flower  Welcome to my KompoZer Page!



    Before choosing KompoZer for this project, I reviewed 2Easy HTML Editor, open WYSIWYG, and SeaMonkey from Mozilla. I was fascinated by the shear number of free ware programs available. And here I thought we had to BUY such things! Heeding warnings from cautious friends, I was hesitant to download from unfamiliar sources. This page is being created using KompoZer 7.7, a free wysiwyg application based on NVU. Authors of KompoZer built this platform because of the slow release dates and bug fixes from NVU. I chose KompoZer because my extremely limited use of NVU left me a little frustrated. Will KompoZer be easier to use? Here I will demonstrate some of KompoZer's tools.


Table of Contents
  1.  Welcome to my KompoZer Page!
    1. Text Formatting
      1. Headings are easy with KompoZer's drop-down selection box. This is Heading 3, whereas the page title is Heading 1 and the title, "Text Formatting," is Heading 2.
        1. Heading 4 is a bit smaller. You get the picture.
    2. Tables
    3. What I dislike about NVU that I hope KompoZer fixed
    4. Features I Like
    5. Table of Contents
    6. Summary
    7. CTER 10 Web Editor Reviews

Text Formatting

   Formatting text is simple using KompoZer's tool bars pictured here.
toolbars
    Other text editing features similar to those found in word processing programs include changing font size with the click of an icon, boding text, italics, and underline. Most of these tools also use the same keyboard commands as windows and Mac. Changing the text color is cumbersome as you can only change one segment at  time. For example, to change the text color of a sentence containing a link, you must highlight the part prior to the link and change its color, then highlight the part after the link and change its color. Then, go back to the link if its color needs changing.

Tables

    The tables in KompoZer act as they do in word processing applications, with a few quirks. For example, I can make a short table of the movies I've seen this summer.

Pirates of the Carribean: The World's End
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
The Simpson's Movie

    Clicking off of the table doesn't always work. You have to move the cursor with the arrow keys--a bit cumbersome.  Also, the program does some weird auto-adjust thing to the column widths as you're inputting data, which isn't the easiest thing to fix. 

What I dislike about NVU that I hope KompoZer fixed




The form above appears in my browser exactly as it does here. I still don't know how to use forms, but I'm working on it!

Features I Like

    Adding images and links is as easy as clickin on the icons on the toolbar. Here's the Bean at Millenium Park in Chicago, as photographed by me.
bean    bean2


    Another great feature is Browse, which launches your browser to display the page in question. Using Browse, I can make sure WYSIWYG (happy to have learned that this stands for What You See is What You Get from Wikipedia!). There's also a CSS KaZcadeS icon for creating Cascading Style Sheets (thus the CSS). At this point, CSS is a bit over my head. Creating this page is quite a lesson in itself. But if you're more advanced and are familiar with CSS, I'll bet they will be easy to create by clicking css.


Table of Contents

    The Table of Contects was very easy to create. When I clicked Insert, Table of Contents, the program recognized the header values (heading 1, 2, 3) I had used and numbered them. This is where things get a little sticky. The numbering wasn't correct. I tried to change the table to a bulleted list, but only part of it changed although I had highlighted the whole table. Changing the text color was frustrating. No matter how many times I changed the color, it sometimes reverted to the default. To update the table of contents, go back to the insert menu and choose table of contents, then update. An automatic update would be more user friendly.

Summary

    Overall, I was pleased with KompoZers ease of use, but frustrated by tasks that should have been easy (such as changing text color piece-meal). If you are a novice at web design and want to create a simple webpage, KompoZer will work. The tools are very similar to those used in word processing applications, making the transition an easy one. However, I'm not convinced that this is the best you can do. If you are more knowledgeable or want a more complex site, you will want to seek a more advanced software application. You can download KompoZer for free at www.kompoZer.net. Check out my classmates' HTML editor reviews by clicking the links below.

Easy to do in KompoZerDifficult or cumbersome to do in KompoZer
creating your pagechanging text colors
editing textediting the table of contents (both format and text color)
formating text using bold, underline, headings, italics, etc.changing column widths by dragging
adding linkscreating multiple pages for one site (can't do)
adding images
changing the background
creating tables


CTER 10 Web Editor Reviews

Nic DiFilippoMarcy FlessnerRon Folkens
Rachel FruinMelinda HafernrichterAnn Harty
Bob HayesRebecca HixJimmy Juliano
Mike LundDave MeloneBrett Moore
Brookelyn SchuppelBrian ZeglinTrish Stilts