Lindows Announces Nvu - Frontpage For Linux?

CmdrStone writes "Michael Robertson, the Lindows founder, has announced in his 'Michael's Minute' newsletter that Lindows has started the creation of a Frontpage-type program for Linux, called Nvu." Nvu promises to be "...a complete Web Authoring System for Linux Desktop users to rival programs like FrontPage and Dreamweaver", is "100% open source", and will be free to download when it launches.

Comments

Looks promising

[r_glen]

The fact that it's built from the Mozilla code base is encouraging...
Unfortunately (according to the FAQ), it won't be available until the first quarter of 2004

Re:Looks promising

[Illbay]

Well, one thing that wasn't clear from Robertson's announcement: Is the resulting software "free"?

I mean, Lindows is REALLY all about that "Click-n-Run warehouse." It appears that's how they're makin' their jack. You can't just download the software you want, you have to pay for the privilege, just as you must pay for the OS.

So, can you get this NVU without paying a dime? That's one most "real" Linux users are used to seeing.

Re:html coders can still use it...

[The boojum]

Indeed yes. A good dreamweaver clone is something I've been missing from Linux. Personally, I'm an XEmacs fan myself, but I really do like using something like Dreamweaver for composing HTML. Yes, I can type it all out from scratch in a text editor but it's much faster to tweak it and make it look good using a WYSIWYG editor. Most text editors don't show you how your text looks with the images, for example, or how the layout will look. Used properly, something like Dreamweaver makes your pages much more fluid; you can drag and drop elements around till things look right without having to worry about whether you've forgotten to cut and paste a closing tag. You can highlight an entire column of a table and apply a CSS style to it, etc. Yes, you could do it all in a text editor, but which is faster?

I mean, sure, I could always just write assembly or even raw machine code instead of using a compiler. But do I really want to?

It's all a matter of using the right tool for the right job.

Exactly

[FrankoBoy]

WYSIWYG HTML editors are very useful to get most of your interface done FAST ; then, you can change some details with your favorite text editor.

Furthermore, writing accuented text in plain HTML is such a pain in the ass it's not even funny. You have to type stuff like "&eacute" instead of a sole key on a French keyboard ( I'm French-speaking ), and since most languages have non-standard - according to English, that is... - characters and that these are very common in text for some languages, I think such a feature is essential to a top notch international HTML editor.

I don't care much about vi and Emacs fanboys in here arguing how lame WYSIWYG editors are, the fact remains the same : these can do the bulk of some work fast, easily and effectively, and details can then be reworked in HTML mode as needed. Get the memo : knowing HTML doesn't make you 1337.

Waiting for the flames...

Re:One big improvement

[Anonymous Coward]

i agree, i Linux Linux and want to see it grow, i praise Michael Robertson for this project, and wish him luck on it, maybe Lindows will help too, i just wish the deal about letting users get root access will be improved so new users will get the idea of security via restricted root access...

one fish, two fish, red fish...

[ubiquitin]

BlueFish has occupied this space for quite some time. The spin is vintage Michael Roberson of course. We've been here before, people. He's an early adopter with a megaphone that's twice the size of yours. After all, HE KNEW ABOUT MP3 BEFORE YOU DID.

There are times I'd really wish that the tech media would genuinely research the subject matter instead of just amplifying hype. Hard-working, often-silent open source incumbent projects deserve nothing less.

Re:Linux already it

[SomeOtherGuy]

Not a joke. I actually prefer Vim to anything.

Re:People actually use those things?

[msuzio]

Actually, although Front Page sucks, DreamWeaver is a great tool. For setting up a fairly complex page, it helps to have a UI like this -- you can have the HTML view in one pane and the (approximate) browser view in another pane. DreamWeaver is very standards-compliant (in my experience, although I definately only use a small subset of the full features).

The biggest feature I use is the style-sheet support, actually. Helps to click through a few menus to build up the correct CSS for "white text in Arial 10 pt with 5 pixels padding left and 10 pixels padding top" -- I don't have to wrack my brain to recall the right syntax for something I don't have to use a lot. I'm reworking a pretty large site right now (166 JSP pages), and being able to use this is helping a lot in removing all the old tags and putting in nice stylesheet directives.

So yeah, this self-respecting geek uses it. One of the few Windows-based tools I really like. Mind you, the only other editor I use is vi (even on Windows), so it all balances out :-).

MozillaZine Article

[Anonymous Coward]

MozillaZine has an article about Nvu with some tasty details.

