Website Design Software - Recommendations?

[Lumpy]

Okay, I need help from the website designers on CP! Here is my situation...

I designed a website for the company that I work for and it has been a pain in the ass from the beginning. First, I designed the pages in MS Publisher 2003, (bad program to use, I know... but my boss is cheap, lol). I then set-up an account through a free web host, (zymic.com), so I can test the appearance and functionality of the pages.

I originally tried to upload the html file to zymic, (via the "Publish To Web" function in Publisher), but it didn't work. I then downloaded FileZilla, (FTP) and was able to publish the pages just fine. All of the hyperlinks worked correctly and the layout looked great.

The problem I'm having is with form submissions. I have a few pages that have forms where people can fill out information then submit the data to us. When they click, "submit", the data should be sent to us via email. However, that is not the case. After you click the "submit" button on the page it brings up "404 Page Not Found".

After doing some research, I found out that this error is caused due to the web host not having FPSE, (FrontPage server extensions), installed. According to a few 'help' sites, they recommend uploading the html file and the forms will work. But that is not an option as zymic.com apparently doesn't support html uploads or it's a Publisher issue. (?!)

What I would like to do now is say to hell w/ using Publisher and use a real program. I would like to find website design software that would be compatible with ftp uploading, (as this seems to work well w/ the web host-zymic). I would also like to go with software that is similar to Publisher where I can design the pages then upload them to FileZilla. The form submissions are an extremely important portion of our site, so the program would need to be able to transfer the form codes via FTP and work correctly when the site is published to zymic.

This is my first rodeo w/ designing a website, (I'm a graphic designer not a web designer), so if you can refrain from calling me a retard, that would be nice. LMAO I'm also not completely opposed to using a different web host, but I chose zymic because it's free and they do not have ad banners. We own a domain name, but want to make sure everything works correctly before setting our domain name up via the web host.

TIA for any help!

[The Franchise]

Are you looking for free? Do you have a budget to work with?

[The Franchise]

And I'm assuming that you're looking for something more along the line of you doing the design and the program doing the coding? Or are you wanting to do your own coding as well?

[loochy]

Notepad + HTML book from library

[Lumpy]

Are you looking for free? Do you have a budget to work with?

I'm not really looking for free, but I'm going to be the one paying for it, so cheap is good. :thumb:

[Lumpy]

And I'm assuming that you're looking for something more along the line of you doing the design and the program doing the coding? Or are you wanting to do your own coding as well?

You're correct. I hate html coding.

[BoneKrusher]

i like playing around with Headers if you need one.

[The Franchise]

You're correct. I hate html coding.

http://web-design-software-review.toptenreviews.com/

WebEasy Professional is ranked #1. It's $49.95. I haven't used it (I use Dreamweaver) but it looks like it should handle everything you need.

[Lumpy]

i like playing around with Headers if you need one.

Actually, I had considered hitting you up for navigation buttons. The buttons I designed were ok, but were very difficult to read. I will NEVER design anything ever again after I've taken a sleeping pill. LMAO

[BoneKrusher]

Actually, I had considered hitting you up for navigation buttons. The buttons I designed were ok, but were very difficult to read. I will NEVER design anything ever again after I've taken a sleeping pill. LMAO

i'd be glad to try and remember it's free.
when you're ready just let me know if you want rectangle or round

and the size.

[Lumpy]

http://web-design-software-review.toptenreviews.com/

WebEasy Professional is ranked #1. It's $49.95. I haven't used it (I use Dreamweaver) but it looks like it should handle everything you need.

There we go! Thanks! :) I'll look into that one. It doesn't state anything about form creation, but I would assume that most programs have that feature? Have you created forms using Dreamweaver? That was another program that I've heard about, but I'm sure it's more complex.

[The Franchise]

It might be boring.....but you can browse through these YouTube videos to see everything that it does.

This is the first one.

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/Io1UKS9Edpc" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

[Lumpy]

i'd be glad to try and remember it's free.
when you're ready just let me know if you want rectangle or round

and the size.

Free is good! ;) I really like the look of the signature buttons, (the "mirror" effect), that you made for me! I was thinking something like that, but I would like them to have the rollover effect. I will definitely keep you in mind!

[Lumpy]

It might be boring.....but you can browse through these YouTube videos to see everything that it does.

This is the first one.



That looks pretty damn simple. Plus, they did mention form creation. You're the man, Pest! Thank you! :)

I'm just a bit concerned that I'm going to put a lot of time into rebuilding the pages then have the upload fail again or the forms not work. Of course, w/ them showing that it supports ftp uploading, I should be in the clear.

