KompoZer

3.0 stars

"Acceptable. A bit buggy, and dated in feel."

October 2, 2012  |   By bjkeefe

Version: KompoZer 0.7.10

Pros

Mostly does as advertised -- a lean program that allows people who don't know HTML to put together a reasonably presentable page, or to modify an existing one, and once something is set up, to upload from one's local machine to one's web host.

Cons

Has certain bugs which scare the very people it would seem to be designed for; e.g., "Save" is grayed out after one save, even if additional changes are made. User has to know enough to choose "Save As" and dismiss the scary message, or state a new session.

Does not seem aware of CSS stored in external files except perhaps as a tacked-on afterthought, which is confusing to people who, say, paste from an MS Word document and wonder why all of their nice formatting looks so bad on the webpage.

Summary

In fairness, I did not test exhaustively. I spent some time with the program for the purpose of helping a restaurateur friend whose wants were pretty much limited to wanting to make changes in his menus as they were displayed on his already-existing site that someone else had put together. My friend could not make KompoZer work despite some very good written instructions from his erstwhile webmaster, and I had to wrestle with it more than seems reasonable in this day and age.

Also, I do not have much experience with WYSIWYG webpage editors, preferring to work with the underlying code and markup directly.

The program has the feel of a decent beta from a previous era. I wouldn't recommend it to someone who knows nothing and has no one to call upon for help. I would, however, recommend it for someone who *can* call upon someone to get it set up, who only wants a way to make frequent small content changes without hassle.

I'd also say it seems like a decent way for a non-markup-savvy person to sketch out a website, or changes to a website, to ease communication with someone else in charge of actual implementation.

As I understand it, the program is not getting much active development these days. That's too bad. For a version 0.7, it's not bad, and seems like it's not far from being something good.

Updated on Oct 2, 2012

Typo: In Cons: should have been "start a new session," not "state a new session."

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4.0 stars

"try portable version Version 0.7.10 Rev 3"

September 14, 2012  |   By vickiglam

Version: KompoZer 0.7.10

Pros

dont know yet

Cons

didnt try,just got it

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1.0 stars

"Mangled my code badly"

September 6, 2012  |   By bluchunx

Version: KompoZer 0.7.10

Pros

Fast, free, decent interface, color coding is good. Browser WISIWIG view is good.

Cons

This program changes your code in bad ways with no warning. For example, I suddenly had anchor tags in the beginning of every paragraph out of nowhere. I could go on... In future editions: just stop doing that, or create a warning (accept or reject change), or tell people up front what code will be "enforced" so they can decide on the program without wasting thier time.

Summary

It would be good for a free program, but it mangles your code!

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1.0 stars

"Can't open in Windows 7 despite downloading x 6. Help!"

July 20, 2012  |   By Rhabdo2010

Version: KompoZer 0.7.10

Pros

I'll happily leave a Pros review if I can get Kompozer to open in Windows 7 which means getting the constantly missing file js33250.dll

Cons

File js3250.dll is missing form every download I've tried. Anyone have this problem? If so, please help. WWould love to give this web editor a go.

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4.0 stars

"Good html WYSIWYG editor and publisher"

April 20, 2012  |   By Darwood

Version: KompoZer 0.7.10

Pros

Easy editing of html pages using WYSIWYG or source html or Preview view. Good site manager and publishign features. Allows direct inplace editing of existing published pages.

Cons

Messes with your html layout. Little to no support for php, JS, HTML5.

Summary

Does what is says on the tin and great for quick and dirty editing of html web pages but not probably suited for the more professional developer. I'm looking forward to seeing future versions improve upon the existing features.

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1.0 stars

"The worst WYSIWYG HTML Editor on Earth."

April 19, 2012  |   By Sub Type

Version: KompoZer 0.7.10

Pros

Not thing at all, If I can rate 0 stars I WILL.

Cons

Everything is a con, I need to send my website work to the tutor and I get 0 (I REPEAT 0) out of that and it's because of you.
It even messed up my code and I can't change anything in dreamweaver
I WAS EMBARESSED BECAUSE OF YOU!!!

Summary

Who the dog created this crap. Dreamweaver is the best. Freeware sucks. AND THIS SOFTWARE IS TOTAL CRAP.

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5.0 stars

"Great editor easy to use"

January 13, 2012  |   By prometheus04

Version: KompoZer 0.7.10

Pros

Much easier than Adobe, great for beginners.

Cons

can be a little sluggish

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4.0 stars

"Good for beginners"

November 28, 2011  |   By lynnedavidson

Version: KompoZer 0.7.10

Pros

Easy to use; although no HTML knowledge required, basic HTML knowledge is good.

Cons

As you are not using HTML code to do any work, just type, it doesn't help beginners get used to using HTML code.

Summary

I think i will continue to use this to help me with any HTML work that I have to do. It is easy to use and once you get used to the basic layout and structure, it works well.

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4.0 stars

"Good HTML editor and publisher"

October 21, 2011  |   By stuartdole

Version: KompoZer 0.7.10

Pros

You can create clean, simple websites fairly easily.
It's free.

Cons

Kaze seems to have gone away - no updates since March of 2010. Anyone else out there in the community working on it?
It gets confused fairly easily - starts doing weird things. (Easy to work around.)
It gets confused if the source is all jammed up with too many tags.
You need to know that you EDIT on your local disk, and PUBLISH to your host, and all the details involved - it's not magic.

Summary

This does a really nice job of creating and supporting simple, clean websites. I've created and maintain four or five websites, some with many dozens of pages.
Kaze (the main contributor) hasn't released anything new since March of 2010 - about a year and a half ago as I write this. I hope he's OK, and I hope someone picks up the fork and continues development! The world needs it.
Through trial and much error, I've learned how to "publish" pages to my host. It's a little non-intuitive, but once you get it, it's robust.
KompoZer gets confused frequently - a couple of times a night when I'm actively maintaining or developing. If it gets at all weird, just save your work and restart the program. I think only once did I lose more than a few minutes of edits.
KompoZer also will get confused by too many tags, especially in stuff you've cut and pasted from Word. I've been able to go in and just clean up the HTML by hand (in the code view), and then it's clean again.
I have been able to teach my wife to use it too - she's game for anything, but not a techie. She now regularly maintains the website for her classes herself, including adding new pages, bringing in pictures, formatting the text, etc. Very cool.

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