Query for those more knowledgeable than I.

[cherry]

Those of you who maintain your own sites -- how do you do your coding? I do most of mine by hand, but gave in and used AppleWorks to convert longer stories to HTML, just so I didn't have to search and replace every. single. symbol. The problem is that Mac has apparently discontinued AW, so I'm left with Word, which doesn't work for this function since it embeds font styles in every new paragraph. Does anyone have any recommendations, or do you all just code by hand?

Comments

[ex-thissuga.livejournal.com]

funnily enough, if I want to code a story I actually do it on a computer with Notetab, the only windows program I desperately miss. Textwrangler, the free BareBones software text editor, might work for you though. I haven't spent enough time playing with it to see if it's really as great as notetab.

[cherryice.livejournal.com]

I am messing with TextWrangler at the moment, actually, and I am afraid I cannot get it to agree with me. All I want is for my paragrahs and symbols to be converted, and no one will let me do it. *is sad*

[tellitslant]

I've been trying to figure out how to use a content management system - we've got one at work that I quite like, but I'm really really incompetent. I'm playing with http://www.textpattern.com/ right now.

[cherryice.livejournal.com]

It looks nifty, but I am afraid it looks as if it is only for PCs.

[tellitslant]

Hrm, it shouldn't be - you just upload it right to your site and work from there - but I confess I don't know enough, and you probably know better than I.

[laurakaye.livejournal.com]

I actually use Dreamweaver, and tweak the code by hand when it does something I don't like. :) It's a great program, I've been using it for years.

[cherryice.livejournal.com]

I've heard good things about Dreamweaver, but it's out of my price range.

[cgilmore.livejournal.com]

For the handful of pages I maintain directly, I usually just edit the files by hand. (I should add, though, that the only pages I maintain are basically links to other sites/services for the convenience of my users. Glorified bookmarks, in other words.) The lab pages maintained by my assistant are done with Dreamweaver, based on templates developed by the web group.

I'm thinking you're looking for something simpler than all that, though you might like Dreamweaver if you can find someone to let you *cough* test drive it.

[cherryice.livejournal.com]

*nod* I'm basically looking for something to replace hard returns with paragraph markers, and convert symbols to character codes.

Dreamweaver has a great rep, but it's definitely out of my price range.

Thanks!

[calapine.livejournal.com]

I decided it was worth putting up with the Bugs of Efiction cause I couldn't be bothered coding stories. Because I am lazy as anything.

That is not at all helpful. *shame*

[cherryice.livejournal.com]

I have heard of this eFiction thing before, but only in passing. It is the software many people use for archives, is it not?

(I am lazy as well. I do not want to convert all of my paragraph markers and punctuation by hand. Bah, I say.)

[calapine.livejournal.com]

Aye, that's the one. It's fairly easy to set-up (there's an Idiot's Option if you don't know what you're doing), then takes Effort to customise so it doesn't look ugly.

The problems mainly occur on the big archives (the Teaspoon's has a fair few problems over the years, anyways.)

[groovekittie.livejournal.com]

I code everything by hand. Everything.

[cherryice.livejournal.com]

*high fives*

[bossymarmalade.livejournal.com]

I hand-code as well. Although it's more due to me being hopelessly stupid and old-fashioned than anything else. ahahahaha!

[cherryice.livejournal.com]

See, I like having the control. I just really, really hate puting the paragraph markers (and punctuation coding) in stories over two thousand words, as I tend to range up to five or eight.

[groovekittie.livejournal.com]

lol thanks! *high fives back*

[dkphoenix.livejournal.com]

I use NoteTab, which is just a souped-up text editor that allows you to search and replace, among other helpful little things. I'm not sure if there's a Mac version, but I've heard Mac coders rave about another program, maybe BBEdit? Something like that.

[cherryice.livejournal.com]

I'm poking around with TextWranger, which is a program from BBEdit? I'm afraid I'm lazy, and just don't want to throw all the hard returns to paragraph markers.

[sparrow015.livejournal.com]

I use Homesite 4.5 and have for a long time now, but I usually only use it for stuff I could do, but am too lazy to do by hand, like tables. lol

So I use it for HTML and I do some stuff by hand as well.

[cherryice.livejournal.com]

Heee. Yeah, I know the feeling.

(Darkwing Duck, YAY.)

[sprat.livejournal.com]

I code italics and paragraphs by hand, while I'm writing, and then I have a story template that I just paste my stuff into when it's done. But I've used Open Office and Mozilla Composer to convert longer un-coded stuff, and both of those seemed to work all right.

I think you actually got iWeb with your computer, too. It forces you to work in a template, but some of them are nice and plain, and it seems pretty adaptable.

[cherryice.livejournal.com]

*nod* I have my own template that I c/p formatted stories into. It's just that I'm lazy, and hate doing the paragraphs and punctuation by hand, especially on anything over one or two thousand words.

I looked at iWeb, and it won't let me crack into its source coding for specific files. I shall take a look at Open Office, then. Thank you kindly!

[dragonelf-2002.livejournal.com]

I use Frontpage 2002 and then debug the code by hand. Have you tried NVU (http://nvu.com/index.php), it can create web-pages via WYSIWYG and html and it is similar to Dreamweaver and it works with Windows computers and with Macs that uses Mac OSX and best off all it is free (Open Source).