Best software to teach HTML?

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Posted by hq12, 08-06-2008, 09:17 AM
Hello webhostingtalkers! I am planning to teach (free of charge by the way) how to do a website; I am considering Frontpage, but you have to pay to get it. Can you recommend me free alternatives like Frontpage? Thank you.
Posted by JustinSmall, 08-06-2008, 12:59 PM
Well I don't use Frontpage (never will ne more)... Reasons why not to use frontpage: 1) you have to pay for it 2) It's a microsoft product... -- heres the actual good reasons 3) The HTML/CSS output has a lot of bugs for browsers besides IE (it always seems to work in IE but breaks quite often in FireFox, Safari, ect) ... sure you can create it then edit it in the edit mode... but why not just do it by hand anyways 4) Load time can take a little bit until you can actually use it (I experienced that on my end, I don't have a bad pc by any means) 5) The addons that come with it can be very buggy and very frustrating... all the bells n whistles just are horrible 6) It's a microsoft product -------------------------- What I would recommend... If your looking for a visual editer (WYSIWYG) then I would personally recommend 'Dreamweaver' and 'NVU' <- pronounced N-View... If your looking to teach the good way, cheap way for your users, and overall best way to learn then I would use 'notepad'... I use Notepad 90% of the time unless I'm coding a template... then I use dreamweaver so I can get a visual on it. Hope this helps.
Posted by Edevere, 08-06-2008, 02:04 PM
Bluefish is a nice free HTML editor but not WYSIWYG. The full Mozilla suite(whatever it's called now) I think still comes with a free WYSIWYG editor that's as good or better than FrontPage. This is all hearsay though, I use The One Editor pretty much exclusively.
Posted by JustinSmall, 08-06-2008, 02:18 PM
Basically when your teaching this, you want to have something that displays the number of lines, so that way you can tell them exactly what line to go to... and a nice color coding is nice... where if you go like this How it colors it nicely for you this stuff always helps I know you won't be teaching PHP (or not yet?) it was just an example of coloring
Posted by Tvirus, 08-06-2008, 03:59 PM
When teaching HTML to people for their first time, I would recommend doing it in notepad, or an alike program (with use of color coding, as JustinSmall mentioned). This way they know the code. Then move onwards to a WYSIWYG editor.
Posted by etogre, 08-06-2008, 04:42 PM
I wouldn't recommend a WYSIWYG program to learn (X)HTML. Google DevPad, or just use notepad... then check out w3schools.com tutorials on the subject.
Posted by JustinSmall, 08-06-2008, 04:49 PM
Well when I refer to WYSIWYG I am referring to Dreamweaver in the sense that it has a 'Design' 'Split' 'Coding' screen. That way when I'm doing my div setups and all of that good stuff I can visually see what's going on. I never visually enter anything, I always code it in... (if that makes sense)
Posted by Fizzadar, 08-06-2008, 09:13 PM
Notepad ++ is all ya need, plus reference from current templates and w3schools.com. Just download free templates, and start playing. It's how I learnt and it seems to have worked!
Posted by JustinSmall, 08-06-2008, 10:37 PM
lol @ learnt I think you meant to say that right? though I must ask... Are you going to be teaching this locally or on the interweb?
Posted by hq12, 08-07-2008, 10:25 AM
Thank you very much for your input. My potential students are not interested in learning HTML code per se, yet, they are interested in learning how to do a website using HTML. That is why I do need free alternatives WYSIWYG, which also have FTP. Thank you again for the sugestions, if you have more, please do so. Thanks.
Posted by awatson, 08-07-2008, 02:48 PM
I'd recommend a basic text editor like textpad and firefox with the firebug plug-in. Show them sample sites, and how the elements (html and css) fit together to display on the page, etc. If they're really novice, you should expect to have to teach them how to use other tools like FTP, etc.
Posted by Tvirus, 08-07-2008, 03:26 PM
You might check out Alleycode, looks like a decent free WYSIWYG editor, and allows you to see both visual/coding. If they want to go deeper into web design, I'd recommend teaching them without an editor, or at the same time - explaining what the coding does.
Posted by JustinSmall, 08-07-2008, 03:52 PM
Well bud, I wouldn't teach them something with WYSIWYG that has FTP built-in. Not everyone uses built-in FTP. Dreamweaver (not free) has a built-in FTP manager, so when you save the file it will automatically upload it via FTP. I personally don't use it. What I would personally recommend if I were you: Get the book: HTML, XHTML & CSS For Dummies Overstock.com has it for less than $20 Or you can go to Barnes & Noble and get it for less than $25. You might even be able to find an eBook on it.. (so you can distribute to your students for free) I would definitely download free templates (XHTML/CSS based) to give as examples. The key thing in teaching XHTML/CSS (that I know of from writing tutorials for friends) is that you want to make sure they first know 'how' you did it and 'why' it works. At the beginning stick to the basics because without the basics, teaching more difficult coding is far too confusing. When teaching them xhtml/css try to use the css for styling things as much as possible instead of style="blah: blah;" inside of w/e your using on your XHTML. That's about as much as I have to say
Posted by Wavendon Internet, 08-07-2008, 08:37 PM
The application that you should use very much depends on what you're actually doing. If you're a web designer, someone who creates the images and look and feel for a company, and puts it ont he web, Dreamweaver is definitely the way to go. If on the other hand, you're a web developer, someone who creates dynamic Internet applications, and wants to create a front-end for these, you will want to learn the actual code, and so a text editor that helps you keep things organised is a good idea. If you want something basic but with good organisation/project management, you may want to consider TextMate (this is a Mac-only application - my primary development environment - I do not use and so cannot comment on any application for WIndows/Linux).
Posted by Ledzf, 08-08-2008, 01:52 AM
For beginner I always suggest WYSIWYG software, I know some WYSIWYG software is free and open source which I totally forget their name. But people who turn HTML to XHTML, I would suggest them goto w3school and learn by themself, getting a book is not necessary, compare with PHP, C++, HTML is really easy to learn.
Posted by JustinSmall, 08-08-2008, 12:43 PM
I would dig into a XHTML/CSS Book yourself bud, you'll learn something you never even knew... You go to your math class, and the teacher doesn't hand you a math book to read along with while they read to you. It could be kind of hard to grasp some concepts wouldn't it??? I agree that PHP, C++, and HTML all are very easy to learn... but that doesn't mean that you shouldn't own a book. The books are there for a reason, for people who don't know what they want to know

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