Are there any actual decent website builders? Non crappy markup and cross browser compatible? Javascript features easily addable? Something like this? Last I looked at this there were only terrible builders with crappy markup, and non cross-browser compatible.
I would tend to put Drupal 8 in that category since complete websites *can be built without any coding. Drupal caters to site builders and providing a platform that site builders and programmers alike are able to build websites.
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I despise ALL turnkey, drag-n-drop, WYSIWYG site builders. I build everything from scratch. Even custom CMS/administrative panels.
V/r,
Well it’s either this person pays me to do it or I help them out and show them a website builder . They are friends of the family so I want to at least help them a bit.
I despise WYSIWYG builders as well.
Have you tried pointing them at something like SquareSpace? How simple of a website is it? And how much knowledge do they have (presuming they’re doing it without you, or with just a smidge of help?).
If you want some sort of self-hosted builder… Drupal 8 is probably also my choice.
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They are computer smart but not website-making smart. A simple website to do the work for them would be needed. I’d help them but they’d do 99% of it.
Drupal8 seems a bit extravagent for their needs. Nothing e-commerce or anything. A pretty static site for the most part except for some JS-needed areas.
Well you say they are going to do 99% of the work which means for a static site that would just be creating the HTML and CSS. However, if they don’t know HTML and CSS than you need some type of builder. In which case you do require something complex enough to allow drag and drop building of a website. The simplicity of the solution is really all based on whether they can write HTML and CSS or not. Unless you are going to write the front-end code in which case though you will be doing much more than 1% of the work.
Yes, that is what they will be doing. 99% of the work WITH a builder. With me if needed. I’m sorry if that wasn’t clear with earlier comments.
I’ve heard good things about Wix and SquareSpace. I haven’t used either, but I’ve seen good sites in both and the source looks fairly clean.
You’d probably want to steer clear of Drupal. If you want to go that route, just go for WP and buy a premium theme and be done with it.
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It is unrealistic to expect anything more given the complexity of such a system. Wix and Sqaurespace are the top dogs.
The last I saw of that was 3-4 years ago and I did not know how much of it had progressed in those years. It appears the markup at least has cleaned up and browser support is easier to maintain these days so I can only assume that Wix/squarespace are good enough for my needs and should be able to create a decent enough website. THank you.
Yeah, they are good for this sort of thing. Another is Weebly. Then of course there’s wordpress.com, though I don’t point people to that unless they want a blog (even though it can be used for more regular sites).
Don’t forget that these places have a business model too.
Wix has nice templates and few limitations, but you don’t get your own domain for the free package, and your site will have Wix advertising. They cater to small business owners and certain media/entertainment categories.
Weebly is an option that allows for the addition of ecommerce abilities, but free version leaves you with non-custom domain and Weebly branding. They do have some cool administrative features for use on mobile, like checking for orders and looking at analytics.
Squarespace may be great, with good templates and ecommerce ability, but you’ll need to pay. $8 only gives you 20 pages, and 1 product to sell.
Another random one is Moonfruit, which is similar to others, allows ecommerce, but one handy addition is they can manage publishing your products to other networks for more exposure.
Your question was about “website builders” though, which is not exactly the same as “choose a template and customize it”. As far as website builders, I’ve been keeping my eye on Macaw and Pinegrow.
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