HTML Editor

[tomy_baseo]

I'm new to HTML and want to learn the basics by learning to code by hand
(with the assistance of an HTML editor to eliminate repetitive tasks).
Can anyone recommend a good, basic HTML editor that's a step beyond
Notepad (not a WYSIWYG tool). Thanks.

[Barry Pearson]

Re: HTML Editor

tomy_baseo wrote:[color=blue]
> I'm new to HTML and want to learn the basics by learning to code by
> hand (with the assistance of an HTML editor to eliminate repetitive
> tasks). Can anyone recommend a good, basic HTML editor that's a step
> beyond Notepad (not a WYSIWYG tool). Thanks.[/color]

A question - why not a WYSIWYG tool as well? (I can fully understand an answer
"because it costs too much"!)

The reason I ask is that I use Dreamweaver (4), which has a design-view
(WYSIWYG) mode, and code-view mode, and a split-screen mode. It can be very
useful to be able to type in the design-view section and see the code appear
as you type in the code-view section, and vice-versa.

I am not trying to "sell" D4. It has its faults. I haven't tried enough others
to be confident in a specific recommendation. But I can confidently say that
it is possible to learn a lot by watching what code a WYSIWYG editor produces.
And also useful to get a rapid feedback from the code you write.

(Personally, the main reason I chose D4 was because I was told it had adequate
site-management. It appears to meet my needs).

--
Barry Pearson

http://www.Barry.Pearson.name/photography/

http://www.BirdsAndAnimals.info/

http://www.ChildSupportAnalysis.co.uk/

[Vincent Gardet]

Re: HTML Editor

"tomy_baseo " a écrit dans le message de news:[color=blue]
> I'm new to HTML and want to learn the basics by learning to code by hand
> (with the assistance of an HTML editor to eliminate repetitive tasks).
> Can anyone recommend a good, basic HTML editor that's a step beyond
> Notepad (not a WYSIWYG tool). Thanks.[/color]

PSPad is a very nice (and free) tool :

http://www.pspad.com/index_en.html

--
Vincent Gardet

[Alan J. Flavell]

Re: HTML Editor

On Fri, 24 Oct 2003, Barry Pearson wrote:
[color=blue]
> A question - why not a WYSIWYG tool as well?[/color]

In HTML, "what you get" is a marked-up logical structure. Is that
what you see?

If you meant "why not a graphical previewing editor?", that might be
different.
[color=blue]
> (I can fully understand an answer "because it costs too much"!)[/color]

Like Mozilla Composer, you mean? :-}

And I can partially understand the answer: "because, in relation to
the WWW, the term WYSIWYG doesn't really mean what it says, and
everyone knows that it really means a graphical previewing editor".

But I don't agree with it: large numbers of casual[1] web authors
really _do_ believe that they are doing DTP, and then get
unnecessarily confused and dispirited when they find out what the web
is _really_ doing to their creations.

As someone else said, WYSINWOG. And as I said, WYSIJOPR.

cheers

[1] I suppose I have to stress once again that this doesn't mean you,
bearing in mind the number of occasions that you've appeared to take
some general remark of mine as if it was an affront to you personally.

[Peter Foti]

Re: HTML Editor

"tomy_baseo " <tomy_baseo@sbc global.net> wrote in message
news:Bz%lb.1075 $wZ6.69@newssvr 23.news.prodigy .com...[color=blue]
> I'm new to HTML and want to learn the basics by learning to code by hand
> (with the assistance of an HTML editor to eliminate repetitive tasks).
> Can anyone recommend a good, basic HTML editor that's a step beyond
> Notepad (not a WYSIWYG tool). Thanks.[/color]

Personally, I like Macromedia Homesite (formerly owned by Allaire). The
interface is similar to Dreamweaver, and has some helpful methods for
creating elements in your code, but it's not a WYSIWYG tool (though it does
allow you to switch between editing mode and a view of what the output looks
like). Great tool.


