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Software Linux

Lindows Announces Nvu - Frontpage For Linux? 643

Posted by simoniker from the beer-and-webauthoring-perfect-playmates dept.
CmdrStone writes "Michael Robertson, the Lindows founder, has announced in his 'Michael's Minute' newsletter that Lindows has started the creation of a Frontpage-type program for Linux, called Nvu." Nvu promises to be "...a complete Web Authoring System for Linux Desktop users to rival programs like FrontPage and Dreamweaver", is "100% open source", and will be free to download when it launches.
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Lindows Announces Nvu - Frontpage For Linux? More

Lindows Announces Nvu - Frontpage For Linux?

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  • Looks promising (Score:5, Interesting)

    by r_glen ( 679664 ) on Wednesday October 29, 2003 @10:00PM (#7343939)
    The fact that it's built from the Mozilla code base is encouraging...
    Unfortunately (according to the FAQ [nvu.com]), it won't be available until the first quarter of 2004

  • This isn't right... (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Qweezle ( 681365 )
    You wouldn't think the guy who was able to combine "The instability of Windows, with the complexity of Linux"(or was it the other way...) would be able to even have any ground on which to speak of Linux. Lindows has not been all it was once hyped up to be, and this guy isn't a Linux guru. Bah, he has no place to talk.

  • I mean... They actually REALLY use them?

    I thought every self-respecting geek just used text editors.

  • Hopefully (Score:5, Insightful)

    by skank ( 106609 ) on Wednesday October 29, 2003 @10:05PM (#7343980) Homepage
    it will be more like dreamweaver, and less like frontpage. I can handle a tool that takes out a lot of the headaches from doing rollovers, adding scripting, and flash files. Dreamweaver was always great at that (I haven't messed with web design in a few years). But if anyone tries something as stupid as frontpage extensions, I hope the whole community laughs in thier face. From what I've seen from him, he is not stupid, just trying to make it easier for non-tech geeks to get away from windows, and this could be a good thing. I have had many people tell me one of the reasons for shying away from linux is (besides lack of cutting edge games) no easy wysiwyg html editors. Not everyone wants to lookn at the code. Granted, even when I used to use dreamweaver, the code always got cleaned up in homesite or notepad (thank god I use linux now) before it ever saw the net. This should work out to be a good move.
    • No mention of WEBDAV on their site. They should use something like that (i.e. standards based and not full of holes) if anything.

    • I realize folks are ragging on FP, but it brought web apps to the masses. No more paying your ISP to write PERL Cgi scripts if you wanted an interactive site.
      • I have yet to see "the masses" making web apps. If you are talking about non-corporate website developers creating interactive sites, Perl has filled that niche for years, and PHP is making headway in that area. "The masses" don't do much beyond HTML email (which is done automagically by their email client, anyway), iCards and Blue Mountain, and possibly ImageReady and Flash. The most interactive that "the masses" get is passing virus-infected Flash games around.

        The truth is that most people don't make w

        • Re:Hopefully (Score:3, Interesting)

          by 16K Ram Pack ( 690082 )
          Say what you like about FrontPage, but when I had to deliver a solution for content creation for a non-techy, it was my only choice.

          This person was knowledgable at a "word user" level, and didn't want something where they had to put in HTML tags and the like. They have a real job to do apart from looking after the website.

          They also wanted consistent look and feel, and to be able to have any new content automatically searchable - and to be able to add pages and get new menus.

          Personally, I'd rather give

    • Re: FrontPage (Score:3, Insightful)

      by King_TJ ( 85913 )
      Speaking as someone who never really learned a lot of HTML, yet who has built quite a few web sites using WYSIWYG tools (plus some editing of the generated code to clean it up or fix little things, a bit of "cut and paste" javascript, and so on) -- I have to say I always *liked* FrontPage.

