Netscape...

[Availor]

Ok, sorry for the confusion, I should've read the little letters.

By WYSIWYG I meant web editors which are based mainly on the visual editor, whereas I refered to editors who are based mainly on code as more professional editors.

It's true that more editors have WYSIWYG features, but they don't rely only on the visual design.

In comparecent to Visual designer, which is based mostly on the visual drawing part without any special skills required, HTML editor is a more professional editor.

Hope that it's better understood now

[Soquili]

Hmmm....so if I use Notepad to write HTML that makes me more professional than if I use CoffeeCup or Frontpage or Dreamweaver??

[Availor]

Hmmm....so if I use Notepad to write HTML that makes me more professional than if I use CoffeeCup or Frontpage or Dreamweaver??

Basically, a WYSIWYG was developed as a visual designer, giving more power to the visual area and to the unskilled user.

The more "professional" area is when you are given more power to the code. You gave an excellent example. Frontpage vs dreamweaver.

If you build a website in frontpate, which looks fine to, you and you preview it in firefox, you might get a gibberish instead of what you've seen in your preview. In dreamweaver, the chances are that the result will be closer to the reality regarding different browsers. The more professional way is to give more power to the code, by snippets, extensions aids, varification, xml, css, js possibilities and extensions, plug-ins, ftp and everything that is code-based. Of courses that over the years all those coding programs are now trying to give you some visual guide through "WYSIWYG", and even php has become more visual. But still, the main power is in the code, with better reliance on it.

In visual editors which are mainly WYSIWYG you just draw a square like you would in any graphical program, without knowing what you're doing. What you draw is what you see, and what you see is supposedly what you should get. Unfortunately these editors leave much mess in your code. For example, leaving unclosed or unnecessary tags which will probably make errors in different browsers, the generated code will not be clean and will not work properly in all browsers or the way you intended it to work.

So in conclusion, more and more editors try to visualize the work to make it more comfortable, but the professional editors rely on the power of code while visual editors tell you - draw what you see and we'll generate the code for you. The problem with the later is the code is very inaccurate.

[Availor]

http://www.nvu.com/screenshots.php

See for yourself just how easy it is for anyone to create web pages in minutes, without any HTML experience or a technical background. (More screenshots coming soon!)

this is WYSIWYG - the reliance is mainly on drawing, and I'm sure that what you see will not be what you get, not in various browsers anyway.

To better understand it, take Frontpage and draw a website using a ready-made tools, or better - use microsoft publisher. Then open your website in firefox and see what you get.
Open the source code and see how messy it is.

[GeoBen]

Availor,

i didnt mention Dreamweaver for the reasons suggested above and... because, personally, I don't like it. I recently removed it from my machine because it was just gathering dust, though I know a lotta folks swear by it. I would use it for the Cold Fusion interface, but CF is NOT going to be the broad web standard that PHP is... so...

DW insists that I create my sites the way the creators of DW think I should make them. I am a stubborn cuss and insist on doing it MY way. DW is also HUGE and expensive and does little or nothing that the others i mentioned don't also do.

I have used both Coffee Cup and Evrsoft 2006 and both are good, but only REALLY good if you buy the PRO version.

I use Trellian, which is both a wysiwyg editor and a source text editor (like DW) to mock up my pages, that is, to set place holders for text and graphics and etc. It includes site management and FTP... Just like DW, and.... it is free. Trellian offers a lot of other products at low cost, but I do most of my work by hand because it produces cleaner more compact code.

I use PSPad for hand editing JavaScript and CSS and will use it for PHP too (I am in the process of acquiring the language now)... a nice simple, plain text editor with features to accommodate HTML, JavaScript, XML and PHP. It also includes HTML validation and Tidy HTML and JavaScript formatting. This combination equals DW in my opinion. The only TRUE wysiwyg editor i mention is Web Builder, which, as I say, does not give access to the code. Yes, NVU has both design (wysiwyg) and Source (hand editing) modes.

anyway.... we gave the fella lots to think about.

geo

[Availor]

By the way, GeoBen, I have downloaded Amaya from the link you've provided, but for me it was a disappointment. I thought since it comes from W3C it should meet all the web standart. THIS web looks like it was gone through WWIII! I checked every single website I have created, which I hae personaly tested on Firefox, i.e. 6 and 7 and it shows me a complete mess, so I guess there is nothing 100% to rely on.

I also started using DW because it's the closest thing to reality I have found, I will check on Trellian, though I am too frustrated to find a good software that will meet my needs.

[BlueFlare]

DreamWeaver is NOT a WYSIWYG: "WYSIWYG" Stands for: "What You See Is What You Get" and this means that you need little or no HTML skills in order to create a website.

You’re wrong Availor, Dreamweaver is a WYSIWYG editor and always has been.
Visit Google and type the words Dreamweaver WYSIWYG

this is WYSIWYG - the reliance is mainly on drawing

Incorrect. What you call drawing is just a way to achieve WYSIWYG, one of many. The properties panel or CSS panel are other ways to achieve WYSIWYG without coding. But whether you achieve it with coding or menus and panels has nothing to do with WYSIWYG, WYSIWIG is purely about a document window that looks like the desired end result or at least close to it.

