Foreign Language HTML design programs, What is the best one? Options

[nathan-s]

What is the best html program for foreign languages such as chinese and japanese.
Many of the programs do not accomodate these languages and others make them really difficult to use.
Any help?

[Brian Chandler]

What do you mean by "html program"? I use a text editor to write pages, and all you need to check is that it handles the character set correctly. (UTF-8 is best in general)

Note that actually html/css doesn't exactly "handle" Chinese or Japanese very well, because (for example) no-one know exactly what "sans-serif" is supposed to mean on a Japanese font.

[pandy]

Maybe nathan-s wants the intercface, help file and so on translated. Yeah, what kind of program are you looking for?

[nathan-s]

Maybe nathan-s wants the intercface, help file and so on translated. Yeah, what kind of program are you looking for?

Well coffee cup doesn't accomodate Chinese characters neither does Dida-pro.
I currently use blogs but I wanted to find a web design program that I can use for russian, greek, chinese etc.
One that simply does it all both code and visual.

So it makes my life easier.
I have downloaded so many trials of software to find none of them work with foriegn languages.
If they do it entails lot's of work with formatting each character that takes all day.
Should I just upload the blog to my site as blogs seem to do it no problem but you see, I don't own my blog so I can't sell it when it is really motoring!
Also some software asks me what language I want to use it in but doesn't allow all languages. I have to choose english as I wouldn't understand all the design otherwise.

I hope you can recomend a decent web design package to me for these reasons.
Thank you.

[Brian Chandler]

Maybe nathan-s wants the intercface, help file and so on translated. Yeah, what kind of program are you looking for?

Well coffee cup doesn't accomodate Chinese characters neither does Dida-pro.

"Accomodate", in what way? What happens when you enter the Chinese text?

Try making the page using ipsem lorum text, then afterwards simply replace the Latin text with whatever the text is in Chinese. (Do you really write English, Chinese, Russian, Greek, and more??)

I hope you can recomend a decent web design package to me for these reasons.
Thank you.

Uh, try a text editor. Well I suppose that isn't a "package"

[nathan-s]

When I enter chinese text the space is filled with question marks.
Same for most languages using web design programs.

[pandy]

This is my own classification, not a commonly accepted one. I see editors as belonging in one of three categories.

1. WYSIWYG editors. "What You See Is What You Get". You are in a graphical interface all the time and drag objects around, never have to see the code. MS FrontPage is an example of this kind of editor. It sucks. DreamWeaver is another.

2. HTML editors. Basically text editors but geared towards HTML. Come with a lot of more or less helpful stuff as for example wizards where you can choose tags and attributes. Often have a built in preview. HTML Kit is an example of this. It supports Unicode, so it may work for you. I think there still is a free version.
http://www.chami.com/html-kit/
DreamWeaver fits into this category too if you stretch the definition since you don't have to use the WYSIWYG mode.

3. Plain text editors.
PSPad is free and supports Unicode.
http://www.pspad.com/

I don't say the editors I mentioned are the best, they are just examples that came to mind. Don't know to what extent they support Unicode either. Just trying to sort things out so you can decide what type you are looking for.

If you ask me, I'd go for 2 or 3. Type 1 will cripple you.

[Brian Chandler]

WYSIWYG editors. "What You See Is What You Get".

This _really_ should be WYSINWAEG "What you see is not what anyone else gets"

I wonder what OS the OP is using?

[pandy]

Windows.