Member Avatar for pistolsnipe16

I've been playing around with a program (similar to Dreamweaver, or at least people say it is) called Nvu which is open-source and free. I was just wondering if anyone who is more experienced then me (noob) could offer some tips or advice. It would be awesome if you could because I'm really interested in site design but need some help, if not I'll learn it eventually anyway. Thanks, Bernie/myself

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  • Latest Post Latest Post by womblejonny

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A compact, practical primer for and anyone else experimenting with Nvu — and a quick contrast for users coming from Dreamweaver like . Nvu can teach fundamentals, but treat its WYSIWYG as a drafting tool: always verify and edit the source so pages stay clean and maintainable. That complements ’s point about learning HTML/CSS/JS rather than relying on the editor alone.

A simple, reliable workflow

  1. Create a project folder and keep pages and assets together.
  2. Draft visually in Nvu if helpful, then switch to Source to tidy markup before saving.
  3. Keep layout and styling in an external stylesheet. Example head snippet to link CSS:
<link rel="stylesheet" href="styles.css" type="text/css">
  1. Test in real browsers early and often — do not rely only on the editor preview.

Common pitfalls and fixes

  • WYSIWYG editors can insert inline styles and extra wrappers. Remove or replace them in Source and prefer semantic tags (header, main, nav) with CSS classes.
  • If pasted content brings odd tags (Word or email), use Find/Replace in Source to strip junk.
  • Validate markup and CSS before going live: use the W3C HTML validator and CSS validator (W3C Markup Validation Service , W3C CSS Validator).

If Nvu’s limitations become frustrating, consider maintained alternatives or forks: KompoZer (community fork) and BlueGriffon (modern successor) for a more up-to-date codebase (Nvu on Wikipedia , ). For long-term growth, move toward a source-based workflow (a code editor, simple build/publish steps, and version control) once comfortable with HTML and CSS.

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Member Avatar for Esopo

What kind of advice are you looking for?
Are you familiar with web development? If not it would be advisable that you begin to learn the languages such as HTML, CSS and Javascript, and NVU is the perfect tool for that.

NVU is based on the Mozilla Composer and designed to support standards. Short of using a more professional tool, NVU is probably the best application for beginers interested in doing things the right way.

I would suggest you take a minute to check out the NVU support page, there may be some links in there that will answer some of your questions:

Member Avatar for womblejonny

I'm sorry I can't help you because I use dreamweaver mx.

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