      Granted, the extensions are a big problem - but I think mostly because of their poor implementation, as opposed to in concept. (It seems to me that "WebDav" is trying to be a standardized version of the same basic idea,

      • Re: FrontPage (Score:3, Interesting)

        by hamster foo ( 697718 )
        Frontpage is great for what it is, which is a dumbed down web development tool. That's not meant to call someone dumb for using it, but it is what it is. It allows novices to easily create (generally bad) web content. I won't argue that doing it the handwritten way is more efficient, but it usually is better if you actually look at the content produced. Most WYSIWYG editors add a lot of uncessary tags into what they produce which just results in larger pages which isn't a desireable effect for a web pag

  • It's Mozilla Composer (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 29, 2003 @10:07PM (#7343993)
    Same ol' from Robertson and co, take an existing open source project, change a few graphics, and call it a revolutionary new product which will change the world.

    Guy's got balls, I'll give him that.

    • Re:It's Mozilla Composer (Score:5, Insightful)

      by tsmoke ( 455045 ) on Wednesday October 29, 2003 @10:53PM (#7344300)
      That is *precisely* why this is cool. He's funded an existing open source project to make it better. According to the about section, they've contracted the lead Composer developer to extend and improve the existing code-base.

      If the rubric for giving props to a company is building entirely new applications and products (and introducing all the bugs and problems that suggests) rather than supporting (with money!) existing projects, then only the companies that make the worst decisions will be applauded.

    • Re:It's Mozilla Composer (Score:5, Insightful)

      by l810c ( 551591 ) * on Wednesday October 29, 2003 @11:41PM (#7344561)
      take an existing open source project, change a few graphics, and call it a revolutionary new product which will change the world.

      Isn't this one of the main things we see in the Linux/Open Source arena? What is Mandrake? All of the Distros and other projects? The changes may have been minor to begin with, but eventually they grow into very different products. If he's putting resources and keeping it open source behind it might just turn into a nice editor.

    • But Composer does absolutely _squat_ when it comes to developing entire web _sites_. It's the organizational aspect of the software that makes it desireable... not merely it's web page editor.

  • This is a good thing (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 29, 2003 @10:09PM (#7344002)
    I congratulate the lindows team for launching this project.. clearly not aimed a linux geeks, but for the average lindows user. Those who use vi or emacs wont be using lindows anyway... thank you lindows for making linux more accessable to those who are fed up with windows

  • Frontpage?? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 29, 2003 @10:10PM (#7344009)
    <html xmlns:o="urn:schemas-nvu-com:nvu:nvu"
    xmlns:w="ur n:schemas-nvu-com:nvu:editor"
    xmlns="http://www.w 3.org/TR/REC-html40">

    <head>
    <meta http-equiv=Content-Type content="text/html; charset=windows-1252">
    <meta name=ProgId content=Nvu.Document>
    <meta name=Generator content="Nvu 1.0">
    <meta name=Originator content="Nvu 1.0">
    <link rel=File-List href="hello_html_files">
    <title>Slashdot Comment</title>
    <!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
    <o:DocumentProperties>
    <o:Author>AC</o:Author>
    <o:LastAuthor>AC</o:LastAuthor>
    <o:Revision>1</o:Revision>
    <o:TotalTime>1</o:TotalTime>
    <o:Created>2003-10-30T03:05:00Z</o:Created&g t;
    <o:LastSaved>2003-10-30T03:06:00Z</o:LastSaved>
    <o:Pages>1</o:Pages>
    <o:Characters>5</o:Characters>
    <o:Lines>1</o:Lines>
    <o:Paragraphs>1</o:Paragraphs>
    <o:CharactersWithSpaces>5</o:CharactersWithSpaces>
    <o:Version>10.2625</o:Version>
    </o:DocumentProperties>
    </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
    <w:NvuDocument>
    <w:GrammarState>Clean</w:GrammarState>
    <w:Compatibility>
    <w:BreakWrappedTables/>
    <w:SnapToGridInCell/>
    <w:WrapTextWithPunct/>
    <w:UseAsianBreakRules/>
    </w:Compatibility>
    <w:BrowserLevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:Brow serLevel>
    </w:WordDocument>
    </xml>
    </head>

    <body lang=EN-US style='tab-interval:.5in'>

    <div class=Section1>

    <p class=NvuoNormal>Like frontpage, huh?</p>

    </div>

    </body>

    </html>

    • Re:Frontpage?? (Score:2, Informative)

      by TummyX ( 84871 )
      For the uninformed, that is a fake (it has some xml copied from word).

