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Hey, guys...a simple question (expressed emotionally) about how do you insert code that isn't changed in FrontPage (which you can and I addressed how) has turned into Holy War 3; Mac vs Windows, Netscape vs Explorer and now WYSIWYG vs Hand Coding.
Where I come from, a client is interested in one thing...getting a good (in the customer's eyes) quality product up/out/etc as quickly as possible.
Let me ask the purists a question. How quickly can you put up a medium size site?
You may be one of the few that can handcode, test, and publish a 50 page site coding raw HTML in Wordpad in a day, including things like hyperlinked TOCs, survey forms, mailers, complex tables, etc. However, how many of you can claim that?
True, you as an individual may create the sweetest code you've ever seen. However, have another code expert look at the source and there will be differences of opinion between the two of them.
You may not like the way a WYSIWYG html editor creates it's code. However, it is just as easy to create code by hand that may or may not pass 3.2 standards (or any version you wish).
Maybe there are some html coders that object more to the fact that what took them 1-2 years to learn code can now be done by someone with less training than that.
Susan W. Gallagher wrote:
> I thought it'd be pretty nice to have an HTML editor -- see codes in
> color, flip over to wysiwyg mode and back again... Boy was I wrong!
> Call me a geek if you must. I'll stick with WordPad. %-\
>
>I couldn't agree more! I've tried a couple of the so-called
>"WYSIWYG" HTML editors and found that they generate
>really sloppy HTML mark-up AND THEN WON'T LET YOU
>FIX IT. It's like working with a word-processor that insists
>on mis-spelling words. I think they're a curse.
Maybe it's just knowing how the editor handles the fixing process and most of the high-end wysiwig editors don't produce code that is too bad...way more errors are attributed to design than code composition...how may sites are coded by hand and have blinking text, scrolling banners, and 10 different animated gifs scattered around.
Which is worse?
For those of you who aren't HTML purists --- WYSIWYG editors
(like FrontPage) tend to generate pages that may:
- load more slowly (because of redundant or bad tags), and
And the addition of one poorly optimized or unnecessary animated gif can blow whatever advantage coding-from-scratch gave you.
- display improperly on different types and versions of browsers.
This doesn't only apply to wysiwig editors, different browsers are supporting different standards, and if you chose to adhere to the wrong standard (anyone hand coding to Explorer 4 capabilities....boy, does my Nav3 hate that), then you will be less than perfectly compatible.
I like HomeSite. It has nice little automated features for adding links,
graphics, tables, etc., but gives you complete control over the mark-up.
If I had to translate a lot of stuff into HTML at once, I might use a
WYSIWYG editor to do all of the initial markup, but then I'd open
the files in a text file or non-WYSIWYG editor to fix them
Let's put away the "my tool is better than your tool" and concentrate on the end-user results.