It would have been nice had zymic.com listed recommended programs that were compatible w/ their site. /sigh But THAT would be too easy.

[Lumpy]

Notepad + HTML book from library

LMAO WTF is a library?!

[Otter]

Lumpy, Lumpy, Lumpy....

wordpress.org

You can build a pro looking website for about $80 a year. Aren't you married to a techie?

[BigRedChief]

Microsoft Publisher FTW! ;)

I used Dreamweaver for years. Its good but expensive. Web easy does look like a promising solution and cheap.

[Lumpy]

Lumpy, Lumpy, Lumpy....

wordpress.org

You can build a pro looking website for about $80 a year. Aren't you married to a techie?

Thanks for the suggestion but I'll more than likely go w/ the WebEasy. I should be able to take my layout and drag & drop it into the program, (at least that's what they say). Gonzo is good w/ computers but he hasn't messed w/ designing a website.

Microsoft Publisher FTW! ;)

I used Dreamweaver for years. Its good but expensive. Web easy does look like a promising solution and cheap.

Yeah, I know... Publisher. :doh!: It's a great program for designing forms though. I use it a lot at work. Pagemaker is another good one, but my boss didn't put that one on my system.

[Fish]

Whooaooooohh Dreeeeeeeeeeeeeeamweaver!

I'm a big fan of Dreamweaver, and it will do everything you're asking about.

[Lumpy]

Whooaooooohh Dreeeeeeeeeeeeeeamweaver!

I'm a big fan of Dreamweaver, and it will do everything you're asking about.

I've heard good things about it, but I'm paying for this out of my own pocket and $50 is feasible. :)

[Fish]

I've heard good things about it, but I'm paying for this out of my own pocket and $50 is feasible. :)

You can download a fully functional 30-day trial, to see if it would be worth the money to you...

[The Franchise]

You can download a fully functional 30-day trial, to see if it would be worth the money to you...

I offered up Dreamweaver as a suggestion but she said that she doesn't want to have to do any of the coding herself.

[Lumpy]

You can download a fully functional 30-day trial, to see if it would be worth the money to you...

The problem w/ this is, if it doesn't work out well, I'll be up a shit-creek. I should have already had the damn site up by now. :(

[Fish]

I offered up Dreamweaver as a suggestion but she said that she doesn't want to have to do any of the coding herself.

Dreamweaver doesn't require coding. It's got a nice GUI similar to Publisher.

[Setsuna]

Can't you just use ASP.net?

[Fish]

The problem w/ this is, if it doesn't work out well, I'll be up a shit-creek. I should have already had the damn site up by now. :(

I don't see how that problem could be avoided regardless of which program you choose. :D

[Saulbadguy]

get a college kid to do it for you

or even better, outsource it to India

[Lumpy]

Can't you just use ASP.net?

I just checked that out and it looks like I would need to know coding. I know a little bit, but not nearly enough to set-up a website.

I don't see how that problem could be avoided regardless of which program you choose. :D

Oh, snap! LMAO

I would have been done w/ it by now if I didn't have so many interruptions at work. I would be hauling balls on the layout then we would get hit w/ orders.

get a college kid to do it for you

or even better, outsource it to India

Hey now! I'm edumacated enough to do this shit. ;)

[Saulbadguy]

I just checked that out and it looks like I would need to know coding. I know a little bit, but not nearly enough to set-up a website.



Oh, snap! LMAO

I would have been done w/ it by now if I didn't have so many interruptions at work. I would be hauling balls on the layout then we would get hit w/ orders.



Hey now! I'm edumacated enough to do this shit. ;)

It's not a question of education, it's time and resource management. I bet you'd be better of spending your time doing other, more profitable things, than making a website.

[Lumpy]

It's not a question of education, it's time and resource management. I bet you'd be better of spending your time doing other, more profitable things, than making a website.

I was being facetious, silly. :p

If I could outsource the project, I would in a heartbeat. In fact, my brother is a freelance website designer and I could ask him to do all of this crap. However, marketing is part of my job and I'm asked to balance that responsibility w/ production of orders.

[DaveNull]

Perhaps you can make the case that a professionally designed website will do more for your businesses than something thrown together by someone that doesn't do this kind of a living and needs to figure out if asp.net is a coding language or a WYSIWYG editor.

That said, if your boss can't figure that out then even if you did find a designer you might end up on clientsfromhell.net anyway.

If you don't have the time or attention to dump into learning HTML/CSS and have no other option, then go with some kind of hosted solution like Squarespace. It's more customizable than Wordpress.com.