Regards,
Peter Foti

[Barry Pearson]

Re: HTML Editor

Alan J. Flavell wrote:[color=blue]
> On Fri, 24 Oct 2003, Barry Pearson wrote:
>[color=green]
>> A question - why not a WYSIWYG tool as well?[/color]
>
> In HTML, "what you get" is a marked-up logical structure. Is that
> what you see?[/color]

Fair comment. But remember that Dreamweaver is using the styles at the same
time, and can even edit the styles, so it isn't JUST the mark-up you are
seeing. It is having a stab at what the combined mark-up & styles would look
like under a range of conditions. And I observe that what I see in D4 is often
somewhat like what I see later in my set of browsers with their default
settings. After all, if I have table mark-up, and a CSS that specifies sizes &
colours, D4 is entitled to make a good guess about what lots of people will
see. Now some UAs may render that as the smell of dog poo or the taste of
unoaked Chardonney, but perhaps with the right extension even that can be
previewed. (I don't think I'll take the dog poo extension!)

(Since version 4 is limited in its ability to display the document styled
according to the styles in use, the more I put into the CSS, the less like
WYSIWYG it actually looks).
[color=blue]
> If you meant "why not a graphical previewing editor?", that might be
> different.[/color]

OK, but I think where this is leading is that nothing in the world is
"WYSIWYG" except the absolutely final rendering. DTP isn't - you may print it
on a B&W printer, or run the electronic version through a speech-generator. In
other words, the term "WYSIWYG" always implicitly needs qualifying. And with
the web it needs a bit more qualification that when the term is used in other
contexts. I see no reason to scrap the term in all circumstances, and little
reason to scrap the term in this case.
[color=blue][color=green]
>> (I can fully understand an answer "because it costs too much"!)[/color]
>
> Like Mozilla Composer, you mean? :-}[/color]

I'd forgotten that! I must try the editors I have in UAs. I guess the one you
mention is the one I have in Netscape 7.1? And there is another in Amaya (hm!)
[color=blue]
> And I can partially understand the answer: "because, in relation to
> the WWW, the term WYSIWYG doesn't really mean what it says, and
> everyone knows that it really means a graphical previewing editor".[/color]

See above - I don't think it ever literally means what it says, even away from
the WWW. Different qualifications apply in different cases.
[color=blue]
> But I don't agree with it: large numbers of casual[1] web authors
> really _do_ believe that they are doing DTP, and then get
> unnecessarily confused and dispirited when they find out what the web
> is _really_ doing to their creations.
>
> As someone else said, WYSINWOG. And as I said, WYSIJOPR.[/color]

I found WYSIJOPR (only) in a German page on the web, where the English version
of this term was given. So I used Google to translate the whole page, and the
English translation of the English term became: "What You lake Is Just One
Possible Rendering"! Chuckle!
[color=blue]
> cheers
>
> [1] I suppose I have to stress once again that this doesn't mean you,
> bearing in mind the number of occasions that you've appeared to take
> some general remark of mine as if it was an affront to you personally.[/color]

I am affronted by that casual remark!

(No I'm not - I just like clarity, and sometimes that means challenging things
where I think people might make the wrong link between what I said and
someone's response. I've had some astonishing things attributed to me that
have turned out to be other people's responses).

--
Barry Pearson

http://www.Barry.Pearson.name/photography/

http://www.BirdsAndAnimals.info/

http://www.ChildSupportAnalysis.co.uk/

[Eckhard Rotte]

Re: HTML Editor

On Fri, 24 Oct 2003 01:50:25 GMT, tomy_baseo wrote:

[color=blue]
> Can anyone recommend a good, basic HTML editor that's a step beyond
> Notepad (not a WYSIWYG tool). Thanks.[/color]

Try out TopStyle Pro <http://www.bradsoft.co m/topstyle/>.
For me it's the best HTML/CSS - editor for Windows at the moment,
especially if you want to learn _correct_ HTML.









--
Eckhard Rotte.

