Re: Creating web pages

>great package to use to create accessible web pages;
>Can anyone suggest a good one?
>I currently have access to Dreamweaver 2; Front Page 97; Word 2000; 
>and Net Object Fusion 2
>I have more or less decided that the best would seem to be 
>Dreamweaver; and then to tweak the HTML.
>I can use style sheets; BUT many of the users at the site where I am 
>creating the pages for are using Netscape 3.2 on Windows 3.11

Emma:

I'm an HTML instructor (since 1993) and have experience with a variety of 
HTML tools. I teach HTML, Dreamweaver, and HomeSite. 

Achieving accessibility with packages like MS Publisher is going to be 
difficult, I think.  Their goal is just to get something on the Web to 
display and I would guess they favor Internet Explorer and may include 
stuff that won't work in Netscape.

 FWIW, here are my recommendations in terms of creating accessible pages 
which is based on well-formed HTML:

#1 (but Mac only):

BBEdit www.barebones.com 

This is a text editor, not WYSIWYG
Allows for validation against transitional or strict HTML 4.0 and is very 
strict in validating.  Lots of nice features for creating pages.

#2 (but Windows only)

Allaire HomeSite www.allaire.com

Text editor.
Validator is not as strict as BBEdit.  

#3 Macromedia Dreamweaver

WYSIWYG
Dreamweaver was created for people like me who only sometimes like the 
convenience of a WYSIWYG but still work in text editors.  It can 
integrate directly with your HTML text editor and in fact, DW is bundled 
with BBEdit on the Mac and HomeSite on the PC.  

Dreamweaver does not have a decent validator but you can validate in your 
text editor or at the W3C site.  

If you're going for accessibility, I would recommend avoiding layers and 
the "layers to tables" feature.  

Others

Adobe Golive Cyberstudio.  

I owned version 2.  I trained someone on version 3. I haven't seen 
version 4.  But it has always seemed too bloated to me.  My guess is that 
unless you know what you're doing, achieving accessible and validated 
pages might be difficult.  I'm not sure what sort of validation is 
available.  (Validation should be against the language itself and not 
against browsers specifically or IMO, it doesn't even count.)

No comments on Fusion.  I haven't used it or even played with it.


PF Hyper
612-630-9136
pf@pfhyper.com
www.pfhyper.com

Received on Tuesday, 20 July 1999 12:53:18 UTC