If you do have the time and attention, look into SublimeText 2 as your editor. It has a lot of features for web design. If you're lucky enough to be doing this kind of work on a Mac, then Coda 2 that was recently released is pretty awesome.

I'm digging on Sublime since it's cross platform and supports all kinds of stuff.

[Lumpy]

Perhaps you can make the case that a professionally designed website will do more for your businesses than something thrown together by someone that doesn't do this kind of a living and needs to figure out if asp.net is a coding language or a WYSIWYG editor.

That said, if your boss can't figure that out then even if you did find a designer you might end up on clientsfromhell.net anyway.

If you don't have the time or attention to dump into learning HTML/CSS and have no other option, then go with some kind of hosted solution like Squarespace. It's more customizable than Wordpress.com.

If you do have the time and attention, look into SublimeText 2 as your editor. It has a lot of features for web design. If you're lucky enough to be doing this kind of work on a Mac, then Coda 2 that was recently released is pretty awesome.

I'm digging on Sublime since it's cross platform and supports all kinds of stuff.

Thank you for the recommendations! :thumb:

The site I made looks professional, I just didn't have certain design features on there because I didn't have them available. But... now I do! I found the WebEasy program, (that Pest recommended), at Walmart last night for only $30. I haven't messed w/ it yet, but I will later on today. It also includes 6 months of free hosting so we'll be able to test it out before we connect everything to the domain name that we purchased. Should it not work out the way I want it to, I will definitely look into what you, (and others), have recommended.

I really don't mind doing stuff like this, (in fact I enjoy it!), but having the time to do it is somewhat of a challenge. That's not the case now though. Our workload has decreased and I just completed a huge competitive bid project, (which was a complete waste of my time!).

Anyway, I truly appreciate the input and suggestions from you guys! I might hit a few of you up for a review of the site once it's up and running.

[Setsuna]

I just checked that out and it looks like I would need to know coding. I know a little bit, but not nearly enough to set-up a website

Well yes on the surface, but in all honesty it's fairly easy. Even if you don't use it, I would look into it because it might be useful down the road. :)

[ZepSinger]

Whooaooooohh Dreeeeeeeeeeeeeeamweaver!

I'm a big fan of Dreamweaver, and it will do everything you're asking about.

I also dig and use Dreamweaver, although it is decidedly not free.

Z

[Lumpy]

Okay, folks... I need your help again! :)

I have the web pages set-up using the WebEasy program, (it wasn't a real pain in the ass, but it did take some time). The forms work now, (when I do a preview), but when I click "submit" it activates Outlook Express and shows all of the data that was entered on the form. When I click, "send", it sends it to my email.

What I would like to do is have it to where our clients hit "submit" and it goes directly to my email. In other words, I don't want them to see the form codes and what they entered. I did some research and it looks like the only way to make it work this way is to set up the form to use a PHP processing script. Does anyone have experience using a PHP host? If so, I would like some advice.

My problem is I don't want to use the form templates on these sites, (I refuse to rebuild the forms a 3rd time! Grrr!). I just want to place a code in the custom script area so that it will link through their server and have it direct the data collected, (via the form), to my email. Am I correct in assuming that this is how PHP works?

This is what my custom script looks like at the moment...

OnClick="
this.form.action='mailto:[~me@mysite.com~]?subject=[~Feedback~]';
this.form.method='post';
if(!(IE && MAC && V4 && !V5)) this.form.encoding='text/plain';
onsubmit="return true"

*The "[~me@mysite.com~]" is of course my real email address, but I didn't want to post it on here for security purposes.

TIA for the help!

[Lumpy]

UPDATE: I figured out how to write a PHP script in Notepad, (named, "formmailer.php"), for one of my forms, but now I'm stuck on how to configure the custom script for the "Submit" button.

This is how the script looks now...

OnClick="
this.form.action='mailto:[~me@mysite.com~]?subject=[~Feedback~]';
this.form.method='post';
if(!(IE && MAC && V4 && !V5)) this.form.encoding='text/plain';
onsubmit="return true"

*The "[~me@mysite.com~]" is of course my real email address, but I didn't want to post it on here for security purposes.

Can anyone help?! I've been on Google looking for the answers, but haven't found anything specific about what code should be used.

TIA!!

[DaveNull]

Why are you using a form instead of a well crafted mailto link?

You should also obfuscate the mailto link (even if you used php i suppose) using something like ROT13. I always used to do this with TextMate on OS X, but the javascript is pretty easy to pull off on your own.