      Frontpage doesn't generate code that looks anything like that. Frontpage 2003 infact has a function to clean word generated html.
    • Um...

      There seems to be alot of "garbage" options enabled with that particular instance.

      I don't enable style sheets, I stick with apache targeted webservers and I don't use java/dhtml for placement.

      In the end, I'm left with about 4 descriptive meta tags at the beginning. I remove those meta tags by hand and they are never reinserted. voila

      There are definately flaws in frontpage, but really you shouldn't use such a poor example that can be shot down so easily.

      Sticking to the basics, sometimes things can

  • What we really need... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Wednesday October 29, 2003 @10:11PM (#7344014)
    is a Quickbooks replacement. Give me that and I could have every office in town running Linux. I mean, with it you can have a $25,000/year secretary do your accounting instead of a $60,000+ CPA (at least for small to mid-sized businesses). That's the killer app Linux is missing.

    • Way OT: Re:What we really need... is more stuff.. (Score:4, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 29, 2003 @10:36PM (#7344188)
      snot....
      SQL-Ledger is a double entry accounting system. Accounting data is stored in a SQL Server, for the display any text or GUI browser can be used. The entire system is linked through a chart of accounts. Each item in inventory is linked to revenue, expense, inventory and tax accounts. When you sell and purchase goods and services the accounts are automatically updated.

      With the assembly feature you can build manufactured goods from parts, services and assemblies. When you sell assemblies all the accounts linked to the individual parts, services and assemblies are updated and stock levels adjusted accordingly. If any item belonging to an assembly is changed all assemblies are updated as well.

      Invoices, Packing List, Income Statement, Balance Sheet, Sales and Purchase Order, Statements, Receipts and Checks are generated from templates and may be changed to suit your needs. Templates are provided in html and tex format. The tex templates are processed with latex to produce postscript and PDF documents and can be sent to a printer, displayed in a PDF viewer or sent out via email ...

      SQL-Ledger can be used on any UNIX, Mac OS X and Windows computer. The application is written in Perl, developed on FreeBSD and Linux with Galeon, Konqueror, Netscape, Lynx, Links, W3M, Voyager, Explorer to render the display, Apache, thttpd, boa to communicate between the server and the browser, and PostgreSQL, Oracle, or DB2 to store accounting data. /snot....
    • Also see MyBooks [appgen.com]. It's intended as a Quickbooks replacement from small business on up to sub-ERP small and medium enterprise. It's written in Java so it runs even on FreeBSD and OS/2. Its backend is SQL. If you buy the high end package, you get the source code.

  • Nice to know (Score:3, Insightful)

    by The Analog Kid ( 565327 ) on Wednesday October 29, 2003 @10:12PM (#7344020)
    atleast it will put out compliant HTML code. One more incentive to get people to switch.
  • I know there are a lot of geeks out there who will blast this effort as unnecessary--they are the same people who believe the best HTML editor is really a text-editor with an HTML quick-reference sheet handy... These are some of the very same people who loathe the idea of ANYTHING that might pollute the open source world with Windows-like things--in short: anything that infringes on their idea of Unix-like purity. Sure, I too can edit HTML myself if I really wanted to.

    However, I think this effort is a HUGE leap forward, not only because it is all open source, but because it is one more tool in the open source arsenal that can be used to fight back at the Microsoft camp.

    The fact of the matter is, there are a LOT of people out there for whom FrontPage is absolutely indispensible. These are some of the same people who will be asking a very pointed and straightforward question about migrating to Linux: "Will Linux run something like Microsoft Office?" Just as we need an Office suite like OpenOffice or StarOffice, I think it is high time we had a complete website authoring tool. People from all walks of life, both those in the professional world as well as those doing it just as a hobby, could benefit.
    • I've never used Frontpage, so I don't really understand what the big hoopla is. I can certainly understand people wanting a WYSIWYG html editor. But why doesn't Mozilla fit the bill? What would Nvu provide that a Mozilla with a few more features could not?

