Plan B Website

[NickFitz]

Although, for what the OP wants it sounds like he has to get to grips with the very basics of formatting first.

Which is why the DOCTYPE is so important - it's much better when getting to grips with even basic CSS to be working in strict rendering mode from the outset, as it makes it easier to grasp such oddities as padding and borders not actually being part of the element's width, although in quirks mode they are.

The rest of it was just me waffling

[TimberWolf]

Which is why the DOCTYPE is so important - it's much better when getting to grips with even basic CSS to be working in strict rendering mode from the outset, as it makes it easier to grasp such oddities as padding and borders not actually being part of the element's width, although in quirks mode they are.

The rest of it was just me waffling

Okay, returning to the original question, and assuming for a moment that the OP wants adherence to standards etc taken care for him, what high level CMS or web site builders produce either standard or reasonable cross-platform and cross browser markup? Dreamweaver? Joomla? Word (or other MS product)! , etc?

[AtW]

Which is why the DOCTYPE is so important - it's much better when getting to grips with even basic CSS to be working in strict rendering mode from the outset, as it makes it easier to grasp such oddities as padding and borders not actually being part of the element's width, although in quirks mode they are.

CSS

It was created to ensure continued employment of designers!

[NickFitz]

CSS

It was created to ensure continued employment of designers!

Most designers know sod all about CSS.

You need a decent understanding of the way it works to use it effectively. As this is a fairly technical matter, many designers don't want to find out...

This is a good set of articles about the basics of building a CSS rendering engine:

1. The Basics
2. Blocks and Inlines
3. Layout Basics
4. Absolute/Fixed and Relative Positioning
5. Floats

[d000hg]

Do your website in MS Word and then File - Save As - HTML.

Perfick 'innit?

Out of interest has anyone ever tried this? Forget what the code looks like (who cares if you never need to look), does it actually display properly on any browsers?

[d000hg]

Most designers know sod all about CSS.

You need a decent understanding of the way it works to use it effectively. As this is a fairly technical matter, many designers don't want to find out...

This is a good set of articles about the basics of building a CSS rendering engine:

1. The Basics
2. Blocks and Inlines
3. Layout Basics
4. Absolute/Fixed and Relative Positioning
5. Floats

It is not easy, either. I'm trying to do my site using what the snobs would call 'the proper way' and I only get as far as making 2 <divs> work right before wanting to give up and do it using tables, which will attract hatred from anyone doing view-source but will have the small benefit of looking as I want it to

[OrangeHopper]

Mine was put together using an eclipse based editor. I admit I did have to spend a while pouring over the odd CCS book. It probably shows.

[NickFitz]

It is not easy, either. I'm trying to do my site using what the snobs would call 'the proper way' and I only get as far as making 2 <divs> work right before wanting to give up and do it using tables, which will attract hatred from anyone doing view-source but will have the small benefit of looking as I want it to

HTML is easy if you know what the term "semantics" means in that context and how to apply that knowledge to your content. Tables-for-layout are easyish, in the way Spectrum Basic was easyish, but don't really convey the impression of being competent (although they do convey the impression of being incompetent). CSS is reasonably complex, but understanding it from the inside out makes it a lot easier.

There is one golden rule: develop your CSS while testing in Safari, Opera, Firefox, Chrome... anything except IE (unless it's IE8 in IE8 mode). If you develop to IE < 8 you'll be developing to a shedload of bugs in their rendering engine and it will never work. However, the fixes for said bugs are, for the most part, trivial and minimal.

The important point is that people expect this stuff to be easy; and, if you restrict yourself to very basic stuff, it is. In other words, the fundamental principles are simple and straightforward.

But look at this list of "Hello World" programs in 428 different programming languages (with unfortunate and inappropriate popup advertising in the navigation frame). Clearly, it's a trivial matter to get any of those languages to do something simple and straightforward - but you know perfectly well that, should you wish to do anything more complex, you'll have to knuckle down and learn some serious shit.

Learning HTML and CSS may not be as challenging as writing real-time control software in assembly language (although IE6 can make it feel that way), but the idea that it's somehow really simple because a bunch of weirdoes have created home pages for their cats isn't on - have you seen those pages?

And this has nothing to do with design. Bruce Lawson had to be very well versed in the technologies of HTML and CSS to create his wonderful CSS Zen Garden submission GeoCities 1996, which parodies the worst excesses of table-based designs using only semantic, well-formed XHTML and CSS.

To return to the original question: I don't know of any really good tool other than one's own brain; but I have no doubt that those recommended by others in this thread will prove adequate (except FrontPage, which is worse than dung). I would strongly recommend, however, that you see this as an opportunity to learn - use one of those tools, but take the time to understand what it's doing for you. It will be surprisingly complex, and you'll probably enjoy understanding how it all happens much more than if you just glue it together and never really know what you've achieved.

[RichardCranium]

I think we need a better spec., or a business case, or a budget

This is a good set of articles about the basics of building a CSS rendering engine:

1. The Basics

I hadn't even scrolled the page before my brain switched off. That's too hard for unpaid work. Why is this stuff so hard? It's the stuff of Zen.

I can do a 16 page full colour newsletter with all sorts of embedded images and stuff and get plenty of praise. A one page web site does my head in.

I would strongly recommend, however, that you see this as an opportunity to learn

I think I see, now.

From time to time, many of us want to build a simple web site.

Analogy: we want to make a journey.

a) Take the bus (= an off the shelf solution)
Very cheap, little thought or research required, it doesn't go quite where you want, but it gets you pretty close.

b) Use a taxi (= use a software package)
Quite a bit more expensive, you need to know where you want to go and there is always the possibility it simply won't turn up (i.e. will not do the job). It may take you the long way round. You may have to order a 2nd taxi.

c) Use a chauffeur (= use a contractor)
Lots of money but you do feel like minor royalty.

d) Learn to drive (= learn how to do it properly)
Spend months and months and some money too getting nowhere, lots of pain and embarrassment but at the end of it be capable of taking ourselves round the world in any vehicle.

Most have been recommending (b). Surprisingly, nobody suggested (c). NF, you are recommending (d). I think the OP wanted (a).

[HairyArsedBloke]

Mate - you didn't diss my HTML advice. Am I to take it I'm actually correct this time??

You're missing an appropriate document type declaration, thereby triggering quirks mode and creating a CSS box model nightmare

You should probably have a lang attribute on the <html> tag as well, although arguably you could expect the browser to fallback to whatever was specified by the server in the Content-Language header.

Assuming that the server is correctly specifying the content type and character encoding (which should otherwise be specified in a <meta> tag) then you're good to go

Ah, I was looking at the original and thinking "what is wrong with that?". All I could think of was the <em> tags.

Anyway, I bet the OP is sorry asking the question now.