OK....maybe I didn't explain this properly.
Ever seen Dreamweaver? I want to code my own basic version of Dreamweaver.
That entails CSS, PHP, XHTML and Javascript validation and even
auto-complete (which I did fail to mention in my op as a need - sorry).
An example of using the IE or Mozilla activeX control to code a web page
building application would be great - if anyone has seen such a beast in the
wild.
The reason for the application is to give back to a cms community and make
the building of UIs for the cms community easier by having a tool designed
specifically for integration with the cms.
This tool is not to be construed as a competitor to Dreamweaver or any other
web editor. It is to be a single purpose tool to design front ends for a
specific cms. Where you now need several tools and a lot of hand coding to
get the front ends right for this cms, I'd like to make more of a drag and
drop tool that at least makes the core building of the cms/php scripts
needed to interface with the cms' back end a simple drag and drop operation.
This should make customizing the cms' visual styles much much easier than it
currently is - especially for beginners.
The biggest thing will be the ability to drag, drop, resize and change the
attributes of divs that have specific names assigned to them that the cms
expects to see. It's like using div building blocks to drag and drop a
visual front end for the cms.
It seems like a pretty simple concept. But, I also need to be able to allow
the end user to do a little hand coding if they wish, which requires some
way to validate and auto-complete CSS, XHTML, PHP and JAVASCRIPT on-the-fly.
This is the biggest part of the puzzle (to me anyway) because hand-writing a
component to validate and auto-complete even one of these web technologies
would be a HUGE undertaking (taking vast amounts of time and research).
Thanks for your replies.