      Note that I am not arguing that Nvu efforts should be directed towards Mozilla. Rather, I am wondering why you think this is a "HUGE leap forward". Not having ever used Frontpage or Dreamweaver, I seek enlightenment.
    • Well, I'm kind of in the middle ground. I do "believe the best HTML editor is really a text-editor with an HTML quick-reference sheet handy," at least right now -- because I have yet to find any HTML editor that consistently produces clean, maintainable code. Right now, the code turned out by any (allegedly) WYSIWYG HTML editor I've seen is simply crap.

      If this project turns out to be at least a partial fix for that problem, I'll applaud it. I'd give it better odds than any of the proprietary systems, si
    • I know there are a lot of geeks out there who will blast this effort as unnecessary--they are the same people who believe the best HTML editor is really a text-editor with an HTML quick-reference sheet handy...
      Bah! Nerds don't need "quick-reference" sheets for HTML!
  • where are the open source versions of Clippy and MS Bob?
  • Having done a presentation on Frontpage Extensions and Apache [suso.org] at ApacheCon, I can officially say that the Frontpage system of doing things sucks ass in the Microsoft way.

    I'm welcoming any open source replacement.
  • I messed around with Mandrake 9.1 for a while (had to go back to Windows after wireless card troubles). I would have been more inclined to remain with Mandrake had I had a decent web editor.

    The same applies to MANY people.

    The lack of professional applications on Linux has kept many supporting Microsoft over the years, simply because they have no alternative.

    I'm not quite ready to abandon Photoshop and learn GIMP, but Linux is moving one step closer to becomming a viable desktop option for everyone.

  • It's about time (Score:2, Insightful)

    by r_benchley ( 658776 )
    Jesus, there's less than a hundred posts and there are already people trying to act cool and knowledgeble by saying that they do all of their HTML coding in vi and Emacs. Good for you. No wonder your web pages look like shit. Have you take a look at www.gnu.org lately? Lots of great info, but it's uglier than sin. People who design great looking websites usually do a quick layout in Dreamweaver, and then finetune the HTML in vi, Emacs, BBEdit, etc. Best of both worlds.
  • Say what you want about the quality of the Lindows product -- these guys understand what it means to give back to the community. Good for them.

  • one fish, two fish, red fish... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by ubiquitin ( 28396 ) * on Wednesday October 29, 2003 @10:43PM (#7344241) Homepage Journal
    BlueFish [openoffice.nl] has occupied this space for quite some time. The spin is vintage Michael Roberson of course. We've been here before, people. He's an early adopter with a megaphone that's twice the size of yours. After all, HE KNEW ABOUT MP3 BEFORE YOU DID.

    There are times I'd really wish that the tech media would genuinely research the subject matter instead of just amplifying hype. Hard-working, often-silent open source incumbent projects deserve nothing less.
    • BlueFish is a very nice free HTML editor, as is Quanta -- but neither has anything to do with what FrontPage or Dreamweaver does. What _does_ occupy that space (kind of) is Mozilla Composer, and this Nvu is going be Composer with a new name and some icons, it sounds like.
    • Cool fish.

      Thank you sir. I've been looking for something and it was on CD #2 all this time... (mdk)

    • Site Editor? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by zandermander ( 563602 )
      I think I've looked at Bluefish before.

      There are several great editors out there and Bluefish certainly stands near the top but...

      where is the site manager like you'd find in Dreamweaver or (shudder) Frontpage?

      Sorry, I love Linux and all other FLOSS. I use OpenOffice.org wherever possible. I browse and do email with Mozilla... I advocate as much as possible but until there is a high quality web authoring tool which also has a site editor, the only way you'll get me to give up Dreamweaver is by prying it
  • Hmm, Mozilla (standalone) Composer and Composer++ [easyconnect.fr] is nice.

    I guess the editing on the server thing might be the thing missing. Don't you have to have a server side component to do it right?

  • Free to download? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by JanusFury ( 452699 ) <kevin DOT gadd AT gmail DOT com> on Wednesday October 29, 2003 @10:49PM (#7344271) Homepage Journal
    Free to download, cool. That's nice.

