OpenOffice.org 2.0 Beta is out and it’s revolutionary: New technology, better interoperability, and even easier to use. But it is still in beta. Tell us what is good and what needs fixing. —Open Office 2.0 Beta
I haven’t checked this out, but I’ve been looking for an alternative to MS-Word’s horrible HTML output — something that I can use in my “Writing for the Internet.” I already know that next time, I’ll bite the bullet and teach students to create HTML with a text editor, something I’ve always avoided since the thought terrifies some of my students (in that class, overwhelmingly freshmen humanities students). I don’t want to overwhelm them with the distracting design options of full-fledged options such as Dreamweaver or FrontPage. So I’ll have to check this out and play with its conversion settings.
I’m just blogging this so I can find it again when I have time. Meanwhile, I’m still looking for appropriate software for this class.
Years ago, I used 1stpage2000 to teach myself html. It has three GUI modes that one can use to step up from basic to more advanced elements. It was also the first html authoring software I found that auto-color-coded tags, making it easy to see where I borked up the syntax. Probably far more than your students need, but worth a look nontheless. I’m finding that the Scrapbook extension to Firefox is the lightest, smallest mini-platform for snippets of html I’ve ever seen, and am enjoying playing with it.
Wonderful, thanks for the suggestions.
There’s a javascript hack included in the 1stpage2000 distribution that my anti-spam software flagged as a security violation. Maybe if I could find a “clean” version of that I’d feel better about 1sttpage.
I’ve taught text-editor HTML in my past few FYC sections and found it surprisingly easy to teach — once you get them past the insight that it’s just tags, things go fine. One semester, I tried to tutor students in using DreamWeaver, and it was horrific. But straight HTML — half an hour one day, a few fifteen-minute practica, and we were good.
Bluefish is another web design tool that is distributed under the General Public License (GPL). I don’t think they have a Windows version yet. Maybe someday…
Take a look at:
http://bluefish.openoffice.nl/
Thanks for the reminder, Jason. I used to use Composer in the 90s, too.
Thanks for your perspective, SCWOSLW!
New Technology: bla bla bla. Meaningless hype.
Better Interoperability: it used to not work at all, and now it kind-sort-sometimes works.
Even easier to use: It was impossible to install, now you can install it as long as your recompile your operating system first.
Tell us what is good and what needs fixing: It was obviously to much work to figure out that you can’t save anything ourselves – you figure it out, then tell us, then we’ll tell you it’s just not a priority…
I think that the full Firefox suite has a basic HTML WYSIWYG editor, based on the old Netscape one I believe?
Just checked: http://www.mozilla.org/products/mozilla1.x/
Look at the bottom – Composer. I don’t know how good it is or isn’t, but I used to use the old Netscape Composer in a few classes way-back-when. It was much easier / less bulky than the bigger WYSIWYG editors (frontpage, dreamweaver, etc.).
Plus, it’s free.