So I've been looking at the various authoring systems out there.
For start from scratch good old vi type creation, nothing beats BBEdit on
the Mac. TextPad 3.0 on the PC is good, but no BBEdit.
As far as the others go, I won't load Front Page on my machines so along
with the rest.
I still feel the best is Claris Home Page. It has a simple interface that
gets the job done. Granted it could be improved on but when you look at the
others in a way you begin to like it more. It also does what I call
non-destructive html, meaning if you add some html in it's BBEdit rip off
text editor it leaves it in there when it outputs the html. Big Win!
Available cross platform. http://www.claris.com
NetObjects is cool. Anyone that uses this has a love hate relationship with
it. It does not feature as far as I can tell non-distructive html, and it
generates a shit load of these weird img0000002345h.gif files. However for
site management it can't be beat. It uses a flow chart layout for site
management, and features some wonderful preset styles. Simply by selecting
a new style you can change the entire look of a site! Very good for the
corporate cookie cutter, and I'm still working with it. My efforts can be
seen at http://www.earthlink.net/~tbyars and it can be found in all it's
cross platform glory at http://www.netobjects.com
GoLive CyberStudio is supposed to be the best of them all. I'm sorry I
can't even get a page going. This is one of those things created by
engineers that make perfect sense to engineers.To a designer it's a
nightmare. While I respect the effort and engineering, if I can't get
things going after an hour with this pig I give up. Lots of drag and droop
that doesn't make sense, non-intuitive layout etc. But I'm sure to he guys
that coded it it's the shit. Of course they all hate designers and they are
going to "show us." PPC only http://golive.com
Freeway this is from England. They drive on the wrong side of the road.
They drink warm beer. It's installer wanted to load enough stuff in my
system that I thought I was on my Win'95 machine. It didn't get installed.
Supposedly comparable to GoLive. I forgot the URL.
Also one last note this time about Mac OS8.
Apple's OS releases have always been shit. Shit I tell you. Always. They
don't usually work. They crash everything. It takes Apple two or three revs
to get them working. No so with OS 8. It is fast, stable, and for the most
part compatible. I'm not sure if it was Dr. Gil or Elien Hancock or whom,
but they did it right finally. I'm sick of the reviews saying it's not
worth it, or not major. It is worh it and it is major. Any Mac with a 040
or higher should be running it. Period, end of story. It's that good.
Tim
-
... at least you can drive something fast, arm your-
self with powerful tools, and look good doing it.
- Preview Release of the Be Operating System
<> tbyars@earthlink.net <>