FOSS Web Dev. w/o Dreamweaver

[pinco]

Thanks, Mitch!
Nino


Mitch Wiedemann ha scritto:

> I've put together some details about how I switched from being a heavy 
> Dreamweaver (version 3.x) user to developing Web sites with 
> Free/Open-source software.  No, my current system isn't a 
> feature-for-feature replacement of Dreamweaver's functionality, but I 
> like it, and it works for me!
>
> I've posted it in HTML format on my Web site: 
> http://www.lightlink.com/mc2/dw_switch.pl
>
> Here's the plain ol' text:
>
>
>
> The story of how a once heavy user of Macromedia's Dreamweaver 
> switched to Web development in Linux...
>
> First, some notes:
>
>    * I liked using Dreamweaver v3.0. It's a darned good program. I 
> hear that later version are even better.
>    * I wanted to use Free/Open-source Software (FOSS)
>    * Despite it's goodness, I was frustrated with the limitations of 
> templates and libraries in DW v3.0
>    * I administer my own Linux/Apache/MySQL/PHP Web servers
>    * I'm pretty darn good at throwing together a PHP script in a 
> pinch. (read: I've been coding PHP Web apps full-time for many years now)
>    * This is not a guide for how to run Dreamweaver in Linux.
>    * This article will not suggest a replacement WYSIWYG HTML editor 
> for Linux that will let you do all the things that DW does, because 
> there currently aren't any.
>    * Your mileage may vary (YMMV). etc., etc.
>
>
>
> My Problem(s):
>
>   1.
>
>      I had developed a rather large Web site (no, not this site, this 
> one's tiny) consisting of about 600 - 800 static pages, and a fair 
> number of Web applications using:
>          * Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP (a.k.a. a "LAMP") server
>          * Windows 98
>          * Dreamweaver 3.0 with lots of templates and libraries
>          * TextPad v4.x (a terrific text editor for Windows)
>   2. DW v3.0 templates and libraries were limiting what I wanted to do 
> with the site. Updating a template or a library required that I 
> check-out and update hundreds of files. That just sucks.
>   3. I realized that I was getting more and more dependent on the 
> functionality of Dreamweaver. I didn't like this idea. I wanted my 
> content to be completely separate from the program used to create it.
>   4. I was tired of Windows, and wanted to switch to Free/Open-source 
> software.
>
>
>
> How I switched:
>
>   1. Began using PHP includes to replace DW templates and libraries. 
> The idea being that I never wanted to have any bit of HTML duplicated 
> in more than one file. This was the beginning of the end for 
> Dreamweaver in my case! I now have so much more control and almost no 
> duplication of code. The PHP includes can be designed to be much more 
> powerful/smarter than DW's client side content tools. This of course 
> requires that you have a server that runs PHP...
>   2. I had to gut all of the content files of their DW markup and 
> replace it with the PHP includes. This took a while, but a text editor 
> that can find and replace text using regular expressions over multiple 
> files (TextPad v.4.x in Windows) helped tremendously.
>   3. Once free of Dreamweaver's grasp, I had to find a way to keep 
> working!
>
>
>
> My FOSS tool kit:
>
>    * Linux: Fedora Core 1
>    * KDE: version 3.2.x
>          o Kate: a good general purpose GUI text editor
>          o Konqueror: In split vertical window mode for transferring 
> files via FTP between my workstation and the Web server.
>          o Quanta: An HTML editor for KDE
>
>
>
> My Procedure(s):
>
> Coding/Creating Content:
>
> Kate:
> I primarily do all of my work in Kate (or occasionally Vim, or Nedit 
> if I have regular expression find/replace to do). I set up Kate to 
> show line numbers, set my tab spacing to "4", and show the list of 
> open files on the left side of the screen. I have a text file that I 
> call "clip_library" (a hold over from using TextPad for Windows) in 
> which I store commonly used bits of code for quick copy, paste, and 
> modify jobs. I usually have Kate running all day on Desktop 2. Since 
> I'm using PHP includes to include the various bells and whistles, my 
> content is very straight-forward, and I use only HTML H1 - H4 tags, P 
> (paragraph) tags, UL/OL (lists) and the occasional TABLE. I use CSS to 
> style my content as needed.
>
> The basic layout of my Web pages looks like this:
> <?
> require_once("the header php script");
> ?>
> PAGE CONTENT
> <?
> require_once("the footer php script");
> ?>
>
> There are probably more elegant ways of doing this, but it ain't 
> causing me many problems currently, so I haven't bothered to change 
> it. The header and footer scripts (which include other php files as 
> needed) set up all of the structure and features that surround the 
> page content.
>
> Konqueror:
> I use KDE's Konqueror to transfer files between my workstation and the 
> Web server. I set it up as follows:
>    * Hit F9 to get rid of the left sidebar
>    * Click "Split View Left/Right" on the Window menu
>    * Set the veiw mode (on the View menu) in both windows to "Tree view"
>    * Set the left side to my local file store
>    * Set the right side to my Web server file store. (To do this 
> simply type ftp://user@my.webserver.com in the Location: box.)
>    * Save the setup using the "Configure View Profiles" on the 
> "Settings" menu. And give the setup a name.
>    * Restore the setup at any time by choosing its name from the 
> "Settings > Load View Profile" menu.
>
> Quanta:
> I really only use Quanta for quickly creating new content from sources 
> like text files, MS Word documents, etc. After than, I just use 
> Kate/Konqueror.
>
>
> Drawbacks:
> Heck no, this system isn't perfect! But it works...
> Here are some things that I still need to do
>    * Find a WebDav, CVS, or other versioning system that will make it 
> easier for a group of people to work on the files without stepping on 
> each other's toes.
>    * I should probably find a more elegant way of doing the header and 
> footer includes.
>    * I'm most of the way toward a simple CMS, so I'll probably just go 
> ahead and build one, and thereby solving the above two problems.
>
> In Conclusion:
> I hope this has been helpful in some way. Feel free to send me 
> suggestions, questions, or comments.
>


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