:  Mor Yazilim

Compatibility: Windows 98, Me, NT, XP, 2000

Learning Curve:  10 minutes.

Authoring standard: Moderate

Who says web page design is just for professionals? Not at all, with a copy of MoreMotion Web Express 3.3 even my 70 year old grandma can make webpage in 10 minutes. MoreMotion Web Express, a free WYSIWYG editor that lets even novices build attractive and functional Web sites.

With MoreMotion Web Express, creating a Web page is as simple as dragging and dropping page elements such as text boxes, panels, buttons, CSS, and JavaScript. The extensive library allows you to reuse page elements, and the program also comes with an image-map editor and an XML editor. After you’ve finished building your site, you can publish it using the built-in FTP client. MoreMotion Web Express also allows users to enter HTML code and ASP/JSP/PHP tags to let them build professional dynamic applications.

Cons: MoreMotion doesn’t include a full-fledged HTML editor, but it does let you control compilation of the HTML code.