Designing a website on a PPC?

[Haemoglobin]

So this isn't exactly a PPC exclusive question, but the software I'm thinking of using "Dreamweaver" is.

Atm I'm paying Wix £60+ a year to host my website, mainly for the privilege of using their easy to navigate drag and drop GUI interface. The last time I actually designed a website was in 2003-4, when i was using Dreamweaver MX. I've been told by a friend that you can't have basic HTML sites anymore and that it's moved on the CSS and PHP, things of which I know very little about. Other than I used to use CSS to force web browsers to load specific fonts, so my site displayed properly.

I was hoping someone with more knowledge about web design than myself, could put me bang to rights on this subject. Can I still use Dreamweaver MX to create a simple website? or is it completely deprecated now?

 

[Dronecatcher]

I did my http browser compatible Web 1.1 site using only a text editor - guess it depends what features you want to have?

 

[Haemoglobin]

The website is for a play by email role playing game, so it just needs to look clean and show character information etc. Do iframes still work? Because i used those back when I designed my website on my own with dreamweaver.

 

[Dronecatcher]

Do iframes still work?

I'm sure they do as @AphoticD included them in some code for a site solution last week.

I will point out I'm a novice and everything I learnt for my site I've completely forgotten

 

[Haemoglobin]

This has been really reassuring. When I was talking to my friend last year, he looked horrified when i mentioned using Dreamweaver MX to design a site. But if it saves me £60 a year, I'll be happy.

 

[Nermal]

When I was talking to my friend last year, he looked horrified when i mentioned using Dreamweaver MX to design a site.

I'm sure the code it generates won't be "clean"... but it'll likely end up being an order of magnitude faster to load than some of the JavaScript-laden rubbish that you find on the "modern" Web!

 

[Haemoglobin]

All it needs to do, is look clean and tidy, have a Star Trek vibe and be easy to navigate. The site is primarily to explain the rules, show character sheets and provide gaming information to players.

 

[theMarble]

I've used old versions of Sublime Text and TextWrangler to write HTML and CSS code in the past to update an older website of mine on a PowerBook. Worked great. As long as you have a text editor (or other HTML editor capable of running on PPC), and have a semi-modern browser, you can write a website!

 

[AphoticD]

Practically any html output from Dreamweaver (and similar software) will still render mostly as expected in a modern browser. Just be mindful of any dependencies on Flash (which was common for even simple non-Flash websites of the DW era) as this will not work OOB anymore.

You might want to also check out RapidWeaver from Realmac Software (Try the Macintosh Garden or our Tiger/Panther threads in the PowerPC forum here). RapidWeaver had a nice selection of templates for simple blog style websites, drag and drop images, text, and publish to FTP support - no markup knowledge required. There was a version which ran on Tiger (and even Panther), which I was leveraging around a decade ago for a simple devlog — just because I liked the app and I could

Just be aware that any markup rolled out from DreamWeaver, RapidWeaver, iWeb, Claris HomePage, Adobe PageMill (old-school) or any web building software pre-iOS days will not leverage any kind of responsive resizing and will simply be rendered as a desktop site, zoomed out when viewed on tablet or mobile devices.

As you are probably aware, you will still need a web host / server to host your pages, so there will be some cost involved, but hopefully less than a wix subscription - and you get to maintain it on your PowerPC. You could check out MacintoshGarden.org as I think they were offering cheap (free?) web hosting for PowerPC/68k/Old-Mac projects - not sure if this is a still a thing though.

Have fun!

Edit: free (100mb) web hosting / ftp: http://home.macintosh.garden/

 

[micahgartman]

I use Dreamweaver MX on an Aluminum PowerBook G4. You can use CSS, JavaScript and all the other bells and whistles you want. It may be an older title but it's not much different than Adobe Dreamweaver 20XX.

 

[Haemoglobin]

Practically any html output from Dreamweaver (and similar software) will still render mostly as expected in a modern browser. Just be mindful of any dependencies on Flash (which was common for even simple non-Flash websites of the DW era) as this will not work OOB anymore.

You might want to also check out RapidWeaver from Realmac Software (Try the Macintosh Garden or our Tiger/Panther threads in the PowerPC forum here). RapidWeaver had a nice selection if templates for simple blog style websites, drag and drop images, text, and publish to FTP support - no markup knowledge required. There was a version which ran on Tiger (and even Panther), which I was leveraging around a decade ago for a simple devlog — just because I liked the app and I could

Just be aware that any markup rolled out from DreamWeaver, RapidWeaver, iWeb, Claris HomePage, Adobe PageMill (old-school) or any web building software pre-iOS days will not leverage any kind of responsive resizing and will simply be rendered as a desktop site, zoomed out when viewed on tablet or mobile devices.

As you are probably aware, you will still need a web host / server to host your pages, so there will be some cost involved, but hopefully less than a wix subscription - and you get to maintain it on your PowerPC. You could check out MacintoshGarden.org as I think they were offering cheap (free?) web hosting for PowerPC/68k/Old-Mac projects - not sure if this is a still a thing though.

Have fun!

Edit: free (100mb) web hosting / ftp: http://home.macintosh.garden/

Holy cow, I had no idea the Garden was offering web hosting! That really might help me out big time. With what people have said here, I'm beginning to think what my friend told me was a little bit off the mark. Going to get Dreamweaver MX and Rapidweaver installed. See which one I like and start cooking up a website.

 

[fuchsdh]

I'd recommend picking up some CSS because a lot of the HTML-specific styling is deprecated or broken in modern browsers, it's very easy to pick up if you know HTML, and even older CSS versions are more flexible than the tables-and-frames setup of the past web. But the good news is you can realistically check everything in a web browser and do it with a text file; Dreamweaver and similar vintage software might balk at anything newer than what existed at the time but it will still put out something that should render fine on the desktop.

 

[Haemoglobin]

Took a look at Rapidweaver, sadly it's a little to restrictive for my needs. One of the reasons I went with Moonfruit was I needed flexibility to drag n drop assets where I needed them and in the colour I wanted. Think there's one template in Rapidweaver with a black colour scheme and it doesn't give the option to change font colours etc. It's a pity as it looked like a simple and straight forward bit of software.

Will probably mean I'm going with Dreamweaver MX, is the 2004 MX version the most up to date?

 

[theMarble]

Will probably mean I'm going with Dreamweaver MX, is the 2004 MX version the most up to date?

There is Dreamweaver 8, and the Creative Suite versions (CS3 and CS4), however the newer versions may not run as well. MX 2004 should be fine.

 

[iModFrenzy]

I've been told by a friend that you can't have basic HTML sites anymore and that it's moved on the CSS and PHP, things of which I know very little about.

I mean you can have that if you wish, I’d prefer that over 98% of the bloated poorly optimized websites we have today.

This thread is making me want to make a website with my PowerBook.

 

[Haemoglobin]

Well I now have MX 2004 installed, think I might even stretch to buying a book for it