Substitute for Dreamweaver

[Solar_Gary]

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

[Brad Lawryk]

Teodor would likely have to answer specifics. But this list should give you an idea.

[B i r n o u]

hmm.. that sound like we should really enjoy playing with it...

[W_J_T]

Brad+Lawryk  wrote

But not sure why you would need to as Wappler has a good code editor already.

Well, that depends on what features it supports to determine weather its a "good" code editor. The others I listed above are very feature rich code editors and can easily be extended further with numerous community packages and extensions. I would venture to guess because of this, Wappler does not come close in matching them from a feature standpoint.

So thats why. 😉

[W_J_T]

Blog Post - December 1, 2017

”there is no other application which you can use to launch a web project in Bootstrap4."

Ummm …. Really?

How about any of these ?

• Pinegrow
• BootStrap Studio
• Pingendo
• CoffeeCup BootStrap Builder
• Etc.,

To name just a few that offer BootStrap 4 natively. So why use such misleading and false information in the feature marketing about Wappler on your blog, since it's 100% not factual?

[W_J_T]

Nice to see they corrected the previous misinformation about Wappler and Bootstrap 4 support in other apps.

They since added a few new blog posts with a couple more screenshots.

https://blog.wappler.io/first-look-at-wapplers-user-interface/

https://blog.wappler.io/simple-as-editing-components/

https://blog.wappler.io/beta-15-visual-mobile-apps-design-with-wappler-and-framework7/

Still remains closed beta, and not much information.

[rayek.elfin]

Selecting the element on the App Structure will select the element in the Design View as well!

That makes everything looking so awesome and simple!

That made me laugh out loud

They make it sound like it's the best thing in the world! And with a whole lot of visual emphasis too! Who writes these things? Lol.

High entertainment value indeed.

[W_J_T]

Indeed, agreed. I am still underwhelmed at this point, regardless of the attempted word trickery of the blog posts.

[osgood_]

W_J_T  wrote

Indeed, agreed. I am still underwhelmed at this point, regardless of the attempted word trickery of the blog posts.

It's difficult to judge until you have used a product. We are all looking for different things. What's important to include in an editor/IDE to you is not necessarily important to me and vice-versa.

At the moment I'm not necessarily happy with what's available now, certainly not the free stuff like Atom, Sublime, VS Code, so the more I get to try the better.

[W_J_T]

Sure everyone is different with different requirements, wishes, skill levels, expectations, etc. A singular app or workflow does not exist for every person.

osgood_  wrote

At the moment I'm not necessarily happy

Yes, I saw your posts throughout this thread where you have not been happy with the Wappler folks also.

Do you still hard-code using Dreamweaver?

[osgood_]

Thats true enough. I'm still baffled by the announcement a public beta would be pushed out way before it was obviously anywhere near ready.

Im not a great Bootstrap fan so l have to assume it wont be the editor lm looking for but who knows if the code editor is good along with one or two other things l need l could be wrong. I hope l am because there is a definite gap in the market for a good solid editor without being overly complex. One thing for sure is l think this team will support the product and push out frequent useful updates which cant be said for a lot of the editors lve used in the past.

Nothing more annoying than buying into something only for it to disappear or major updates arrive every 5 years by which time most have moved on to something else.

The wait continues.

[rayek.elfin]

osgood_  wrote

W_J_T   wrote

Indeed, agreed. I am still underwhelmed at this point, regardless of the attempted word trickery of the blog posts.

It's difficult to judge until you have used a product. We are all looking for different things. What's important to include in an editor/IDE to you is not necessarily important to me and vice-versa.

At the moment I'm not necessarily happy with what's available now, certainly not the free stuff like Atom, Sublime, VS Code, so the more I get to try the better.

That is very much true. Just out of curiosity, what would your "perfect" code editor/IDE be? What kind of workflow are you looking for that isn't provided in any of the current crop of IDEs and editors?

Personally, I use four depending on the task/project at hand: Netbeans, Atom, Notepad++, and MS Visual Studio and Android Studio for more specific things at times (compiling/building mostly). Aside from these, Pinegrow with both Netbeans and Atom for quick visual edits. Obviously NPM and taskrunners, git/gitKraken/, and a myriad of other smaller tools to get the job done.

That doesn't include editors I use for game development, though (Godot, Visionaire, Construct 2, etc.).

I find it is very dependent on the type of project. For web development I favour Netbeans followed by Atom.

[osgood_]

rayek.elfin  wrote

That is very much true. Just out of curiosity, what would your "perfect" code editor/IDE be? What kind of workflow are you looking for that isn't provided in any of the current crop of IDEs and editors?

