Best Web Authoring Application?

NotHereOrThere asks: "I want to setup a small business web site and I'm trying to choose a web authoring application. I'm a software developer, so technical complexity doesn't scare me, but I've never developed for the web other than some very simple HTML pages. My main requirements are ease of use and presentation quality. What do Slashdot readers recommend? Any recommendations for a hosting service?"

Comments

Recommendations:

[Southpaw018]

Are you willing to hand-code your pages? I recommend you do - it's the only way to ensure that your site is absolutely standards-compliant (get the Web Developer extension for Firefox. It's a big help). I use Notepad++ (http://sourceforge.net/projects/notepad-plus) because I feel it's a nice, simple, effective editor.

As for hosts, I highly, highly recommend Resiware (http://hosting.resiware.com/ Their prices can't be beat and their hosting is rock solid amazing. See the link in my sig for the lil site we have hosted with them now.

Applications

[LouCifer]

I use HomeSite and have since its inception from Bradbury. Great software.

If you prefer something prettier, you can try Dreamweaver.

I believe there are trials of both available.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

best tool I've ever used for web development

[yagu]

vim (syntax on, syntax html)

I've got two words for you...

[musselm]

Notepad.

Re:web authoring system

[geoffspear]

You want him to write his own web authoring system in PHP and store his files in a database instead of on disk?

My Reccomendations

[infernalC]

Hosting - canaca.ca
- SSH, FTP, PHP, ASP, IMAP/POP/SMTP, 10 gigs bw, cheap

Editing - emacs, tidy
- no more powerful editor out there
- you already said you weren't scared;
we'll see if you should be :-)
- use tidy to clean your markup

Language
- Do all you new pages in XHMTL 1.0 Strict and
style them with CSS2.
- Server-side script in PHP.
- Avoid client-side scripts.

Browser
- Get Firefox.
- Test in IE and Firefox.
- VALIDATE!!! validator.w3.org

- my 2 cents

Re:Why not an OSS CMS?

[js7a]

Beginners might be better off making html in notepad or an HTML editor like the one that comes bundled with Mozilla than a big system.

But I don't object to making them read the manual of such programs while they are thinking about which one to buy.

"Build with Notepad" is so 1996

[Anonymous Coward]

Just goes to show that some people aren't smart enough to realize that vim and emacs run on Windows.

Quanta Plus

[jregel]

I have developed a fairly small PHP/MySQL driven site using Quanta under KDE. As an HTML editor it is extremely polished. The ability to publish a project to a website works very well enabling me to synchronise my local copy with the web server.

It doesn't have any problems maintaining source formatting either, and will assist in the generation of XHTML compliant code.

The developers are working on making Quanta Plus a Dreamweaver killer and at the moment, I think it's one of the best Linux applications going.

My opinion

[SocialEngineer]

As a person who has been doing web dev contracts for about a year or so now, I would suggest you hand-code all your websites in a simple text editor (w/ code highlighting - in Windows I use Notepad2, in Linux I use Nedit).

I taught a 13 year old how to code websites by hand. We got through basic HTML in a few weeks, and he wasn't having any serious problems. He was able to use tables and organize his layout in a clean and efficient manner - We didn't have time to tackle CSS and standards compliance, but if a 13 year old can hand code websites, surely an adult programmer can hand code standards-compliant websites. It isn't that tough.

My process is simple: Come up with a layout concept in Photoshop, code the layout structure (using HTML 4.01 Strict w/ CSS), extract images from the photoshop concept, and then put in content (CMS-based or otherwise).

There are numerous CMSs out there to ease updating and managing of the template, but it is my belief that in order to get the most efficient and secure CMS, you need to code it specifically for your own needs. The more features you have/greater the complexity, the higher the risk of error/compromise.

(note: To those of you who checked my website using the W3C validator, you will notice it isn't standards-compliant.. I'm overhauling the network right now, so hush :P)