[Alan J. Flavell]

Re: HTML Editor

On Fri, 24 Oct 2003, Barry Pearson wrote:
[color=blue][color=green]
> > As someone else said, WYSINWOG. And as I said, WYSIJOPR.[/color]
>
> I found WYSIJOPR (only) in a German page on the web,[/color]

I know the one you mean; but Google Groups earliest reference is
Pine.HPP.3.91c. 960621112422.14 29...us06 .cern.ch
from June 1996.
[color=blue]
> of this term was given. So I used Google to translate the whole page, and the
> English translation of the English term became: "What You lake Is Just One
> Possible Rendering"! Chuckle![/color]

I get the joke ;-)

You heard the one about the "hydraulic ram" that ended up translated
via Russian and back to "male water sheep" ?

[Peter Foti]

Re: HTML Editor

"Eckhard Rotte" <usereplyto@ero tte.de> wrote in message
news:pk3n2y54gs yo$.bkz39f02qry f.dlg@40tude.ne t...[color=blue]
> On Fri, 24 Oct 2003 01:50:25 GMT, tomy_baseo wrote:
>
>[color=green]
> > Can anyone recommend a good, basic HTML editor that's a step beyond
> > Notepad (not a WYSIWYG tool). Thanks.[/color]
>
> Try out TopStyle Pro <http://www.bradsoft.co m/topstyle/>.
> For me it's the best HTML/CSS - editor for Windows at the moment,
> especially if you want to learn _correct_ HTML.[/color]

That reminds me, TopStyle is included with Homesite. But there may have
been newer versions of TopStyle released since the last version of Homesite.

-Peter

[Eckhard Rotte]

Re: HTML Editor

On Fri, 24 Oct 2003 11:59:16 -0400, Peter Foti wrote:

[color=blue]
> That reminds me, TopStyle is included with Homesite. But there may have
> been newer versions of TopStyle released since the last version of Homesite.[/color]

There's a Version of Topstyle Lite included with Homesite which contains a
small subset of the feature set of TopStyle Pro. At first, Top Style is a
CSS Editor but it has become a more than fully featured HTML-Editor since
Version 3.0. I'm not sure, but you would miss a lot of HTML features in TS
Lite.



--
Eckhard Rotte.

[Stephen Poley]

Re: HTML Editor

On Fri, 24 Oct 2003 01:50:25 GMT, tomy_baseo <tomy_baseo@sbc global.net>
wrote:
[color=blue]
>I'm new to HTML and want to learn the basics by learning to code by hand
>(with the assistance of an HTML editor to eliminate repetitive tasks).
>Can anyone recommend a good, basic HTML editor that's a step beyond
>Notepad (not a WYSIWYG tool). Thanks.[/color]

I use NoteTab myself. Others that have been recommended here in the past
include Textpad, Arachnophilia, Matizha Sublime, HTML-kit, UltraEdit and
Stones Webwrite.

HTH

--
Stephen Poley

http://www.xs4all.nl/~sbpoley/webmatters/

[Brian]

Re: HTML Editor

Barry Pearson wrote:[color=blue]
> tomy_baseo wrote:
>[color=green]
>>I'm new to HTML and want to learn the basics by learning to code by
>>hand (with the assistance of an HTML editor to eliminate repetitive
>>tasks). Can anyone recommend a good, basic HTML editor that's a step
>>beyond Notepad (not a WYSIWYG tool).[/color]
>
> A question - why not a WYSIWYG tool as well?[/color]

Because HTML and WYSIWYG are mutually exclusive?
[color=blue]
> The reason I ask is that I use Dreamweaver (4), which has a design-view
> (WYSIWYG) mode,[/color]

What does WYSIWYG have to do with HTML, given the variety of HTML
user-agents? Put it another way: what is the relationship between
what D4 shows you in WYSIWYG mode and what Lynx shows you?
[color=blue]
> and code-view mode, and a split-screen mode. It can be very
> useful to be able to type in the design-view section and see the code appear
> as you type in the code-view section, and vice-versa.[/color]

But D4 is not a web browser, is it? So how is it helpful to see how
the editor renders the code? It seems far more useful for the op to
use a text editor and swap to a real browser, one used by surfers, to
see what the code does.

