Mozilla Composer
Mozilla Composer comes with the Mozilla web browser package. It is the only free WYSIWYG html editor for OS X (unless you count Netscape Composer,
which is basically the same thing. It is not exactly a masterpiece of
coding and has its share of bugs. I recommend using the latest Mozilla
version, whichever that happens to be (they are updated quite
frequently). It is a perfectly useful tool for making simple websites.
It's primarily what was used to build this website. But more
complicated websites cannot be built with it. Managing links is also a
pain, at least compared to commercial programs like Dreamweaver and Frontpage.
NVU
NVU
is a standalone version of the Mozilla Composer html editor. As of
August, 2004, it is still in development. Although the programmers
behind NVU have not as yet sanctioned an official OS X build, one has
been provided by a 3rd party. Version 0.3 has been released.
I cannot recommend it, as it has too many bugs. But it's well worth
keeping an eye on. An especially attractive feature is its ability to
open up different pages in tabs. (I did use the Linux version of NVU
for the particular web-page.)
Bluefish & Taco
Mozilla Composer
is not that terrific of a tool for building websites. If you really
want to do it right, you need to do all the html by hand in a basic
html editor. The best free html editor that can run on a Mac these days
is bluefish. It requires X11 to run, but other than that, there is little that can be said against it. Fink will
install it. It's also a great way to learn html, as bluefish comes with
a lot of precoding features that give you the basic parameters of the
html and you provide the rest.
For those who would prefer to avoid X11, the best free OS X html editor is Taco, which can be found here. It's a really fine product in its own right. It's hard to believe that it's free.
JAlbum
If you need to make professional quality photo albums, JAlbum,
a cross-platform application written in Java, is clearly the way to go.
The application, through the use of "skins," allows a great deal of
latitude in the look and design of a photo album website. Some of the
skins quite powerful. The best of the skins is called "bluplusplus." An
example of what it can do can be found here. Another impressive skin, which uses flash, is called "bananalbum." An example of what it can do can be found here
Using JAlbum is fairly easy. Place all the photos you wish to
have in the album into a folder, and drag the folder in the "Image
directory" text box. Create an empty folder and give it the title it
the name of your album. Drag this folder into the textbox "Output
directory." Make sure that "Output to image directory" and "Copy
originals" check boxes are unchecked, and select the "Link to scaled
down images only" radio button. Make your other selections as you see
fit, but be careful with choosing a skin, because some skins require
re-selecting thumbnail and image sizes. Also check the settings under
the skin tab (if there is one: it varies from skin to skin) and
the "Advanced" tab. You can also "edit" the photos (i.e., rotate them,
rename them, and add comments) under the "Edit" tab.
QuickImageCM & iPhoto
IBefore you can use JAlbum, your photos have to be converted (if they aren't already) to the jpeg format. You can use commandline tools such as imagemagick if you wish, but it's even easier to use either iPhoto or a contextual menu can QuickImageCM, which can be found here. To use iPhoto, all you do is export the photos you select and convert them to jpeg as you send them on their way. With QuickImageCM,
it's even easier. Simply select the photos you wish to convert in the
finder, command click on them, and follow the contextual menu to the
"Convert to" selection and from their to the "JPG" selection. Choose
the quality of jpeg format you desire and let it do its thing. Note:
while QuickImageCM is running, the OS X Finder will not be usable for anything else.
Last updated August 10, 2004
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