Michael Robertson, CEO of Lindows.com, has announced that his company is starting a project to build an easy-to-use Web publishing product for Linux. The new application, called Nvu (pronounced 'N-view'), will be based on Mozilla Composer and released under the Mozilla Public License. Lindows.com has contracted Daniel Glazman of Disruptive Innovations to be the lead developer, though the company hopes to attract other contributors. Version 1.0 of Nvu is expected in the first quarter of 2004. See the Nvu FAQ for more information.

So, it's based on Mozilla Composer, the lead of developer of Composer will be on board and it's going to be released until the Mozilla Public License. Could it get any better?

Looks iffy, actually (licensing)

[ciaran_o_riordan]

I smell a bad egg...
The FAQ says Nvu will be "covered under the MPL".

Mozilla is tri-licensed MPL/GPL/LGPL, so the user chooses which license they wish to use the software under.

Lindows.com can't alter the licensing situation of existing mozilla code, but if they only make their improvements available under the MPL - it will be Free Software, but the mozilla folks won't be able to merge improvements into the mozilla codebase.

So basically, Lindows.com are fulfilling the bare minimum legal requirement, and purposely blocking cooperation (so they can have the best version).

Either that or the FAQ is wrong, but Lindows.com have a shakey record in terms of community spirit.

Ciaran O'Riordan

Re:It doesnt look promising it looks EXACTLY like

[Fragmented_Datagram]

The biggest thing missing from Mozilla Composer is the ability to create form elements... why, oh why, haven't they added this feature?

Text vs. WYSIWYG

[efti]

I use Vim for just about anything involving editing text. I'm a web developer so I started off with Allaire Homesite, then moved to ColdFusion Studio, then Dreamweaver when CF Studio was discontinued. After about 3 months using Dreamweaver, I switched to a Windows build of gVim and I'm very happy with it.

But you have to admit that Vim is definitely not for everyone. You wouldn't give it to your average business user -- or even to a HTML newbie. It's not only the unusual keyboard shortcuts and the RegExp-driven text find / replace that make it totally unusable for a non-geek, but Vim is still a primarily text-based app that doesn't even offer code hinting.

These days, HTML is commonly used in a typical business. If Linux wants to make it to the business desktop, it is important to have a good quality WYSIWYG HTML editor to give to those who can barely use a word processor, and those who just want to make quick edits without having to learn HTML. Face it, not everyone wants to do that.

And for the people who do know HTML (like myself), their life would become much easier if the people who don't could give them a simple HTML page instead of a horrible MS Word doc that's impossible to automatically convert to anything resembling sane, semantically correct HTML.

No flame intended, just wanted to point out that this project is not such a bad idea after all.

Re: FrontPage

[hamster foo]

Frontpage is great for what it is, which is a dumbed down web development tool. That's not meant to call someone dumb for using it, but it is what it is. It allows novices to easily create (generally bad) web content. I won't argue that doing it the handwritten way is more efficient, but it usually is better if you actually look at the content produced. Most WYSIWYG editors add a lot of uncessary tags into what they produce which just results in larger pages which isn't a desireable effect for a web page. That's something you generally don't see with pages handwritten by somebody that has a clue.

I'm all for user-friendly tools, but generally, people have their reasons for not using the ones that are available.

Re:It's Mozilla Composer

[mark-t]

But Composer does absolutely _squat_ when it comes to developing entire web _sites_. It's the organizational aspect of the software that makes it desireable... not merely it's web page editor.

Re:Hopefully

[16K Ram Pack]

Say what you like about FrontPage, but when I had to deliver a solution for content creation for a non-techy, it was my only choice.

This person was knowledgable at a "word user" level, and didn't want something where they had to put in HTML tags and the like. They have a real job to do apart from looking after the website.

They also wanted consistent look and feel, and to be able to have any new content automatically searchable - and to be able to add pages and get new menus.

Personally, I'd rather give them a content management system like Geeklog, but it's not as user-friendly as FP.

Any ideas however are gratefully received.

Re:Free to download just like Lindows?

[madfgurtbn]

You're right, of course. I should have been more specific in my previous post.

For some reason, whenever Michael Robertson does something with Linux/Lindows/whatever there are posts like the one I was replying to that say he is not going to supply source or that he has some nefarious scheme to become the next Bill Gates by using Linux or some other GPL software so it seems that every time there is a Lindows story on Slashdot, I have to remind someone that GPL still applies.

The BOFH's who populate Slashdot for some reason think that Michael Robertson's attempts to make a grandma-friendly distro and then market it to ordinary humans rather than uber-geeks is an affront to common decency.

I think he's on the right track, and should be getting some props around here for his efforts. LindowsOS is aggressively pursuing the home desktop market; no other distro is even trying.