Thread: Web Dev on Linux?

Aptana is an open source web IDE akin to Dreamweaver

but, like Dreamweaver, to use it properly you have to learn it

what does your dad want to do?
add & edit certain content (products, prices, descriptions, pictures, etc.)
or something more technical?

What I'm getting at, is would a simple CMS do?

set up a basic page structure with a sample CSS layout
data in database gets pulled in via php (or whatever)
admin interface allows him to add, delete & alter data

giving your dad a full blown Dreamweaver-esk web development application may be the wrong way to go. These things are designed by web developers for web developers, and your dad ain't a web developer

No, real web development isn't what he wants to do, just be able to build a simple web site for his business. Something more like iWeb would be the way to go.

Doesn't OOo have something comparable to Publisher? I can't find it?

I'll look at Aptana.

Originally Posted by ninja9578

Doesn't OOo have something comparable to Publisher? I can't find it?

In Writer, just go new -> HTML document

Never used OO.o for doing webpages, so can't comment on the quality of it's output for complex stuff

You can also export slides from Impress to HTML
(again, never actually used this)

I've used Impress, but it's different than the OOo Presentation. Impress is Star Office.

Originally Posted by ninja9578

I've used Impress, but it's different than the OOo Presentation. Impress is Star Office.

OOo and Star Office are largely one and the same, surely?

I use the Google-branded version of StarOffice 8 in Windows (although I have Office 2003 Proffesional pre-installed so use that more often, but - ) and OOo "We'll put the latest version in when Ibex gets released" in Ubuntu. Aside from the lack of pervasive Google logos everywhere, they are almost identical.

Originally Posted by Identity X

OOo and Star Office are largely one and the same, surely?

yep,

Today,
StarOffice = OpenOffice + some non-free fonts & clipart, additional proprietary file filters & an MS VBA macro migration thing

it's funny really
along with Firefox, it shows the power of community driven open source software compared to proprietary & non-free

Netscape battled with MS in the browser arena during the mid-90's, lost
Netscape opened up their code in 1998
Development went stark raving crazy
Now Firefox (previously FireBird, previously Phoenix - rising from the ashes of Netscape) is kicking IE to the ground

(Star|Open) Office is similar
Star Office, closed & proprietary, fought for ground against other suites
but not really making much headway
Sun opened up their code
development went haywire
Now current versions of StarOffice are actually based upon the OpenOffice offshoot
a complete role reversal in other words, with OO.o being the trunk, and Star Office being some leaves


*edit*
Btw, what's the Google branded version?
is it just that, re-branded OO.o
or have they added anything to it?

Originally Posted by Ynot

*edit*
Btw, what's the Google branded version?
is it just that, re-branded OO.o
or have they added anything to it?

It's StarOffice 8. Only difference is that it is free, but only as part of the Google Pack, and has a load of Google toolbars etc. tacked on.

True story: Sun bought the company that made StarOffice because it was cheaper than buying 42,000 MS Office licenses.

I've used OO.o to output HTML for webpages for a few stories I've written, and it's rather a pain. The code is clunky as hell, and it throws in a lot of unnecessary code, as well as using outdated standards.

I'd think KompoZer would do fine, actually. I've never built a page from the ground up with it; I prefer Notepad++, but I've edited a few pages with it. It's the only graphical editor I have installed, though, so take that with the proverbial grain of salt. OO.o will do in a pinch, I suppose. Then again, as Ynot mentioned, a CMS might be better even. I think Joomla! and Mambo are two popular content management systems. I'm quite fond of Textpattern, myself, though it is really more of a blogging platform/CMS hybrid. Quite useful, though. Installation is very easy, as well. Though that should be fairly universal.

How do I make KompoZer a graphical editor, I just see an IDE?

Well, like I said, I've never just started from scratch with it, but drag and drop an image in, type whatever text you want, etc, and at the top on the toolbar you have buttons for anchors, images, links, tables, and forms. Try reading the help, too, it's actually pretty decent at explaining how to get started. There's even a built-in CSS editor.

It's really easy to figure out once you mess around with it a bit. You have four view options in the editing pane: Normal, HTML Tags, Source, and Preview. Use Normal, that's what you're after. You can select this in the View menu or at the bottom of the pane via tabs.