N|vu - Frequently Asked Questions

What is N|vu?

N|vu is an open source, WYSIWYG web authoring system (HTML editor and publisher) based on Gecko, the Mozilla rendering engine. It is under developement and the latest available public release is 0.41

Is N|vu a clone of Mozilla Composer?

N|vu is based on Composer (Mozilla Editor) code, but there has been considerable improvment in the source code and several features have been added over time. In other words, N|vu can be seen as a standalone version of Editor like Firefox and Thunderbird are standalone versions of Mozilla Navigator and Mozilla Mail.

I'm using **** OS. Is N|vu available for that?

Official Builds are available for Windows, Linspire4.5,  Linux (Fedora 2, compressed archive built on Linspire(Debian kernal2.4, gcc 2.95.4) and Mandrake Linux 10) and MacOS X (>= 10.3).  Suse 9.2 officially includes Nvu. A couple of Unofficial builds are also available at the unofficial mirror. In case it is not available for your system, you can always build it yourself.

What is the intended audience for N|vu?

N|vu is intended to be a WYSIWYG editor for a non-technical user be it home user, students, managers, etc. giving them an easy to use tool to generate quality web pages.

Why do you think I would use N|vu?

Read the following articles to know more about N|vu's features and powers. Why N|vu? and N|vu Features.

Is N|vu available in "my" language?

Nvu is available in more than 10 localized versions with more localizations coming up pretty soon. For more information about localized versions, visit Nvu L10n availability page.

Does N|vu generate "bloated" code like other popular editors?

No. N|vu does not generate the "bloat". In addition to be able to produce decent code it also has a tool called "Markup Clearner" to clean the HTML code and also had an inbuilt HTML validator which validates your code using W3C's validation service.

I can't change the background image for my webpage?

This behaviour seems to be like the user not being able to change table cell colour after setting it once. To change the background click on Format > Page Colors and Background. In the dialog box whic appears, delete the path for background image set earlier. Click on "OK". Save the document. And set the background image to which you want by again clicking on Format > Page Colors and Background.

Does Nvu support scripting tags like <? .... ?>, php tags, asp tags, etc?

Nvu supports standard tags like HTML comment tags, PHP tags (only <?php .... ?>), but no asp tags like <% .... %>. ASP tags are not W3C standard and hence won't be supported by Nvu.

Site Manager does not upload files/images.

Nvu Site Manager code is being rewritten by the developers. Next version of Nvu will have better functionality.

Does N|vu support syntax highlighting?

Nvu supports syntax highlighting of the source view of the HTML document. HTML code, comments and scripts e.g. javascript, PHP, etc are appropriately highlighted.

N|vu is not working properly (e.g. a feature is not working), What can be done about it?

Its possible that a feature of N|vu does not work correctly i.e. it may be buggy behaviour as it is in the developmental stage right now. The best way is to report it in the "Report Bugs" section of N|vu Forums. The developers frequent the forums regularly and will either reply with a work around or try to fix the bug in N|vu.

The FAQ did help me much. Where can I ask for more help?

If you still have queries, the best place for asking for help about N|vu is the forums. There you can get advice from developers and experienced users.

Why don't links work in Nvu?

Nvu is a WYSIWYG HTML editor. When editing an (X)HTML document clicking on links opens link editing dialog instead of following the link. To see if your links are working you need to browse the page in a browser like Mozilla, Firefox, Opera, etc.

How the hell do I save the style sheet produced by the CSS editor?

CaScadeS, N|vu's inbuilt CSS editor creates the style sheet rules and definitions. The style sheet can be saved by clicking the "Save" (CTRL+S) button after closing the CSS editor. Also make sure you save the page you are authoring before opening the CSS editor.

How do I open a web page to edit with N|vu from command line?

N|vu's "open file from command line" feature was re-enabled recently in version 0.41. You can open a file from command line using the following command:

nvu.exe -edit <url> %Windows
./nvu <url> %Linux

How do I open the current Firefox web page in N|vu?

You can use the extension "Launchy" to open the current web page with N|vu for editing. Launchy, as of now, doesnot auto detect N|vu so you will have to edit launchy.xml to enable the functionality.

I love it. How do I promote Nvu?

You can help to promote N|vu by either putting the "Get N|vu" image on your web or weblog or by using the "Insert > Smart Widgets > 'Made with Nvu' Button" button on your web pages created with N|vu. Code for "Get N|vu" image is as below:

 <a href="http://www.nvu.com"><img src="http://glazman.org/get-nvu.png"
alt="Get Nvu now!" align="middle" border="0"></a>

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