I’m very aware of what WYSIWYG really means, simply because I grew up with it. Let me explain this. In the late eighties, when I worked as a system administrator, I had to deal with DOS on a daily basis. I remember the frustrations of working in Wordperfect and entering all kind of codes for things like fonts, font size, tables, without being able to see on the screen how the document really looked like. Only when you printed the document you had a change to really see how you screwed up (people my age probably can relate to these experiences). Everything changed after graphic based operating systems were introduced with GUIs (Graphic User Interface) like Mac OS and Windows. That’s when WYSIWYG really became a hot item and soon after everybody was working with Word or Wordperfect for Windows. WYSIWYG really had a Wow! factor during those years.
You’re a lot younger than me, you grew up with WYSIWYG, the reason why you’re probably confused as what WYSIWYG basically means, because you never had to work with DOS programs like Wordperfect, Lotus, Dbase, etc.

In DreamWeaver you need to have some coding skills, although it's possible to just draw something very basic, as I've already mentioned.

As long as you don’t need a completely data driven web site, then you can create excellent large CSS based web sites that are easily to maintain without too much coding. You really underestimate the WYSIWIG part of Dreamweaver, it’s much more powerful than you think.

DW insists that I create my sites the way the creators of DW think I should make them.

You have the same freedom in Dreamweaver as in a basic Notepad. Dreamweaver is not forcing you in any way and is actually a great example of a program offering total freedom, even the interface is highly flexible.
Sure, the generated code might not always look as you as you wanted it, but if it works and is easily to maintain (which is often the case), then who cares?

On the other hand... Dreamweaver has really improved in the manually coding area and actually many PHP developers use, believe it or not, Dreamweaver as their favorite PHP code editor.

As for people who think that the best way to code is to do everything by hand; they obviously never worked under time pressure. I’ve been a RPGIII programmer for many years and I can tell you that descent code generators can save you lots of time and so can advanced editors.
Those who use notepad as editor don’t understand the true power of these advanced editors or are just being stubborn. Trust me, you design websites 10 times faster when you use editors like PHPED or Zend instead, but some designers seem to be so insecure that they need to mention that they design everything in Notepad to look cool, when they’re actually achieving the opposite. I often wonder if they're really a professional web designer or just a wannabees making hobby sites for family and friends.

Professional web design is not about being mr. cool guy, it’s about getting projects done in the least amount of time (time is money) and if that means combining a Notepad, with a PHPED, ZEND and/or Dreamweaver, then so be it.

Just my 2 cents.

[Availor]

because you never had to work with DOS programs like Wordperfect, Lotus, Dbase, etc

I saw Lotus, when I was about 14

Well then I must have been confused about the WYSIWYG thing. Well then why are all these WYSIWYG "no skills required" editors are so bad? You hear everywhere "WYSIWYG is so unreliable". The two examples: DreamWeaver with FrontPage (the later totally suck), and Coffeecup Visual Designer with HTML editor. The later has also a visual preview thing.

[GeoBen]

Availor,

You can get yer code checked for standards compliability at the W3C site. I check frequently during the coding process.

Blue, I use the editors i use mostly because they are free! Of course, they have to work, but I HATE writing HTML, so I rarely do. I use a wysiwyg for MOST of my HTML and use TIDY to clean it up. I hand code Javascript, which is a lot more enjoyable and for which I know of no generator. I DO use prewirtten scripts (though I always end up rewritng then, if only to made them standards compliant and so that I can read them).

I will check out Zend again.

The version of DW i had was rather older and perhaps I just never gave it the chance it deserves. I will relook at it. The part that I disliked the most was the site manager where it seemed to be selecting locations and insisting on a certain organization. Even so, I do like using the simplest tools as long as they give me the results I like. And one area where DW may be of best help to me is catching errors. In scripted code, these can get a running start and plague me for the longest time as some browsers (and some server executives) will ignore or correct small coding errors and others will not, making them virtually impossible to find.

I was a pretty good coder, once upon a time. I started in the early '80's but have only recently taken it up again on the web. And though, time IS money, I have always been a fanatic about 'clean, small, fast' code. Of course, in this environment, that is not as much a factor as in compiled executables, still... I like doing it by hand.

I, too, go back to DOS (actually, to it's predecessor, CPM... damn... i am old) and once took a job doing professional typesetting for an ad agency using Word Perfect. We got the job done, but in the process, convinced the ad agency's client that computers really WERE the typesetting wave of the future, and they took the work in-house. Talk about shooting yerself in the foot.

geo.

[WolfMoonHP]

I hate to admit it, but I actually use Front Page for many of my sites.

I've recently been using DreamWeaver, and really have found it to be east and intuitive to use.

I have a partner who lives and breathes coding and techie stuff, so I only do the simple things. My greatest pleasure is doing the backgrounds, ornaments, logos, animations, etc. (All done with Xara Extreme Pro, of course!)
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Will