Someone reviewed v on Jul 5, 2022

Pros: 555

Cons: 555

Bottom Line: 555

Pensador reviewed v1.0 on Oct 17, 2006

I don't consider this a free alternative to Dreamweaver. It doesn't even gets close to it.
I was really disappointed when Nvu re-formatted my code and made it unreadable.
I'll go back to PSPad until I can save some money to get Dreamweaver.

IMKey reviewed v1.0 on Sep 29, 2006

theres a good reason for this program to not support frames... there are good things about frames, but the bad points outweigh the good.

the xhtml spec deprecated frames a while ago.

i believe u need a special DTD declaration for valid frame based documents as well. its not worth it in many cases.

jonathanbrickman0000 reviewed v1.0 on Apr 2, 2006

For a person new to web development, or for a person who wants a frames-based web site, NVU is frankly not good. But if a person has experience, does understand the power of CSS, and wants to build a low-bandwidth web site using all the benefits CSS can give, NVU can be quite useful. I am not convinced that it deserves 1.0 status -- there are bits of it that I think should be called "late beta", and its project management is simply inadequate -- but it is the only free web development software out there which does half of what it does, and since MicroVision ceased development of its WebExpress quite a few years ago, I have found nothing costing less than $100 which will do the things NVU will do.

JEdwardP reviewed v1.0 on Aug 8, 2005

I have a bias toward free, open-source projects, but I just can't rate this one highly at present. Not only does it still lack support for frames, but the mention of that on the website makes the author sound unconcerned or even mildly proud about it.

It's a statement the gist of which is, either edit your framed pages individually, or use CSS to mimmick frames.

That's not a good enough statement, and at the moment, this isn't a good enough application.

DiGiTaLFX reviewed v1.0 Beta (0.90) on Mar 22, 2005

I must admit its getting better - i now use as my website editor. Only three anoyances:
* css files are linked by absolute path. this NEEDS to be relative!!! (for me).
* the site manager should be able to work with a local directory and a publishing directory, syncing the two on command.
* would like the ability to say "don't use width/height attributes" on images. It seems to add this html, and I'm not fussed. I just want all images to show as their default size.

Otherwise its very capable for a simple website.
Oh yeah, also I have an RSS file for my blog. would be nice if this could open up xml for plain text editing, and not just render it as blank (potentially saving it as blank!).

WickedLester reviewed v1.0 Pre-Release (0.81) on Feb 10, 2005

This is a nice app for someone wanting to create a person homepage but it still needs a little more work to be used professionally. But for free is a great web-page applicaton.

kgruber reviewed v1.0 Pre-Release 3 (0.80) on Feb 3, 2005

I wouldn't go as far as saying this program is "complete" and agree with fellow reviewers that fundamental features such as frames are missing. It is a poor program for building websites from the ground up. However, I feel this program is excellent for editing/maintaining simple to moderately complex websites.

zridling reviewed v1.0 Pre-Release 3 (0.80) on Feb 3, 2005

I agree with Mark. When I coded just one new page, it would not let me rename the file, and the second file I had opened on a separate tab consistently disappeared. Looks nice, but against EvrSoft's 1st Page, it's not nearly as refined.

Mark Gillespie reviewed v1.0 Pre-Release 3 (0.80) on Feb 3, 2005

The main thing going for it, is it's free, as a HTML editor or site manager, it's still has LOTS of things missing.

I just spent an hour trying to find how to do frames in it, Guess what, it does not do frames. That's pretty fundemental support missing...

Braese reviewed v1.0 Pre-Release 2 (0.70) on Jan 8, 2005

@infinitejones

on windows? perhaps, delete your nvu profile and test it again. profile stored in c:\documents and settings\username\Apllication Data\Nvu
delete this folder and start nvu

infinitejones reviewed v1.0 Pre-Release 2 (0.70) on Jan 8, 2005

Ever since 0.30 I've been unable to log in to my FTP server via the site manager. With previous versions, nothing happened until the connection attempt timed out after about five minutes; this time a dialogue appears almost straight away saying "Login Incorrect". The details I enter aren't incorrect, because I've double and triple checked them and they work fine via an FTP client, and also via Dreamweaver. But this renders NVu useless to me.

I can find nothing in the help files to help me and I've posted on the online help forums but had no response. So the low mark is a reflection of the lack of useful information (eg. the next-to-useless dialogue box that appears) as much as a criticism of the fact that I've never been able to get it to work.

officeslave reviewed v0.60 Beta on Dec 3, 2004

While I look forward to seeing the progress of NVU, and I feel it'll be a capable program when it reaches the 1.0 mark, this release (0.6) didn't deserve to be a milestone.

The "preview" tab is not functional; it mirrors the "normal" tab completely, showing resizers, outlines of table elements, underlines of misspelled words, etc.

Background colors of divs are not displayed in the "normal" tab (or its broken twin, the "preview" tab).

danilloOc reviewed v0.50 on Oct 21, 2004

I tested the version 0.50 and found it a great software with nice featurings, easy to use and with a nice interface. All for free!
I recomend it ;)

tannman1 reviewed v0.50 on Oct 17, 2004

The app is a user freindly website designer that is compared with Frontpage in ease of use. That about all it can compare to Front page with. It's preview function didnt seem to work nor did it have basic such as nav bars and it seems geared to a one page site. Being in beta I would hope the dev's include some more custom inserts as well besides a made by button.

At this point I feel there is better apps available for the novice webmaster.

DiGiTaLFX reviewed v0.50 on Oct 16, 2004

Can't really say i recommend this program. I've tried it twice (.30 and .50) and both times its dissapointed me. Its probably ok if you just want to design a single web page (in which case openoffice/word will also do the job), however if you want to define a local site to be uploaded, using a global css file then don't try it! its still under-developed, and won't do all that you need. Currently i rate dreamweaver 3 as the best wysiwyg html editor.

wormeyman reviewed v0.50 on Oct 16, 2004

Syntax highliting will be very nice :D

Anyways this is good for the fact that it is free and it is at version .50 but it's no Dreamweaver or Golive. But it's pretty good i guess.

spiked reviewed v0.30 on Jul 9, 2004

Probably the overall best free graphical web authoring tool available today on any platform, but it doesn't support DAV publishing. There are tools which can mount DAV shares in a Linux or Windows file system, which effectively give Nvu limited DAV capabilities, but Dreamweaver and FrontPage have had built-in DAV support for years.

jrepin reviewed v0.30 on Jul 8, 2004

Wow this app is really great. nice interface, a lot of functions and easy to use. And on top of that it is free. Maybe it is time to update my homepage again but this time with this tool.

Borrelbouter reviewed v0.30 on Jul 8, 2004

Great program and all that for free. Its almost similar to Dreamweaver.
By the way saving the page is also acquired in Dreamweaver before you can see the page preview in the browser.

bobad reviewed v0.30 on Jul 8, 2004

I believe NVU is the best Freeware WYSIWYG web development tool at the moment. It's no Frontpage to be sure, but it's not a giant application like Frontpage either. Only a few little quirks prevent it from being excellent. For example, you must save your page before you can view it in an external browser.It's coming along nicely, and there should be a new beta out soon. .30 has been out for some time already.