Talking Mac specifically, I find most of them overly-busy for my liking. I'm a kind of middle range developer who mostly codes manually. I don't really need an editor that holds my hand in the build process, which I think most try to do.

I liked Coda 2 about 3-4 years ago as the environment felt comfortable without too much overbearing menus but unfortunately the guys at Panic more or less abandoned it in favour of chasing their dreams of producing gaming software, which I think in the end did not really pay off for them. They have said since 18 months back that there will be a Coda 3 but I have my doubts and there is no long term road-map. Most Coda users have abandoned the ship, fed up with the broken promises and moved on to Atom, Sublime, Brackets etc.

I dont care much for either Atom, Sublime of VC Code. They just feel uninviting to me personally. Brackets is a little better but needs more attention to detail in terms of the UI. It doesnt look promising as I think devlopment has stagnated on this project. None have any real file managment capabilites as far as I'm aware.

I did settle on php storm 9 months ago but have had difficulty adapting to it in trems of its pretty ugly and bloated, busy - although it can do most things impressively, many I dont really require, so it becomes a bit of an overbearing donkey for me to use 10-12 hours a day.

I think what Im looking for is simplicity, fast, slick, friendly environment with good file management tools, I would love a css prefixer like Brackets has, something unfussy without having to use a support workflow like gulp, grunt, sass, less etc which is not for me personally. I find no real use for them in terms of the websites I produce. I'm sure for larger projects they may bring some advantages.

I did like textmate back in the day, again a really simple but hugley innovative bit of kit at the time but once again I think the developer got a bit fed up and abandoned it rather than develop it into a better solution, sadly this is what seems to happen to many a projects - they fall by the wayside....

[rayek.elfin]

https://forums.adobe.com/people/Teodor+K  wrote

Hello

I'll try to answer shortly:

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

You will be able to import your DW site definitions and work on them - add dynamic data if you wish.

SASS, LESS support will be integrated as well. Git also.

You will be able to save and reuse custom snippets.

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

For now we do not plan to put different views side by side, still when the open beta is available we will  collect ideas.

App structure  is not the HTML structure and will never be. We are not planning to show every single HTML tag there, but only App connect components (bs4, framework7 etc. components as well). If you are familiar with our App Connect Extension, you understand what do i mean.

We do not plan draggable panels in the UI at the moment. Again - you can suggest your ideas when the public beta becomes available.

The padding/margin you see are dropdowns with the BS4 based padding/margin classes, which you can select.

Multiple files can be worked on, no side by side support is available at the moment, but this will come at a later time.

Sounds interesting. Not being able to adjust the position of panels or GUI elements is a huge limitation, and the lack of window options (side-by-side editing, multiple responsive views of the same document) is disappointing. I suppose workspaces are out too? I do hope Wappler will provide multiple themes/custom themes?

I think it would have been a better decision to focus on the visual dynamic parts instead of creating yet another (basic?) code editor, and allow a user to hook into any code editor (s)he prefers, because coders are quite often adamant about using their OWN code editors/IDEs.

It sounds to me as if Wappler's target audience isn't the more (semi)professional crowd. Still, this is the first version, and it takes a couple of years for a new product to ripen. I'll keep an eye out on this.

As for the false advertising related to Bootstrap 4: yes, that should be changed. As a matter of fact, I was testing PineGrow with Bootstrap 4 yesterday, and it even supports a helpful visual overlay of the columns and/or grid in the views while editing. That's a nice touch. Here is a screen grab showing how this is independently controlled for each view (left grid view, right columns overlay).

[osgood_]

I might test out Pinegrow myself but heck it looks a bit busy and messy. I hate messy and busy editors. A coder doesnt need a lot, just the essentials to do their job. I don't use crap frameworks so it doesnt bother me if an editor supports them or not. I would prefer not but if not then I certainly don't want them in my face.

[rayek.elfin]

osgood_  wrote

I might test out Pinegrow myself but heck it looks a bit busy and messy. I hate messy and busy editors. A coder doesnt need a lot, just the essentials to do their job. I don't use crap frameworks so it doesnt bother me if an editor supports them or not. I would prefer not but if not then I certainly don't want them in my face.

But that's the point, isn't it? A good GUI allows the user to control how many panels are displayed, whether panels float or are docked, set up workspaces, and change the overall size of the GUI. All of that is supported in PG.

Here is a second screenshot with three responsive views side by side, one panel on the left to display/control CSS properties, and a small floating window that is quickly called up to display the code for the jumbotron only (coincidentally, the user may switch to Jade syntax for quicker html coding). If anything, it looks more organized, more efficient, and cleaner compared to the Wappler screenshot. And more functional, since the developer can work simultaneously in three responsive view breakpoints and target specific style components for each breakpoint.