--
Brian
follow the directions in my address to email me

[Eric Jarvis]

Re: HTML Editor

Stephen Poley wrote:[color=blue]
> On Fri, 24 Oct 2003 01:50:25 GMT, tomy_baseo <tomy_baseo@sbc global.net>
> wrote:
>[color=green]
> >I'm new to HTML and want to learn the basics by learning to code by hand
> >(with the assistance of an HTML editor to eliminate repetitive tasks).
> >Can anyone recommend a good, basic HTML editor that's a step beyond
> >Notepad (not a WYSIWYG tool). Thanks.[/color]
>
> I use NoteTab myself. Others that have been recommended here in the past
> include Textpad, Arachnophilia, Matizha Sublime, HTML-kit, UltraEdit and
> Stones Webwrite.
>[/color]

all of which have a range of good features

the best bet is try a few and stay with the one(s) that has the feature
set that you need and the interface you feel comfortable with...when it
comes down to it as long as the software is competently programmed it's
very much a matter of your working process and your taste

--
eric

https://www.ericjarvis.co.uk

all these years I've waited for the revolution
and all we end up getting is spin

[Barry Pearson]

Re: HTML Editor

Alan J. Flavell wrote:[color=blue]
> On Fri, 24 Oct 2003, Barry Pearson wrote:
>[color=green][color=darkred]
>> > As someone else said, WYSINWOG. And as I said, WYSIJOPR.[/color]
>>
>> I found WYSIJOPR (only) in a German page on the web,[/color]
>
> I know the one you mean; but Google Groups earliest reference is
> Pine.HPP.3.91c. 960621112422.14 29...us06 .cern.ch
> from June 1996.[/color]
[snip]

I agree with Paul Savage's response to your article above. No application is
truly WYSIWYG if we are pedantic. So should we stop using the term for Word,
DTP, everything else? I also have to disagree with your "WYSIJOPR". WISIJTPR.
I run with a calibrated CRT monitor attached to my laptop. I always see 2
possible renderings for everything I do! (Sorry for that).

"WYSIWYG" always needs qualification. Perhaps the mistake is that IT literate
people like myself sometimes forget to add the qualification. Fair comment.
But there are lots of other shortcuts that people here & elsewhere make.
People talk about "tableless layout", or "content versus presentation". These
are probably understood among experienced people, but implicitly carry a lot
of ifs & buts with them. And I suspect that even experienced people would not
agree the full set of qualifications.

I believe there is a significant difference between "WYSIWYG editor" &
"Graphical Preview editor" that justifies the use of WYSIWYG here, as
elsewhere. What I mean by "WYSIWYG editor" is one where the editing can be
done within a representation of the possible rendering. I can type into what
looks on screen like a table cell, and see the possible rendering change
directly as I do so. (And I can optionally also see the mark-up change). I can
click on the style selection panel, and see the colour of that cell change on
the screen. (And also see class="..." suddenly appear in the <td>). The colour
of that cell on the screen matches the RGB colour in the CSS, so is a good
clue about how another system that has a plausible rendering of CSS colours
will show it.

I accept that if the document is rendered by a speech-reader, it won't
resemble that. Ditto for a Word document, DTP, PDF document, etc. I have
colour-coded graphs in one on-line paper where I explain how someone viewing
in monochrome can decode the graph. So it is useful to keep in mind the
qualifications. But - in that latter example, I put that explanation into the
original Word document in case it was photocopied on a monochrome copier. This
is a general issue, not confined to web authoring.

--
Barry Pearson

http://www.Barry.Pearson.name/photography/

http://www.BirdsAndAnimals.info/

http://www.ChildSupportAnalysis.co.uk/

[Barry Pearson]

Re: HTML Editor

Brian wrote:[color=blue]
> Barry Pearson wrote:[color=green]
>> tomy_baseo wrote:
>>[color=darkred]
>>>I'm new to HTML and want to learn the basics by learning to code by
>>>hand (with the assistance of an HTML editor to eliminate repetitive
>>>tasks). Can anyone recommend a good, basic HTML editor that's a step
>>>beyond Notepad (not a WYSIWYG tool).[/color]
>>
>> A question - why not a WYSIWYG tool as well?[/color]
>
> Because HTML and WYSIWYG are mutually exclusive?[/color]

"WYSIWYG" is both marketing-speak and specialist jargon. As marketing-speak it
has the deficiences that are noted here. It ALWAYS needs qualification,
whether used in a WWW context of any other. As specialist jargon, it is
convenient shorthand that is as valid for the WWW as elsewhere. (After all,
Ventura Publisher was - is? - a respectable DTP package that used mark-up and
stylesheets, and also offered WYSIWYG capability. As far as I know, no
knowledgeable person claimed that it guaranteed that you would eventually get
what you saw at editting time. Knowledgeable people would roll on the floor
laughing at that!)

