(For a friend) I'm looking for a program similar to RapidWeaver or iWeb for Windows that will allow someone to put together a site using templates which can be modified.

Should be under $100 and have a large selection of quality templates available. Should also be as intuitive as possible and handle the FTP connection to the server for uploading the files.

tags: web editor, html editor, site management, builder

Have you looked at Mozilla Composer? I don't think it does templates, but it free and beyond easy to use.

I've looked at KompoZer which is a fork of the defunct Composer. I dismissed it because it looked like shite.

Frankly, it looked like it was created by techie-types who put it together with their own techie interpretation of what a common person might consider simple and intuitive. Which is to say, it isn't.

When a site needs to use a thousand words to describe this type of product it likely means the software can't explain itself visually. This means, unfortunately, it isn't what I'm looking for.

The requirement for templates is a must. If I knew the friend could afford it, I'd tell them to buy a Mac since there are a number of decent programs available.

I've used Dreamweaver in the past and haven't found any between free and DW that was better than Composer, but yeah, it still leaves a lot to be desired.

Folks swear by Frontpage, but it makes my skin crawl to even think about trying it.

There is worse than Frontpage and thats the incredibly nasty HTML that gets generated by Word and Excel.

I've never seen any particularly great HTML editors out there that are low cost. The best still seems to be Dreamweaver.

CoffeeCup?

I tried CoffeeCup and another product called CuteSiteBuilder a few years ago. Both were pretty onerous. Dreamweaver was definitely the best and what I ended up using.

I suggested they evaluate CoffeeCup, but I don't know how they'll get along. I've also given the friend the option to try out Dreamweaver which can be used in trial mode. It's about $399 SRP standalone so it's not something I think they'll want to jump on.

At that price my suggestion to them was to pick up a used Mac mini and then use RapidWeaver. The Mac just seems to be a much better platform for choice when it comes to web-related development software.

I know; old thread.

Has anyone dealt with SiteMaker? It's open source, but seems like slightly too much effort for me to bother installing myself. But my domain registrar offers it as a service. They have a flash screencast demo, and it looks like it might be nice.

I just realized that it sounds like I'm asking if I should pay them for the service; I'm not. I'm just suggesting it's something that might be worth looking into suggesting to novices.