Help! - Website designing

[J0hn]

Hi Guys (& Gals?)

I have been running my own website for a couple of years (as linked in my sig) using my own domain and space provided by the email shop. Although I initially designed the pages with HTML and uploaded them, it soon became obvious that it was easier to use the CPanel built in HTML editor. Unfortunately, I have no idea what this HTML editor is called.

Recently, the host changed or updated the CPanel HTML editor and not only do I not like the new control toolbar (it's monochrome and many icons look alike, meaning I have to search each one's tooltips to find the right tool almost every time I want to edit something) but there are other issues cropping up since the change, such as my link images and suchlike not displaying in the editor.

Although the support was great for the first few months, the host is now not responding to my support requests, so I'm stuck between hosting elsewhere (which also means losing the email address and probably my domain) or finding an offline HTML editor to write the stuff on my desktop and then upload to my domain.

Renewal is approaching, so I need to decide soon. Does anyone know of a decent HTML editor that is similar to the regular CPanel one? Preferably one that doesn't cost too much - I can't afford the hundreds that commercial firms shell out for this stuff. I also tried Wordpress before buying my own domain and webspace - I didn't really like it, although I would consider using it on my own domain if I can't find anything else.

I'm hoping to find something that doesn't require too much time with my head in the manual. Most editors are pretty intuitive to use and the old cpanel one was perfect.

Thanks for any tips.

[JohnWillimas]

I've done most of my web editing from inside a content management system like Wordpress or Blogspot so I'm not sure I'm equipped to advise. I did have a look at Bluefish once - from the folk that brought you Open Office: http://bluefish.openoffice.nl/index.html

Or this article might help with some pointers... http://www.techsupportalert.com/best-fr ... editor.htm

Hope this helps.

John

[TSR2]

Hi John,

The domain name and the hosting are two separate things. The domain name is portable to any host. Do you know who you bought the domain name through?

[J0hn]

Thanks for the replies.

Yes, I am aware that they are two separate things, although I bought the two as a package (and someone else from Canada has been spamming me to my home address every year, trying to 'steal' me away to their service) and I know I could move it elsewhere, but I'm not sure I will get much co-operation from my current provider. I'm very surprised they haven't responded to my support requests and I'm wondering if many of their customers are perhaps not happy and maybe they are unsure what to do. It really has turned a nice, simple editor into a real pain.

My original plan was to upload a Wordpress scheme that I liked to my website, but it turned out to be a previous version and I don't know if it would be supported. So instead I simply designed the page layout roughly how it would have looked in the WP template.

The tools at my disposal are far more than I would or even could ever use, with SQL databases and PHP stuff, which I have very limited knowledge about. It's a shame I don't have more time to learn these things and make it a better website (for example with feedback or comment options and the ability to let people download stuff without compromising security). I already found that it's possible to access all of the files on my website through FTP, just by playing with the http address - and I don't like that at all, so maybe I should move anyway. I have the whole thing backed up on my PC.

(PS - I'm testing Amaya from W3C)