Linux App: KompoZer

Hi Guys,

There are so many apps for Linux that stand up well to (or even exceed the quality of) the commercial options available.

Many of these apps are also available on Windows (Linux programs tend to be ported very well to other Operating Systems).  One such app that I have really started to love is KompoZer a website development application in a similar vein to Microsoft's FrontPage.  This is great for me as an amateur website developer, I would imagine that users of Dreamweaver may be left a little disappointed.

The UI

When first starting up KompoZer you will see the Design tab already open which takes up the majority of the screen which gives you a pretty good representation of what your website will look like as you build it.  The "Site Manager" window to the left, this gives you an overview of the file structure of the site.

First thing that I do is setup add the location of my sites files to the site manager (the small 2 screen icon) so that it displays my website structure.

Anyone who has ever used Microsoft Frontpage will immediately be at home with the design/split view (split view shows the html code for the selected item at the bottom of the screen).  While the "source" view will show the websites html which is kept very neat and tidy.  KompoZer's html code output looks like someone created the site in a text editor by hand rather than being generated by a machine - Creating the same site in FrontPage would show hundreds more lines that would be formatted in-comprehensively.

The CSS editor

Wow - just wow, this is such a neat little tool that comes with KompoZer.

The CSS tool allows you to setup your HTML elements/id's/classes with simple drop down menus and gives you a preview of how those changes would look.

The CSS component can either embed the stylesheet into your current page or export it an external CSS file (which it can then easily link into your page) so that you can use the same style on multiple pages.  Changes made to the linked CSS file are immediately visible on the design page and I do mean immediately no need to even click the OK button on the dialogue box - if you select something on a drop down in the CSS builder your webpage will be refreshed with the new style in place which is great for making finite alterations.

Final Comments

This is a very polished HTML website builder that is very easy to pick up and start using for new and experienced users.  I like the number of options that you can set when importing images, creating links etc which other tools might hide away.  The UI was very intuitive - to me at least.

KompoZer is compatible with Linux, WIndows and Mac OS'.