The best free site builder?

[lovernumber2]

Hi, I have been having major problems with Frontpage and am ready to download a diffrent free website builder, whats the best one? and how would i upload my current pages to my new builder?

[Manu]

There are many Free Site builders. I have used NVU in the past.
You may wanna see the list located here - http://www.thefreecountry.com/webmaster/htmleditors.shtml

[Menard]

There aren't going to be any free WYSIWYG editors that give you what Frontpage does, but there are still some good one out there.

In addition to what has already been mentioned:

Website Builder - Probably the easiest to use and most complete. Still has its limitations though. The is the same as the overrated BlueVoda editor, minus the ridiculous restrictions that you can only upload to a BlueVoda account. The site also has some very useful graphics you can download and use for free; whether you use the editor or not.

Total Web Kit - Basically a program which comes with templates (wedding, birthday, personal, etc.) which you can add your information as you want. Not much beyond that though.

Namu6 - The easiest way to build a website that there probably is. Offers quite a bit of customization within the program, but you cannot source the HTML within the program as it is strictly a drag and drop web builder. If you can use a word processor, you can build a website with this.

DFM2HTML - Pretty dang cool editor. Offers built-in templates and some graphics for buttons and navbars. Still less than a 1MB download.

WebDwarf - Well liked and lauded WYSIWYG editor. Limited on some features as they have a commercial version they would prefer you buy. Grab it while you can as this page is no longer linked from the company's home page.

Selida - Really long in the tooth now (I am trying to say old). Selida has the advantage of being both a WYSIWYG editor and an HTML editor; you can switch between modes as you are coding. Also has a preview feature in the HTML mode. You only need to download the program itself; ignore the patches as they are included in the main download.

DHE Editor - Drag and drop editor which uses CSS stylesheets. Been around for a while and updated several times.

SiteGenWiz - Relatively easy to use click and drop editor. Limited on advanced features, but hey, it's free.


I'll leave it at that, and I probably duplicated some of what was already mentioned.

[donecweb]

Hi lovernumber2,
I have been trying to help people get a presence on the web for free for years by building free websites and then telling others how I did it. Showing them which free programs work well and are available. However most of my sites are now a little out of date even though they are still correct and will work. You may find some help at ....
http://donecweb.cjb.cc/outline.php or
http://bestwebstop.dbws.info/no-cost-website.php

It would best to try and make your site as up to date as possible. The best way to do this is to combine HTML and CSS. I know this sounds like it would be hard and would take a lot of learning but this is not true. Of course the more you learn the better it would be but I assure you that building a site with very little knowledge of HTML and using simple CSS via a CSS program to take care of all the syntax is well within the abilities of anyone capable of surfing the net and or trying to use Frontpage. (Note in my opinion most of the things that are special about Frontpage are not really used for most web sites and are often not all that compatible.) Using either NVU or Trellian WebPage and a good CSS editor like TopStyle lite (which unfortunately they have quit supporting or making available but I can make it available to you) or CSSed which is what I am just now starting to work with will give you a  very nice site that is browser compatible, W3C valid and easy to create. Of course the quality will depend on your content. Let me know if you need any specific help by sending me a PM.

[Andy]

I think it's worth mentioning that there is a difference between coding a page and building a site since a site is a collection of inter-linked web pages, images and other media which requires project management and features supporting site mapping. For coding pages I have frequently mentioned HTMLKit which has now become a paid version but I think the original that I still use is freely downloadable from www.chami.com It is a superb html editor with all the features you could wish for from a web page editor.

NVU would seem to be the best free WYSIWYG web editor software. I didn't personally like it myself for reasons that escape me now.

Readers may be interested to know that I have been coding my own web design software for many months now and the beta version will be free since there will be a period of testing involved until the final commercial version is ready. this software is like a page coding solution but has project management and site-map construction features integrated into it. My aim is to produce the ultimate low-budget web site authoring tool based on my experience of various tools and many many site designs over the years.