[scribus] OT Web tools

[John Beardmore]

John Culleton wrote:
 > On Tuesday 08 July 2008 05:18:29 am John Beardmore wrote:

 >> Sorry to post off topic !
 >>
 >> I've been asked to recommend some tools for secondary school
 >> e-media teaching.
 >>
 >> So far I've suggested Gimp, Inkscape and Scribus with a side order
 >> of Freemind.
 >>
 >> They would however like some simple web tools that a school might
 >> use under Windows, Linux, and possibly on Macs.  We don't want
 >> content management or sophisticated AJAX IDEs, just something
 >> simple for secondary school pupils to make reasonably modern html. 
 >>What might be out there ?
 >>
 >>
 >> Many thanks, J/.
 >
 > I work in html itself so that the Vim editor, which does syntax
 > highlighting for many computer languages (about 100) does well.
 >
 >  Bluefish is another editor with a stronger  emphasis on html.
 >
 > Amaya is a more complete html tool that ensures standards-compliant
 > results.
 >
 >  All these are available on all three major platforms, although as
 > usual Linux is the more friendly environment for Open source
 > products.

Yes -  though this course is e-media rather than programming so I 
suspect that tools from a programming environment won't be ideal. 
WYSIWYG preferred.


 > Quanta Plus is another and Linux-only html development tool. It is
 > closely integrated with the KDE desktop, a common GUI on Linux
 > machines.   It aims to beat all the competition, including
 > Dreamweaver.
 >
 > IMO web design used to be simpler when html was the only
 > consideration. It has become more complex and files more verbose with
 > the addition of CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) and XHTML encoding.

I'd have thought that CSS would make things smaller, but possibly harder 
to understand ?


 > With the new approach you really have to learn two languages, html
 > and CSS, and maintain two files, the web page proper and the CSS
 > sheet.

Yes.  I think for this audience we need to avoid 'how it's done' in 
favour of 'what can be done'.


 > My sites are still crafted the easy way in straight html.

Mine too, but of late we've had somebody do something a little more 
stylish.  Doesn't half flush out browser layout engine bugs though.


 >But I have
 > books on the other approach which I read during commercial breaks.

Yes.  I've looked a bit at Ajax and had a bit of a stab at developing 
some Java based virtual instruments.


Le Monolecte wrote:
> Le mardi 08 juillet 2008 à 14:16 +0200, Craig Bradney a écrit :

>> I wouldn't use anything but Quanta Plus - I have used it for writing
>> websites with it for years. A very good product, and with KDE4 moving
>> to OSX
>> and Windows, it will be 100% cross platform too.
>>
>> Craig
> 
> The same experience than Craig : very good tool using on Ubuntu Linux
> with Gnome, 3 years of good results!

So to sum up, Quanta Plus may be ideal when / if it ports to Windows, 
but in the mean time, look at Amaya and Komposer ?


Thanks, J/.
-- 
John Beardmore, MSc EDM (Open), B.A. Chem (Oxon), CMIOSH, AIEMA, MEI
Managing Director, T4 Sustainability Limited. http://www.T4sLtd.co.uk/
Carbon Trust Consultant: Energy Audit, Carbon Footprint, Design Advice
Energy Efficiency Accreditation Scheme, (EEAS), Registered Assessor
Phone: 0845 4561332   Mobile: 07785 563116   Skype: t4sustainability