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Open Source Alternative to Dreamweaver's .LBI?
An anonymous reader asks: "I have recently started using Dreamweaver to manage one of many websites that I work on. One feature that I am growing to love is the ability to use Dreamweaver library files (.LBI). What are Slashdot readers' opinions on this format? Is there something better (read: free and standards-compliant)? I also would like to find something I could use on an open-source platform so that I won't be locked in to using Dreamweaver. What do you use for your sites?"
I have a tool for each part of the process. For design, I use FrontPage, for development AND design, I use Dreamweaver. For straight-up development, I use PHPEdit. Just use the right tool for the right job.
More than enough BS
I use 3 things to make websites. Well, technically four, but really 3. First I use nedit. It's a text editor, my text editor of choice. Any text editor will do. Second I use nvu. nvu is like Mozilla Composer, but it has been "Firefoxized". Third I use firefox itself, to view the pages. The technical fourth thing is a firefox extension that lest me edit css live to make sure its perfect. Any real self respecting geek writes the html and css in the raw. It's the only way.
The GeekNights podcast is going strong. Listen!
Just use SSI if your web server supports it (most do). No need to "update all pages" like you do with LBI.
Dreamweaver LBI are pieces of HTML code that can be shared among multiple web pages. It has similar effect as SSI but the code insertion is done on the client side before uploading to the web server.
The LIB format isn't really proprietary. In short, it's your HTML page with a different file extension and a few additional HTML comment blocks. The only reason it's .lib is so you don't treat it as a HTML page since it's not a complete HTML page.
The LIB file is text that's copy and pasted into the parent document. That is, if you were to delete the LIB file, you still have all the code in the parent files. What Dreamweaver does with the LIB files is recognize that any code changed within the LIB file must be changed in the parent files that use that code. However, this is the Dreamweaver executable that's detecting and making the changes. This isn't a server technology. This isn't anything special in the files (outside of standard HTML comment blocks), just how your copy of Dreamweaver is using a form of find/replace function on your site.
As to open-source alternatives, you may have read previously about OSS lack of usability. This is why there aren't many good OSS editors out there. Oh there are editors, but they are mostly glorified text editors and some will display HTML pages with a WYSIWYG interface. But what makes Dreamweaver special are the advanced find/replace functions like LIB files. To my knowledge, nothing in OSS offers any where close to this functionality. You can code a site, even dynamic sites, with just a text editor and a FTP client. However, tools like Dreamweaver add functionality that makes the development process easier. You can make templates in text edit. But when you make a change to the template, text edit won't make the changes to the 200 other files that refer to that template. Dreamweaver will.
I use Dreamweaver (with the GPL extention PHAkt) because it gets my job done faster. If a tool came out that was better or even comparable to Dreamweaver, I'd go for it. But, alas, there is no such a tool.
AnamanFan - Trying to find the Truth, one post at a time.
one of the premier OSS html editors:
http://quanta.sourceforge.net/
1.) The time required to "process" a server-side include on a non-caching, shared-hosting server is negligible. I invite you to run some timed tests with lynx.
:)
2.) The point behind using SSI is so that, every time the template is updated, only one file needs to be updated and uploaded.
3.) Apache runs every HTML page through the interpreter regardless of whether it actually contains SSI code.
In any case, we can all agree that SSI is better than using JavaScript includes
Leo @ Sourceforge
It's mature, actively developed, cross platform, and quite useful when working with languages that don't have the concept of a subroutine, like XML/HTML, XSL, SQL.
I used Dreamweaver for a long time, as it was convenient and relatively easy (and the library and template features were nice).
Unfortunately, the problem is that, as others have noted here, using such corporate comforts protects you from doing things the right way.
I think what you should be thinking about is a content management system, wherein your content is easily editable (live and online) and the system makes you work with templates in the right way (i.e., using CSS). For my current job, I wound up rolling my own CMS, using PHP for the front end and to generate HTML, and MySQL to keep track of templates. For a live content editor, I'm using Ephox, which is a great product but costs a pretty penny. I started out with Spaw, but it doesn't generate XHTML and can only be used in IE.
There are a ton of CMSs out there -- I just found that most of them were overkill for my website. (And the open source ones generally use IE-centric products for live content editing.) Just go to sourceforge and search for "CMS". Mambo is one of the better ones I've seen.
Oh, and I second the nomination of Crimson Editor as a good programmer's text editor. (Free, as in beer.) For CSS, I use Top Style (not free, but excellent).
try WebGUI from plainblack. While in some places it is still rough around the edges, it is very flexible and has a nice core feature set. I consider it the "mysql" of CMS. Just the right functionality. OSS at no additional charge ;).
It is written in Perl, is modular, and completely templatized. There is not much you can't do with it out-of-box with a little imagination.
Its only real down sides are limited e-commerce support, and it can be difficult to setup initially. For the faint-of-heart, they offer hosted CMS using WebGUI for $35.00 per month (shell account included).
The documentation requires a fairly broad background to put all the pieces together... but it does have a book and online help. It's default setup could use some improvement to really demonstrate the power of the software.
No. I don't work for them. Just a fan/contributor. What drew me to it was the ease of use, architecture, and the decent support for per-page SEO (IE ability to specify metatags on per page basis).
Dreamweaver's lbi and template functions are a nightmare down the road when someone wants to edit the page. What you really want is includes. Everywhere you would use lbi, use an include instead.
And you can skip the stupid DWT templates by creating a good, solid xhtml framework for your pages, use css to pretty 'em up, and pull the content in through includes. It's modular, scalable and easily revised. Just reuse your framework.
Dreamweaver is OK (although no better than OK), but those libraries are way more trouble than they're worth.