Obfuscation using Javascript (http://blog.macromates.com/2006/obfuscating-email-addresses/)

Setting a mailto link (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mailto).

[Lumpy]

Why are you using a form instead of a well crafted mailto link?

You should also obfuscate the mailto link (even if you used php i suppose) using something like ROT13. I always used to do this with TextMate on OS X, but the javascript is pretty easy to pull off on your own.

Obfuscation using Javascript (http://blog.macromates.com/2006/obfuscating-email-addresses/)

Setting a mailto link (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mailto).

I'm not sure that I follow, but I'll give you my scenario... I have a total of 3 custom forms on my site and I'm wanting our clients to be able to click "Submit", be redirected to a "Thank You" page, and booyah!... they're done. I'm using PHP because the web host that we're using, (Zymic), accepts PHP uploads.

I'm a complete novice, but the PHP coding was surprisingly simple. I just need to know how to code the "Submit" button so that it will communicate correctly w/ the coding in "formmailer.php".

I figure that once I have the codes correct for the 1 form the other 2 should be fairly simple to adjust. If you would like to see what the forms look like, just let me know and I'll send you a link to our website.

[DaveNull]

sure. no promises.

[Lumpy]

sure. no promises.

Understandable. I just sent the link to you via PM.

[Lumpy]

Hey, Dave. I started to respond to you via PM, but figured that posting in the thread would be easier.

I haven't uploaded the formmailer.php file to our web host yet. Is that what you're asking?

The reason I don't have it uploaded to our web host yet is because I was wanting to figure out the code for the "Submit" button first. Plus, you will notice that all of the pages with forms are html. This is because I uploaded all of the pages as 1 html file just to get a visual of the site. Once all of the codes are correct, I'll save the pages that have the forms as .php and keep the others as .html, then upload them as individual files.

The PHP codes for the Estimate form are setup in the formmailer.php file like this...

< ? php <----- there are no spaces in the actual code, but it wouldn't show up on here w/o adding spaces

$SendFormTo = 'me@mysite.com';
$emailsubject = 'Estimate Request';

$CompanyName = $_POST['CompanyName'];
$Address = $_POST['Address'];
$City = $_POST['City'];
$State = $_POST['State'];
$Zip = $_POST['Zip'];

$body = "

Company Name - $CompanyName
Address - $Address
City - $City
State - $State
Zip - $Zip

";

$headers = "From: $Email";
$success = mail($SendFormTo, $emailsubject, $body, $headers);

header( "Location: http://www.mysite.com" );
?>


(This doesn't include all of the codes for each field, but should give you an idea of how I have it setup.)

I also have each of the form field properties setup with the Html name to correspond w/ the PHP codes in the formmailer.php file, (i.e. CompanyName, Address, etc.). I only have the coding done for the "Estimate" form. The other 2 forms are still setup using the mailto html action.

[DaveNull]

At the top of each form, you need to declare the script you're calling.

< form action="formmailer.php" method="post" >

Then I think it's just this:

< input type="submit" / >

[Lumpy]

Cool! Okay! So, the script should look like this?...

< ? php <----- there are no spaces in the actual code, but it wouldn't show up on here w/o adding spaces

< form action="formmailer.php" method="post" >
< input type="submit" / >

$SendFormTo = 'me@mysite.com';
$emailsubject = 'Estimate Request';

$CompanyName = $_POST['CompanyName'];
$Address = $_POST['Address'];
$City = $_POST['City'];
$State = $_POST['State'];
$Zip = $_POST['Zip'];

$body = "

Company Name - $CompanyName
Address - $Address
City - $City
State - $State
Zip - $Zip

";

$headers = "From: $Email";
$success = mail($SendFormTo, $emailsubject, $body, $headers);

header( "Location: http://www.mysite.com" );
?>

Also, would it be best that I have a separate .php file for each form script? For instance, can I change the file name for the Estimate Form to estimate_formmailer.php? Then for the Order Form and Contact (Feedback) Form use... "order_formmailer.php", "contact_formmailer.php"?

I truly appreciate all of your help, btw! This PHP crap is a bit overwhelming to me right now, but I have no doubt that I'll get it up and running, (hopefully soon!). I'll check out the w3schools.com tomorrow and see what I can find on there, as well.

Thanks again! :)

[Saulbadguy]

rtfm

[Lumpy]

rtfm

If the WebEasy program came with one that included PHP, I would have read the damn thing. Instead, I have no choice but to look this shit up and get assistance via the internets.

So, um... BIOYA, Saul! :D