Introduction
A griffon vulture is a large scavenger bird. But what is BlueGriffon?
BlueGriffon is an Open Source Web editing application that allows WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) editing and creation of web pages. It is a successor to the NvU editor, which is no longer maintained. BlueGriffon also includes support for new features in HTML5, which have been defined since the time when NvU and some other similar editors were developed. The BlueGriffon website is http://bluegriffon.org/ and it is released under the Mozilla Public License Version 1.1.
Since it is not as complicated as similar commercial applications, BlueGriffon may be easier to learn how to use. More importantly, it generates good clean HTML code.
About this tutorial
All the examples in this tutorial are based on running BlueGriffon under the Linux operating system. Fortunately, BlueGriffon operates with a very similar interface regardless of the system under which system it runs. All the examples given will be equally applicable to OS X and Windows. In the event that there is a difference, separate instructions for each operating system will be provided.
This tutorial is written for someone who has little or no previous experience creating web pages or working with HTML code, and is looking for a tool to quickly and easily get content ready to put on the web. It should also be useful to anyone who is used to other WYSIWYG web editing applications, and is looking to see what BlueGriffon has on offer. You will not need any knowledge of HTML to create a web page using this tutorial.
This tutorial will cover:
- How to construct a simple website
- How to enter text and images
- How links work
- Using styles to easily control the look and feel of your page
- Using Cascading Style Sheets to easily manage the use of styles
By the time you complete this tutorial, you should be able to create your own complete and functional web page. You should also be able to use styles to customise the look and feel of your site without affecting the content of the pages.
However, it is beyond the scope of this tutorial to cover the details of getting your site published on the web or the inner workings of HTML code. So this tutorial makes a couple of assumptions about its readers:
- You are familiar with the basics of your operating system (BlueGriffon works on OS X, Linux, and Windows) and you know how to install applications on your computer.
- You are familiar with the basics of resizing and manipulating images using a program similar to the GIMP.
- You have a hosting solution for your site, and have all the information needed to get the pages you create posted on the web.
The last assumption is not strictly required to use BlueGriffon or create web pages in general, but will be necessary if you want others to be able to see your site.