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Building a Website Using Nvu

5 February 2010

34SP.com Staff

Hi and welcome to my first blog post. I’m Lee the latest member of the 34SP.com team. If you’d like to know a bit more about me feel free to check https://www.34sp.com/web-hosting-experts where I will soon be added.

Whether you are running a WordPress hosting site, a business hosting plan or a reseller hosting account – we all want our sites to look great. Recently I have noticed quite a few customers asking how to edit already existing pages on their website after it has been for them by a web designer, or even how to go about making their own new website.

If you are like myself and prefer to have a more hands on approach and do things for yourself there is an alternative to web design applications such as Microsoft Front Page or Adobe Dreamweaver. After some searching I came up with what I consider to be a very good free alternative, called Nvu.

Now to some of you more experienced designers this application may seem too simple and light on features, but to me I find it brilliant for beginners. To me one of the most useful beginner guides can be found at the following address: http://www.w3schools.com/html/default.asp.

In the basic section of this guide it talks of how to add paragraphics and headings and how to set these up in different styles and formatting, how to add tables, images, links, forms and lists. All of these are easy to add to your own site content within Nvu simply by using the buttons in the application. In the advanced section of the guide there is information on how to edit fonts, create layouts use scripts, create and use CSS and use your meta data. All of these are feasible within Nvu using built in features such as the view source code panel, where you can add your scripts and edit your meta data and the built in CSS Editor.

Once you have finished creating and are happy with your page, this handy program also has the ability to automatically publish your files at the click of a single button, automatically creating links between files and uploading them via FTP for general viewing on the Internet.

In summary I have found that Nvu is a great beginners solution for those willing to get into website programming and design who don’t want to use traditional Content Management Systems. While Nvu isn’t as good in some ways as its counterparts, the fact that this application is free and it is available on all platforms (Windows, Mac and Linux) it gives you a great sense of what you are looking to get into where later you can choose to upgrade to a pay for client if you feel that you have grown past this programmes capabilities.As mentioned, you can download Nvu for free at: http://net2.com/Nvu. If you are looking to build things using Nvu you may also want to have a look into an extremely insiteful guide located here: http://www.charlescooke.me.uk/web/kz-ug-home.htm.

Good luck in getting your website built using Nvu.