I see no reason why using a WYSIWYG web-page editor isn't at least equivalent
to giving that web page yet another preview or test or validation. None of
these methods are perfect - validating at W3C doesn't ensure that pages will
render as you want, nor does testing in Firebird. There is an interesting
difference - the editor KNOWS that you are developing the web page, and could
in theory apply appropriate development-time checks that a typical browser
wouldn't apply. (Indeed, Dreamweaver tells me in yellow about tag-errors that
some browsers would tolerate).

Some (perhaps all?) WYSIWYG web-page editors use the CSS identified by the
HTML to render the document in the WYSIWYG window. So they are going further
than making guesses about how the mark-up may render. In a qualified
specialist-jargon sense, it is reasonable to use the term WYSIWYG. As much as
for any other application where the term is used. (If you would prefer to see
the word never to be used in ANY context, that is a different discussion).
[color=blue][color=green]
>> The reason I ask is that I use Dreamweaver (4), which has a
>> design-view (WYSIWYG) mode,[/color]
>
> What does WYSIWYG have to do with HTML, given the variety of HTML
> user-agents? Put it another way: what is the relationship between
> what D4 shows you in WYSIWYG mode and what Lynx shows you?[/color]

The same relationship as your "swap to a real browser, one used by surfers",
in your paragraph below! That could mean IE, Opera, Firebird, Netscape, etc.
Yet surely many of us here go ahead and try those browsers anyway, even though
they don't tell us what Lynx shows.

We mustn't get too focused on the exceptional cases. Yes, some users will be
blind, and use UAs that speak the material. Others won't be using CSSs. Some
may use a monochrome screen. But that doesn't stop us writing a style in a CSS
that says { color: #FF0000; }. We know "only" most, and not all, users & their
UAs will exploit that declaration - but we go ahead anyway. And we probably
validate it, preview it, etc. We may run it past the colour contrast check. I
check my colours on a calibrated monitor, even though few users will be using
calibrated monitors. It all helps to "control the controllables".
[color=blue][color=green]
>> and code-view mode, and a split-screen mode. It can be very
>> useful to be able to type in the design-view section and see the
>> code appear as you type in the code-view section, and vice-versa.[/color]
>
> But D4 is not a web browser, is it? So how is it helpful to see how
> the editor renders the code? It seems far more useful for the op to
> use a text editor and swap to a real browser, one used by surfers, to
> see what the code does.[/color]

A WYSIWYG editor can have advantages far greater than previewing. They
typically allow the editing to be applied to the WYSIWYG rendering itself. You
then (say) type directly into what appears to be a table-cell on the screen.
Or type into the middle of a heading, and quickly gauge whether it is too
verbose. The ability to go directly to the part of the page to be edited using
the visual similarity with the eventual display on a screen is very useful.
If, for some reason, I edit the code directly, I get an almost (not quite)
real time graphical preview, which I find vey useful. It certainly tells me if
I'm editing the wrong bit of the HTML! And, of course, I can get directly to
the right place in the HTML by selecting the approriate place in the WYSIWYG
view - Dreameaver (and I guess others) keeps the state, including the
position, of the 2 views in step. Click on one, see where it is in the other.

THEN I also preview. F12 previews in IE in about 2 seconds. Control+F12
previews in Firebird in about 5 seconds. But previewing is a different concept
from WYSIWYG editing.

--
Barry Pearson

http://www.Barry.Pearson.name/photography/

http://www.BirdsAndAnimals.info/

http://www.ChildSupportAnalysis.co.uk/