KompoZer User Guide

 1 - Introduction

• What is KompoZer?
• Who is KompoZer for?
• Scope of Guide
• Methodology
• Navigation
• KompoZer

 2 - Quick start

 3 - Using KompoZer

 4 - Stylesheets

 5 - Scripts

 6 - Inserts

 7 - Templates

 8 - Site Manager

 9 - Preferences

10 - Publishing

     Appendices

KompoZer User Guide - Section 1

User Guide for KompoZer and Nvu

Contributed by Charles Cooke

A guide to using KompoZer and Nvu on systems running Windows

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1    Introduction

1.1    What is KompoZer? – What does it do?

KompoZer is a complete Web Authoring System which integrates web page development and web file management.

KompoZer is basically the same product as Nvu but has been developed further removing some of the faults found in Nvu and improving the user interface. 

It provides a web page editor which has a simple graphical (wysiwyg – what you see is what you get) interface. With KompoZer, newcomers will quickly and easily be able to produce new web pages.

Alternative editing ‘views’ of the pages are provided right down to detailed code level.

The output code is compliant to a high extent with the latest issues of the appropriate web language specifications and pages may be checked for validity directly from KompoZer using the official W3C validator.

KompoZer incorporates a Site Manager; this gives rapid access to the files on both local machines and remote servers. It can cater for several sites and switch rapidly between them.

From within KompoZer pages and associated files may be uploaded to a remote server.

KompoZer supports the use of “Styles” through Cascading Style sheets (CSS) both embedded and external. It has an editor which generates CSS code conforming with CSS 2.1 specifications.

1.2    Who is KompoZer for?

KompoZer is suitable for anyone wishing to have a modern, free of charge, program for developing small web sites and who would like to learn modern web design techniques such as the use of CSS.

1.3    Scope of the guide

The guide has been written from the point of view of the Windows Operating system so details may differ for other systems. It is intended as a reference document although in a few places it uses a tutorial approach.

Although web pages can appear on screen, in print or in audio the emphasis in this guide is on-screen uses.

1.4    Methodology

The approach taken by the guide attempts to satisfy the needs both of the comparative novice who has little knowledge of web design tools, and those making the transition from other tools and who may have considerable knowledge of the field.

Although the Guide is not intended for the complete beginner, concepts are introduced progressively and gradually added to. To avoid being too repetitive I have, in a number of places, referred to subjects yet to come. This applies, in particular to the use of styles in which KompoZer is strong. I suggest that these references are disregarded at first reading and returned to later. This will not prevent understanding later parts.

1.5 Navigation

Navigate around the ten sections of the Guide and the appendices using the menu pane on the left hand side. In each section the menu expands to show more detail within that section. Cross references throughout are hyperlinked.

The buttons at the top of each page give access to some supplementary aids and information. The 'Site map' contains a detailed table of contents of the whole guide while the 'Quick index' gives access by subject.

1.6 KompoZer and Nvu

The development of Nvu was completed with the release of version 1 in June 2005. No further development is expected though the developer Daniel Glazman of Disruptive Innovationshttp://disruptive-innovations.com/ is working on a newer product which will probably supersede it. After version 1 release a number of shortcomings were revealed and an independent developer using the name of Kazé worked on several of these and released an enhanced product as KompoZer.

Early versions of KompoZer operated almost identically to Nvu but with version 0.7.10 a number of significant enhancements were introduced, most of them related to the use of the CSS editor CaScadeS, and the majority of Nvu users have probably transferred to using this version.

The program is completely free and can be downloaded from KompoZer's web sitehttp://kompozer.sourceforge.net/.

You can install both Nvu and KompoZer on the same machine. From version 0.7.10 it is possible and safe to run both programs simultaneously.

This User Guide is written around the latest version of KompoZer at time of writing (see footer) and the methods described apply to that version but generally also to Nvu. Where the method for Nvu differs click the icon in the margin to reveal this.

In this User Guide where the term KompoZer is met it should be interpreted as including Nvu unless a distinction is made.