B4J Question HTML builder for B4J project

[Mostez]

I have very little experience with HTML, I cannot write HTML code from scratch, is there free WYSIWYG software for windows to create HTML code for me? like legacy Microsoft Frontpage? I could not find download link for frontpage!

TIA

 

[aeric]

You can use Sublime Text or Visual Studio Code

As far as I know, there is no WYSIWYG editor for free. Last time I use Dreamweaver.
You can try to learn BANano or BVAD3 framework using B4J.

 

[DonManfred]

7 open source alternatives to Dreamweaver

Looking for an open source alternative to Dreamweaver or another proprietary HTML/CSS editor? Let's round up some of your options.

opensource.com

 

[svmenifee]

SeaMonkey does the job. https://www.seamonkey-project.org/

 

[Mostez]

@DonManfred, which one of them do you recommend, or use?

 

[DonManfred]

which one of them do you recommend, or use?

No one. I use Notepad++

 

[aeric]

In modern days, I think developer don't create webpage using WYSIWYG.

Some developers dislike ASP.NET WinForm and I think many don't use WinForm components and Code Behind anymore.

The new generation just use Text Editor like VS Code, Sublime Text or Atom (maybe some use Brackets or PHPStorm) to edit the css and js files.

Just press ! and Enter then the HTML basic structure is generated for you. The rest of the story is Frameworks.

The UI design or HTML tags are injected into the basic index.html page using JavaScript or templating engine.

Developers need to learn how to use UI frameworks like Bootstrap, MaterialDesign or TailWind.
And the modern overhyped JavaScript too!

 

[alwaysbusy]

And the modern overhyped JavaScript too!

Why overhyped? JavaScript is the engine that lets the whole Web work.

 

[aeric]

Why overhyped? JavaScript is the engine that lets the whole Web work.

No offense to vanilla JavaScript. I also like to use jQuery. Both are straight forward even though sometimes in the past I don’t understand how some code works.

When I try to maintain AngularJS 2, I still can understand a bit how the structure works. Now Angular X (not sure what version is the latest) I have no comment but I feel I don’t want to learn Typescript. TypeScript is a good thing I guess to overcome the shortcomings of JavaScript. But downloading a huge package is no go for me. Maybe I just dislike NodeJS or NPM.
Vue is nice. It is lightweight.
What made me feel annoyed is ReactJS. That’s what I call overhyped but many developers just blindly go for it because it is more popular.
Because something is bad then people have to struggle to find solutions in StackOverflow, YouTube or Google search. This helped SEO to make it more popular. The web is full of questions to solve all the problems of this bad library. I tried to learn but many concepts are just not making sense. To give some examples, anonymous function with empty parameter and arrow ()=>, suddenly optional variable with ? mark in front, tags like <></> which is meaningless instead of typing out fragment and many more. Then suddenly some smart people take the old concept of Functional Programming to put inside Redux and make things immutable. Every time I want to type npm start to compile a just very small changes. And download a lot of dependencies with vulnerabilities. I think I want stop here. Else my high blood pressure going up again.

 

[stevel05]

There is also Komposer which I have used occasionally for years. I'm with DonManfred though, Notepad++ is more flexible once you have the basics of HTML / Javascript / CSS.

 

[alwaysbusy]

@aeric Agreed (with most of it), but realize that for example jQuery is in essence also vanilla Javascript, just with an extra wrap around some functionalities, just like any library is by the way (Vue, ReactJS, Angualar,... too). I'm not a fan of TypeScript either. So I agree that some libraries written in JavaScript are overhyped, but not the language itself. It is extremely powerful.

 

[Magma]

For some reason I feel like.. we turn our back to RAD tools..

Yes is better creating direct code to get better - optimized results... but a novice need the simplicity... and for one reason all companies not have a solution of a drag n drop Html Editor that is fully compatible with new techs... I think the reason is may be the multiple thousands choices... of frameworks... or the wordpress/cms... things...

From one side ofcourse is "ok" to know what to do like html-coder-webdesigner.... but the job... getting heavy... need to know and search new things every day...

 

[Mostez]

Thank you all for your great help, I just want to say, comparing to your experience, I almost have none with HTML or web applications, this is my first project and I want to let things go as easy as possible for time being until I get good knowledge to step forward. that's why I want to use HTML builder for now. I started with BlueGriffon from @DonManfred post , it does the job so far

 

[alwaysbusy]

The nicest one I've found is https://bootstrapstudio.io/ (commercial). A really good editor, but bootstrap of course.


You could use a similar trick to this https://www.b4x.com/android/forum/t...g-web-builder-with-b4j-banano.115269/#content to connect it with BANano to write your 'WebApp' logic.

I never explored it any further, as I find the B4J Abstract Designer + BANano Live plenty enough to design my WebApps.

Alwaysbusy

 

[Mostez]

The nicest one I've found

That's really nice, Thanks alot

 

[MicroDrie]

Thank you all for your great help, I just want to say, comparing to your experience, I almost have none with HTML or web applications, this is my first project and I want to let things go as easy as possible for time being until I get good knowledge to step forward. that's why I want to use HTML builder for now. I started with BlueGriffon from @DonManfred post , it does the job so far

I think due to all the well-intentioned WYSIWYG editors advice, the art of learning HTML has been completely overshadowed. Now you can learn HTML in many places but at https://www.w3schools.com/html/default.asp you can find and try out all HTML web page and CSS markup code. This allows the user to modify the code and then view and improve the result of the modification.
If you already know roughly what you want, the "well copied is better than poorly conceived" solutions on https://github.com/ are a quick way to get off to a flying start.

 

[aeric]

Before the era of smartphone, web designer still can use WYSIWYG software to design the website. When demand of mobile view become mainstream, programmer find it difficult to make the width auto align into small screen and tried many ways like flex or grid control in css. It also cumbersome to rewrite the css syles. Then twitter came out with bootstrap css. Now the webpage is responsive to different device screen sizes.

 

[MicroDrie]

We only know that Mostez wants to use a free WYSIWYG as a means, but we don't know its goal. If that is a simple solution, the Skeleton (CSS + Library) at least provides some insight into how you can interactively build a web page from B4J.

 

[Mostez]

but we don't know its goal

I'm implementing web socket server for ESP devices, some of them for door access control, and the others for time and attendance. this part is OK now. I can get data, store it on SQL dbase and send verification message to device. The second part is how to implement simple query pages, of course I can do that in GUI solution using B4J, B4A or .NET to send queries to SQL server, but as long as it's web server solution, I just want to put them all in one place, and learn about this technique.

 

[hibrid0]

I have very little experience with HTML, I cannot write HTML code from scratch, is there free WYSIWYG software for windows to create HTML code for me? like legacy Microsoft Frontpage? I could not find download link for frontpage!

TIA

I tested and love Openxava framework.
Just define Java Classes.
And the system build backend, database and Frontend.
Maybe will work for you.