That is why I like Pinegrow so much as an additional super-charged visual IDE for front-end coding. I do my main coding in either Netbeans or Atom, and Pinegrow fits snugly into that pipeline. A visual editor helps to speed up a slew of actions. Dreamweaver users may also benefit by it, btw. Code in DW, use PG to keep track of all the breakpoints while working. Works great on two or more screen setups.

[pziecina]

Sorry but having tried Pinegrow, i have found it more for the visual user, with the html/css support little better than Dw, and the javascript api support worse than Dw.

Yes it may be great for bootstrap and wordpress users, who require a more visual environment over a good coders ide, but for front-end coders no thank you, sorry it is not for me.

[rayek.elfin]

Understandable - I use it as a quick prototyping tool, and as a sort-of super-charged inspect element/quick visual editing tool.

Most of my coding I do in other tools as well.

[pziecina]

If i was learning front-end web development now, and had not had the opportunity to learn it from the very beginning, i would probably want a more visual environment, as css especially has grown beyond the simple css 2.1, and is now moved beyond the point where it was just a simple set of properties for styling and layout.

The problem with Dw though, is that it has gone backwards in its support across everything for the web. It did at one point, (cs6) almost appear to be trying to catch up with the requirements, but has fallen back to being an 'also ran' program.

[osgood_]

pziecina  wrote

If i was learning front-end web development now, and had not had the opportunity to learn it from the very beginning, i would probably want a more visual environment, as css especially has grown beyond the simple css 2.1, and is now moved beyond the point where it was just a simple set of properties for styling and layout.

Good point. I wonder if I was starting out now I would go down that route myself. I just don't see any videos by those that I aspire to be like, some new developers and some older ones, using these visual editors. Are they like me, a bit stuck in their ways of doing things via a coding environment, or are visual editors plain not up to it when push comes to shove.

[B i r n o u]

i don't know if i can do a joke on that one... but os you stretch the pole, or you give the stick... I do'nt know the english expression...

[osgood_]

pziecina  wrote

Sorry but having tried Pinegrow, i have found it more for the visual user, with the html/css support little better than Dw, and the javascript api support worse than Dw.

I'll take your word for it and give it a miss as I don't anytime soon expect to go down the visual coding route. Actually the only thing I would want at this point in time in an editor is a good built in css pre-fixer, no sass, less, grunt, hump, ding, dang or whatever floats your boat workflow to address this issue, which is currenlty needed - just something simple that expands into the full css fall-back spec when you hit enter or even select it in the coding hints. That together with some good file management options is all I want. I'll take care of the rest myself doing what I'm meant to do, write some code, rather than press buttons...

[B i r n o u]

what I don't like in such a feature, is the fact that is rapidly bring the code bloated by adding extra lines... you should really give a test to autoprefixer... GitHub - postcss/autoprefixer: Parse CSS and add vendor prefixes to rules by Can I Use

[osgood_]

What extra lines are we talking about? A simple inbuilt prefixer would do the job sass,  less or even autoprefixer does without the need for extra support files in my project, which l dont really want. I never use sass or less as there is no point to do so in the particular websites l produce and l dont intend to set up a convoluted work flow just to prefix. I do however need to prefix the css to cater for older browsers so provide something sensible without having to jump through hoops to do so. Coda, at some point between 2012 and today introduced an excellent feature which expanded display flex and justify content into the necessary css prefixes. Sadly for some reason thats all they did, so its obvious it can be done.

I did investigate autoprefixer but without using support files, command line instructions etc to get it into the workflow, which is exactly what l want to avoid, its unusable..

[rayek.elfin]

osgood_  wrote

I did investigate autoprefixer but without using support files, command line instructions etc to get it into the workflow, which is exactly what l want to avoid, its unusable..

If you want to use an autoprefixer without the hassle of dealing with a convoluted command line workflow, PrePros might be a solution. While it processes SASS, LESS, etc. it can easily be limited to auto-prefixing alone. It's a simple visual tool that runs in the background while you work. Any change in the CSS file is then automatically processed and auto-prefixed.

[osgood_]

Ive already tried prepros and codekit but they just present the workflow l do not want, using additional task runners for something which should be built into a modern front end editor as standard. I mean css prefixing is not exactly optional so why is it not being given greater importance by those that develop a web editor as opposed to git support which is optional, madness.

Ok if its too difficult then lets clarify that and ill back off about it but having seen Coda address this to a limited extent some years ago I would assume it is possible.