so if anyone out there reading this has any good suggestions for free XHTML/CSS (or really any language) editors, would you please share? i personally already have a whole bunch of purchased software for web development and all other sorts of programming (all visual studio versions, expression web, dreamweaver, etc.), but i have been asked by a friend if there was anything out there that is cheap or free.
i have done some googling around, but haven't really come up with too much. here are some links i found if anyone else is interested in checking these out:

• http://www.w3.org/Amaya (this looks kinda cool)


• http://css-discuss.incutio.com


• http://www.editplus.com

a compromise

after looking into how i was going to take breadth vs. depth approaches to the site's structure and navigation i'm feeling that both sides have their merits but for different reason. a site that has fewer levels can more easily show the user more of the available pages the site has to offer, while a multi-layered site will have a more difficult time in the menu systems in showing the nested pages and sections.
so my thought is to create a main sectional navigation system on each page except the about page where i will have a site map depicting all of the pages and their nesting relationships to other pages/sections.
perhaps when a heavier reliance on client side scripting is warranted, i'll add some fancier menu systems to each page.

site structure with navigation considerations

so back to the site structure question... i started considering how i would provide navigation to the site. the idea of a flatter, more wide structure would make navigation simpler - and in my opinion simpler is better. the only problem is that i would still have to find a way to put all of the topics in an arrangement that would fit that kind of structure without being awkward.
usually javascript can help with things like creating menus that would better support a deeper tree structure, from a navigational point of view. i guess i have some more things to think about and find out (like if javascripting is allowed)!

site structure

so i was thinking about the web sites structure last night and came across two competing ideas. i was thinking about how i was either going to make my sites structure wide or deep, where "wide" means that more pages than not are reference by the home page versus "deep" meaning that subsequent pages referenced by the sites home page sort of act as sub-home pages to sub topics (sub trees). hmmm, still thinking on this one...

color follow up...

so just to follow up from my previous post, i'm thinking about maybe abandoning the idea using beer colors as my inspiration for a color scheme. now i'm leaning towards really sticking with a wood inspired color/design scheme since my topic (pending approval) is guitars. like beers, woods tend to follow an earthy, neutral range of colors, but i'm thinking that the wood tones are probably a little closer together and maybe a touch more conservative. i was also playing around with the idea of somehow incorporating a subtle grain pattern as background or something.

site colors

so after thinking about my last post with regards to the color scheme of my site, i'm thinking that perhaps using beer colors (from different parts of the pour like the head or body) might just be a little too broad and lead to somewhat of a manic color arrangement. it's not that beer is made out of such wildly different colors, but i certainly feel like i want to have one page be "the guiness page" and another be "the killian's irish red" page just because i happen to like those different color combinations. the problem with that is this could be confusing to a visitor perhaps making them unsure if they are still on my site.
oh well, i'll just having to think about this... maybe i'll find someway to incorporate several "beers" in to a decent color combination.

the people have spoken

ok, so now after reading the comments to my last post, i feel bad because i don't want to be "that guy" that holds out on what i've got up my sleeve for my project. the honest truth is that i'm a strong subscriber to the philosophy of openly sharing knowledge - that's how i learned almost everything i know!
the short story is that the content will be based on guitars. i love music and i play guitar, among some other instruments. the 5-8 pages of stuff will be based on this this interest of mine. one of the nice things about taking something like guitars as a website's topic is that, as any luthier will tell you, a fine instrument's visual appearance is a significant portion of the art - this can be helpful with the visual design portion of the site. however...
i love beer. while flavors of beers aren't transferrable over the internet, their colors are. one of the major attributes within beer tasting is the color of the beer (consider the head and body of Guinness compared to Miller Lite or Killian's Irish Red). i was considering taking some of those naturally occuring color combinations and using them as my color scheme - or something like that! the nice thing about both beers and woods that make up guitars, is that they both have similar neutral colors that may be able to serve as inspiration for the site's overall color.
well, i hope that i'm not that guythat everyone thinks is hiding everything for my own personal benefit! :) basically, the way i'm approaching this project is:
1. find something to talk about - must be knowledgeable in this area
2. think about how to present this info - what might associate the subject matter to the audience via ancillary details like color schemas

i dunno... these are just thoughts and i'm sure that once they see some realization, things will change (that just seems to be how it always works!).