Website management software advice needed (Mac centric)

[Chris Fitzgerald]

A few years back, I had a basic website put together for gigs, articles, photos, etc. It's served me well, but since the beginning, I've had to email any changes (apart from my itinerary and photos) I wanted to make to my web guy and have him make the changes. It's time for me to move on and learn to make those changes.

The problem - he uses Front Page and is on a PC, and I use a Mac. So when he tries to show me how to make changes - basically, he loads the site into FP using an FTP program and then alters the existing pages to add text, links, etc - it makes perfect sense, but when i get home, I find that my cheapware (Rapidweaver or iWeb) and/or Freeware (Cyberduck) isn't up to the task of serving as a WYSIWYG editor and FTP program.

For starters, can anyone recommend a good WYSIWYG site manager for Mac that you don't have to be an HTML genius to understand and a good FTP program to get the stuff to and from it? I have a lot more questions, but this is the obvious starting point. Thanks in advance.

[moomoocajoo]

Dreamweaver will do it, though it is pretty in depth (it is to code editing what photoshop is to photo editing I suppose).

CSSedit is a nice little app you could try.

Also have a scour through the stuff here: http://www.apple.com/downloads/macos...net_utilities/

P.s.: Front Page is rubbish!

[Chris Fitzgerald]

Thanks for the link. Rage and Speed Downloader look like good - and very cheap! - options. Any Mac dudes out there using either?

[Benjamin Strange]

I've been using Dreamweaver for quite a while. It can get deep if you want, but you can do lots of basic stuff pretty easily. You rarely have to get into hand coding (unless you want to), and it's good at keeping all your files pretty easily organized.

[Chris Fitzgerald]

I just had a tutorial on Dreamweaver today, and it does exactly what I want - just load in your existing site, then edit in WYSIWYG fashion. Unfortunately, it's also about $500. Considering the remodeling we just did, that would be a tough nut at the moment. If anyone knows of other programs that are cheaper that will allow me to do what I'm trying to do, I'd be most grateful for the info. In the meantime, I'll be checking out the shareware at the apple site to see if anything is workable.

[James Hart]

try this on for size... I've not used it on a Mac, but the Linux and MS versions are pretty ok for free / open software

http://www.kompozer.net/

[bongomania]

You know, I tried to work with various wysiwyg programs, and I actually found that writing plain HTML and CSS was easier! Sure, I still look for templates and programs for stuff that is beyond my coding knowledge, but for 95% of my purposes the easiest thing is just to write simple code. It's easy to learn, too, and there are some really good free tutorials on the web, I'll link to some if you want. I use a Mac and I write my code on Taco and post it with Fetch.

[James Hart]

Originally Posted by bongomania

You know, I tried to work with various wysiwyg programs, and I actually found that writing plain HTML and CSS was easier!

same here... but I do it as a side job and didn't offer that up.

I build sites with HTML-Kit and Photoshop... interface with servers with Filezilla. Before moving to HTML-Kit, I did my editing with Homesite (pre Macromedia buying up the company) and Vim (graphical cross platform version of the text editor Vi)

... but I stepped away from Mac's into the MS world about 9 years ago (my newest Mac is an 8600/300).

[Chris Fitzgerald]

James - just checked out KompoZer, and it seems to be just what the doctor ordered. I haven't uploaded any changes yet, but the interface is simple enough that even I can figure out how to make it work. Thanks for the heads up!

[Marcury]

Check out PageSpinner too http://www.optima-system.com/pagespinner/

[L-A]

I've adapted to Coda fast. It could be a single-program solution if you're willing to learn a bit of code.