    But will it run on anything other than Lindows? Considering Lindows costs money, saying that Nvu is free to download and neglecting to mention that it only runs on Lindows wouldn't be something I'd put past Robertson.

    It's like how MS offers IE 'free to download' (or used to) but it only runs on Windows - big deal, you have to buy Windows to get it.

    • Re:Free to download? (Score:3, Informative)

      by BenjyD ( 316700 )
      It's open source. Even if it requires some component that isn't free in its original form (are there any non-free parts in Lindows?), somebody can hack it so that it doesn't and release it for free as well.

  • glad to see it (Score:3, Informative)

    by WindBourne ( 631190 ) on Wednesday October 29, 2003 @10:54PM (#7344307) Journal
    I was just talking to my father about html editors. He is taking an HTML web clas in florida which is spending more time teaching him front page rather than teaching him HTML. I was explaining to him that Netscape/Mozilla's editor produce some of the best code, but was a pain to use whereas Frontpage, MS Office and Dreamweaver are absolute nightmares on the code (looks like ppl on crack and just learning how to code did it). What he wants is a nice simple easy to use editor for doing a web site, so thanx.

  • Actually a good thing (Score:5, Insightful)

    by GarfBond ( 565331 ) on Wednesday October 29, 2003 @10:59PM (#7344335)
    For those of you who aren't aware, Mozilla Composer's component owner, Daniel Glazman, has been employed by Lindows.com to continue work on Composer++ (a very good thing), which in turn will serve as the codebase for this new product, nvu. For those of you not believing that Lindows.com is serious about this (and I agree, this is easy to believe), let me remind you of the following:

    • Lindows.com is *paying* a developer to continue working on a current OSS product, Mozilla, which in turn will add to their product
    • nvu claims to be fully open source, which they seem to have every intention of following up on.
    • Lindows.com is paying.
    This is a case of lindows putting their money where their mouth is. They're contributing to open source, while also trying to differentiate themselves in the market. Let's give em a chance here.

  • Nice... (Score:3, Informative)

    by BladeMelbourne ( 518866 ) on Wednesday October 29, 2003 @11:03PM (#7344355)
    If Nvu allows editing source code directly (not just WYSIWYG) it will be interesting to see how it compares to my other favourite editors:

    Bluefish [openoffice.nl]

    Screem [screem.org]

    Quanta [sourceforge.net]

  • The Mozilla/Netscape Composer module is a solid tool for non-techies to create and maintain web pages. If Nvu keeps that going, while the Mozilla crew focus instead on the browser and mail client, that's a Good Thing.

  • One lone vote... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by MsGeek ( 162936 ) on Wednesday October 29, 2003 @11:21PM (#7344458) Homepage Journal
    ...for BBEdit [barebones.com]. Because It Doesn't Suck [barebones.com]. Someone needs to build a workalike for BBEdit that runs on Linux, because Bluefish, Quanta and Screem all are wannabe HomeSite clones. I mean, HomeSite is nice, but BBEdit just...rocks, y'know?

  • Too little (Score:4, Insightful)

    by unoengborg ( 209251 ) on Wednesday October 29, 2003 @11:33PM (#7344521) Homepage
    This is a great improvement of free web authoring tools, but today most websites do not consist of static pages. This worries me as this tool doesn't seam to handle that.

    To be a Frontpage/Dreamweaver killer it need to handle database driven websites in a simple fashion. It also need to handle serverside scripting like jsp/php.

    Anyway it's a start.

  • Hint to Michael... (Score:3, Funny)

    by miketang16 ( 585602 ) on Thursday October 30, 2003 @06:44AM (#7346041) Journal
    When creating a new web design app, the phrase "like Frontpage" should never be used.

  • Quanta - an HTML editor for Linux, available now. (Score:3, Informative)

    by Dani Filth ( 677047 ) on Thursday October 30, 2003 @07:02AM (#7346120) Homepage
    Quanta [sourceforge.net] is a kick ass IDE. There is an opensource version and a commercial version [thekompany.com].

    "Syntax highlighting with support for ColdFusion, XML, PHP, SQL, Python, Perl, DTML - Zope, C++ and HTML, with more to come"

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