We have a website but we want to start over from scratch. The office staff use PCs and our server is Windows based. The owner works from home and uses a Mac. Is there website design software that can be used on both platforms that will integrate into one website?
html code produced by any program will be editable by any other
If you have multiple people updating a site, you will probably want to use a content management system such as Joomla, [url=http://www.wordpress.org]Wordpress, or [url=http://www.modxcms.com]MODx. If you do, users will be able to modify the site using any current web browser on any OS and you should not have any cross-platform issues.
Thanks for the insight.
We were thinking of purchasing Dreamweaver to create the new sight, but that program is not cross platform. Do you have any knowledge of similar programs that we would be able to use? Or should we go with Dreamweaver on the server and something else on the Mac?
If you use a CMS, you won’t need Dreamweaver.
Dreamweaver in so-called WYSIWYG mode (as opposed to code mode, where it’s just another editor) is pretty well near useless anyway, IMHO - and I can’t begin to imagine the trouble of trying maintain a site with multiple installations of DW!
For actual design and source editing, I suggest you do yourself a favor and skip the so-called WYSIWYG tools in favor of a pure editor. My current choice, jEdit, which is also free, runs on all major platforms.
Just a word of caution – I have looked into the likes of Joomla and others and found that they come with a learning curve that I wasn’t willing to endure.
Everyone will be different in their approach and experience. I have used many different IDEs including DreamWeaver and although it it pretty cool it is expensive and unnecessary in my opinion.
My $0.02 worth:
For an IDE I am quite satisfied with NetBeans.
For multiple developers you’ll need at least to install and learn a version control system like Subversion.
A CMS may be a good choice if you go through the learning process but I wasn’t willing to given that I seen some limitations that I am not wanting deal with. From what I observed, if there was something that the CMS didn’t do, I would have to know the code well enough to make the modifications and I wasn’t willing to put that much time in.
Take a look and see what you think. It might be that they are perfect for your situation.
I have found the same thing - about Joomla and similar projects, that is. That’s why I normally use MODx. The learning curve is virtually non-existent, because MODx doesn’t “force” you to do things its way (though you will probably find yourself wanting to take full advantage of its power) - you can easily incorporate your own PHP scripts using snippets.
For an IDE I am quite satisfied with NetBeans.
Netbeans is cool. And free.
For multiple developers you’ll need at least to install and learn a version control system like Subversion.
That’s only if multiple developers are working directly on the code. For multiple people working on content, a CMS normally obviates the need for Subversion.
From what I observed, if there was something that the CMS didn’t do, I would have to know the code well enough to make the modifications and I wasn’t willing to put that much time in.
Again, true of most CMS’s for practical purposes, but not of MODx. You can run your own PHP inside the system.
You can try Wordpress. It has lots of themes which you can edit and also it is platform independent.