Best way to install BlueGriffon -- Is it possible?

[kendew]

A web designer would like BlueGriffon, a WYSIWYG web authoring tool, available on a Debian (32bits) box I maintain. Researching this, I find a free version (not free as in open source) is available fo a few Linux platforms. It's available to Arch through the AUR and to Ubuntu via a .deb file as well as others, but nothing for Debian per se. I wonder if anyone has experience getting this program to work on Debian, particularly Stretch?
It seems like I could try to install the Ubuntu .deb file with gdebi, or try building BlueGriffon, which looks a little tricky as it's tied in with mozilla-central. What to do and how to do it?
Any help appreciated.
Kendew

[GarryRicketson]

You should read this:
https://wiki.debian.org/DontBreakDebian
I have not had any experience with the BlueGriffon tool, but it does not
sound like a good idea at all to be trying to install it to a server.
Usually the web site design and building is done off line, on the designers
computer, then when it is ready to be uploaded to the server , it is easily done.
To install the program to a computer that is off line, and use for the writing
of the web site , content, etc. would be the better option.
The "web designer", should install Ubuntu , or what ever, and then install what ever
"tools" they need, on their own computer.
I all ways have just used a text editor, to write and design any web sites, so I don't know about these kind of "tools", I do not think they are intended to be used on a server, like you are talking about. The "Blue Griffon" documentation might be use full.

[stevepusser]

There's a Jessie-compatible 2.3.1 version in the MX 16 test repo. If you don't want to add the repo and the key, the -data and binary debs are here: http://main.mepis-deb.org/mx/testrepo/p ... uegriffon/ Install the data deb first.

(I'll have to notify our packager. A -data package is supposed to be architecture-independent...just a minor quibble)

[kendew]

Thanks for both replies here. Very useful. Seems I created a misunderstanding. My bad. What I meant to say was I'm giving an older computer I'm not using anymore with Debian Stretch installed to someone so he can edit some webdesign I did for him. I too do hand coding and don't use WYSIWYG tools, but I recognize sometimes people want to do simple editing like maybe swap out an image or write a sentence differently and do it on their own. Really what I wanted was an open source WYSIWYG capable of dealing with cutting edge CSS3 and HTML5 which is what I write in but also one that would not alter my code on saving. I couldn't find one. A lot of these tools literally "do their own thing" when it comes generating code. Anyway, researching BlueGriffon seemed the closest tool for my needs.
When it comes to installing a Linux OS for someone else I prefer Debian stable because it's -- so stable. But there's a lot about Debian I still need to learn about so the don't break Debian link was useful.
@ stevepusser Thanks for the link. I downloaded the packages and installed them with gdebi. The installer threw out an error saying BlueGriffon conflicts with BlueGriffon (???) but other than that, the install went okay. Even though you said Jessie-compatible, BlueGriffon seems to be working fine on Stretch, at least for the minimal page editing I wanted it for. Maybe I got what I wanted.

There was a dilemna involved. Do I install debs built for Debian 8 instead of 9, or do I try building the package? My research led me to conclude (maybe wrongly?) that installing from a deb would make it easier to uninstall the package, so I thought I'd try that first because at least I could uninstall. But if it continues to work, maybe I'll keep it as is.
If anyone can direct me to a good building tutorial, I'd be grateful though.

Kendew

[GarryRicketson]

Sorry about that, I misunderstood and thought you were talking about
installing it to a server.
The sources from MX-16, that Steve posted should be OK, that would be a better
option then trying to use the Ubuntu repos.

Do I install debs built for Debian 8 instead of 9, or do I try building the package?

If they were built for Debian 8, as Steve says. "Jessie", it would be best to only
use them on Debian 8, ...for Debian 9 , they could have problems.
Steve knows more (much more) then me, but generally it is not a good idea to try
to use packages for a older release on a newer release.

[debiman]

the seamonkey internet suite includes a composer (wysiwyg html editor).
maybe it is sufficient?

on a side note, i really do not recommend creating content that way. what about responsive design? i have yet to see a wysiwyg editor that can pull that off.
also it creates very ugly code by default.
not sure, but maybe it will even destroy your beautifully hand-coded pages (keeping the outward design, but recoding everything to its standards)?

[kendew]

Thanks for the reply. I'll look into Seamonkey but I don't find it in the Stretch repositories I have. Ideally, I'd like something from the repositories.
My needs are simple. It isn't about creating websites. My own preferred tool for creating websites is Komodo Edit, and sometimes Bluefish as it's in most Linux repositories.
The WYSIWYG as I want to use it would be for someone who wanted to make simple edits to a website I've already created for them. Say that person just needs to change a name or a price or wants to substitute a better graphic image. A lot of people would like to be able to do that themselves instead of having to come running to me. I understand their feeling and am looking for ways to make it possible. This is my first attempt. See how it goes???
My only requirements in a WYSIWYG tool is 1) It has to be able to deal with the latest CSS3 and HTML5 and 2) It won't go changing my code or adding stuff of its own.
On my Arch machine I installed Bluegriffin from AUR and it seemed to work OK so I want it for Debian too.
Thanks for all your help here. Maybe someday there will be a .deb file for Debian 9. For now, this seems to be working, and I'm keeping my fingers crossed.
I saw that installing newer stuff, like Debian testing onto Debian Stable wasn't recommended. I didn't know about installing older stuff. Good to know.

[stevepusser]

You can get a precompiled Seamonkey Linux binary archive straight from their website or ftp server https://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/seamonkey/releases/. Just extract it and run ./seamonkey, which is the same sort of procedure as the Firefox from Mozilla.