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Participant
September 7, 2017
Answered

Substitute for Dreamweaver

  • September 7, 2017
  • 4 replies
  • 18099 views

Hi,

This may seem like a strange question, but I'd like to know if there is a reasonable substitute for Dreamweaver out there.

I started my site around 2005 on Microsoft Frontpage, and to be honest for my modest needs, FrontPage was a really good fit.  But, then it was phased out for what ever they called the follow on version of Frontpage, and I converted over to that.  Then it was dropped.

At that point I'd had about enough converting the whole website over to something to new, so I bought a copy of DreamWeaver, which seemed to be the most stable product going.  Took a while to do the conversion, but got through it.  Meanwhile the site kept growing -- now over 1000 html pages (www.builditsolar.com).

Then Adobe switched over to the subscription model.

In the meantime my site is less active, and the only use I am really getting out of DreamWeaver now is some occasional updates and a new page once in a while.  The $240 a year seems excessive for my current usage and I'd like to find something that I cold maintain the DreamWeaver created site with that would not have a steep learning curve.  But, It feels like I'm pretty embedded in DreamWeaver with the templates etc. -- I can't do individual conversions to over a thousand pages.

I'm an engineer who would just like an easy to use tool to get some ideas out there for people who want to build solar projects -- have less than zero interest in writing html or other code.  The more it looks like a wordprocessor the happier I am.  But, it needs to be something that will accept the current DreamWeaver created site without tons of conversion work.

Any ideas on software I might try?

I understand DreamWeaver is a terrific product for those who need and use its many features.

Thanks -- Gary

    This topic has been closed for replies.
    Correct answer rayek.elfin

    I'd say the only valid option would be Pinegrow. I tested it, and it loads your pages without any issues, and you will be able to quickly edit visually, as well as edit the underlying code. It's sort-of how I envisioned what Dreamweaver might have become in a different universe. It's inexpensive, and you get a full license (no subscription!).

    And it has a live connection with Atom, a very nice free code editor.

    4 replies

    williamj312762442949201
    Participating Frequently
    January 26, 2018

    Wappler guys released some video about creating sites and binding dynamic data: http://wappler.io/Wappler_intro.mp4 looks nice so far.

    BenPleysier
    Community Expert
    Community Expert
    January 26, 2018

    This is a teaser and I was told that it should not be published as yet.

    Wappler is the DMXzone-made Dreamweaver replacement and includes the best of their powerful extensions, as well as much more!
    Inspiring
    January 26, 2018

    BenPleysier  wrote

    http://wappler.io/Wappler_intro.mp4  <--- This is a teaser and I was told that it should not be published as yet.

    Given that the video was shared above and you previously mentioned the article about Wappler pricing - and are a beta user.

    Subscription Costs

    BenPleysier

    [Question:] Does the video presented demonstrate the Free (base version) or the paid for Subscription version ?

    B i r n o u
    Legend
    November 26, 2017

    so does wappler is an alternative which can eventually replace Dreamweaver and not complete it ?

    Teodor K
    Participating Frequently
    November 26, 2017

    Yes, that is right.

    We continue to support Dreamweaver with our extensions as well

    ---DMXzone | Wappler
    B i r n o u
    Legend
    November 26, 2017

    thanks for clarification...

    Inspiring
    September 8, 2017
    It should be converted to a dynamically driven site (PHP/MySQL)

    Keep in mind that converting your static Dreamweaver website to a Wordpress website will require exactly what you did not want, which is "tons of conversion work". Although you can install wordpress on a server with little ease; it will take a painful amount of time to convert your static pages to dynamic content in Wordpress. There is a lot of copy/paste required to move all your 1000 static pages to 1000 wordpress pages - or any other dynamically driven site for that matter.

    Nancy OShea
    Community Expert
    Community Expert
    September 8, 2017

    For starters, a 1000 page static site is a 10,000 lb. gorilla.  It should be converted to a dynamically driven site (PHP/MySQL) with a few pages and content pulled in from the server-side database.  That pretty much goes for any website that contains more than 50 or so pages.

    Dreamweaver is aimed at designers/developers who WANT to work with code.  And since you don't, it's probably not a good fit for you.  There's nothing wrong with that.  It just comes down to different tools for different users.  

    If you can't work with code, I don't know of any software that will entirely fit your needs except WordPress.org.   WP is server software with a built in Content Management System (CMS) that's used by millions of people to maintain their websites through an online interface or dashboard.   It's not a word processor but it comes about as close as you're going to find.   Most hosting providers support WordPress.  Some actually provide one-click installation through the server's C-Panel.   Ask your hosting provider if you can use WordPress. 

    Blog Tool, Publishing Platform, and CMS — WordPress

    Nancy

    Nancy O'Shea— Product User & Community Expert
    Participant
    September 8, 2017

    Thanks Nancy,

    I am familiar with Wordpress -- I have a 2nd site that uses it, and its a pretty good match for me.  But I can't even imagine the work involved in converting my solar site to Wordpress.  Or, maybe there are some tools to automate this?

    Its not that I can't write code.  I wrote many many thousands of lines of Pascal and C analysis code at Boeing.  But it just does not seem like when all I want to do is put out descriptive text, sketches, graphs, and pictures for solar projects that I should need to write code to do that?  I've often wondered why there is not a Word for the web?  Maybe there is something like that out there and I've not found it?

    Maybe it would be a good thing to convert the site to a data base based approach, but the sheer size of the project is just a lot more than I want to tackle.  To be honest, I don't really see much advantage either -- the site is mostly descriptions of solar projects that normally don't change with time and I use the Disqus comment system that pretty well covers changes.

    Appreciate the thoughts, but wondering if there is not something better for my situation?

    Thanks -- Gary

    Brad Lawryk
    Legend
    December 1, 2017

    Teodor+K  wrote

    Wappler will come with Bootstrap 4 and Framework 7 (Foundation will come as well in the really near future).

    Vanilla HTML5 ? Support for any framework or just those specific ones ?

    Teodor+K  wrote

    Not sure i understand your idea about the external editors support...

    Ability to use 3rd party External Code Editors in conjunction with Wappler for code editing, via live sync, etc.

    • Atom Editor
    • Visual Studio Code
    • Brackets
    • Sublime
    • Etc.,

    Beta 14 Blog Post - November 30th, 2017

    Tomorrow we are starting to reveal and explain most of the unique Wappler features! Moving closer and closer to the public beta. Join the revolution!

    Looking forward to know and understand more about Wappler.

    Without knowing much yet, it looks to be an interesting app. I am certainly intrigued with DMXzone putting their knowledge into their own app. I am curious mostly however if it will be offered with a perpetual option as well as what the price point will be. I hope it will be a singular app and not fragmented into a bunch of paid add-ons. Pinegrow offers perpetual and good price points, as well as offering discounted renewals and upgrades throughout the year. In my opinion, Pinegrow 4 has a lot to compete with concerning overall features, price. So I am anxious to begin understanding how Wappler will compare with Pinegrow and others, in all areas.


    YEs, you can use HTML5 in Wappler as well. You can basically use any framework you desire if you can do code. The Bootstrap and Foundation are the only supported at this time in the design view.

    As for the external editors, you can use whatever you want. But not sure why you would need to as Wappler has a good code editor already.