Why Use Text Editors???

[urlybird]

I'm VERY new at web design. I have lots of books and have gone to many, many how-to sites. They all begin the design process with use NotePad (or any other text editor). None of them explain why.

For the sake of asking this question, I'll use NotePad as my example.

WHY use ANY text editor, what's the point??? Why not type the text DIRECTLY on the site (server) that will be used??

Per instructions, I have used NotePad to type my text; all I see is a bunch of codes. It looks messy, much like my kitchen sink. How would know that the text is EXACTLY how I want the layout to be??

If anyone (hopefully) respond to this, please keep in mind that I have the I.Q. of a cockroach, designing a website.

TIA

[boxer_1]

The idea behind using text editors, such as Notepad, for creating your source code is that it gives you complete control over your source code. WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) editiors often create sloppy, bulky, and cryptic code (Frontpage, DreamWeaver, etc.).

Of course you will need to know what you're doing (study the coding you're using) in order to use a text editor to create your code and achieve the desired results.

There are a lot of alternatives out there for creating web pages. Everything from FrontPage to the most basic (Notepad). The feedback you could receive here could go on nearly forever as everyone has there own personal preferences and opinions.

I would recommend HTML-Kit ( http://www.chami.com/html-kit/ ). It's not a WYSIWYG editor, but it's not Notepad either. It allows you complete control over your source code while providing shortcuts, syntax checking, plug-ins, etc. that allow you to create properly coded pages relatively quickly ;).

[oracleguy]

And depending on what web coding technologies you use to bulid your site (i.e. ASP, PHP, XML, Javascript) can help determine what software you use.

For example FrontPage pretty much destroys/deletes any code it doesn't understand (like PHP or ASP). Well that can be a major problem.

Additoinally, it is much easier to comply with W3C standards when you write all your code yourself. For example, some programs that can generate HTML code for you don't comply with the XHTML standards by not putting attribute values in quotes or all the tags in lower case.

As far as WYSIWYGs go, the "industry standard" if you could call it that, is Dreamweaver. (from what I've heard). It's definetly not FrontPage. WYSIWYGs can be a great learing tool. You can make a page with one and then look at the source and see how they did things and what tags do what, etc.

Coding by hand doesn't really look messy if you format to where you can easily see the order of the tags being opened. It also may look messy and over wellming as you are new to it, but after a while it won't once you get the hang of it.

[zoobie]

I thinks perhaps the major advantage of a text/wysiwyg editor like dreamweaver is that the editor display is split into two parts and you can see instantly what the results are going to look like on your page when you type the code. This saves constantly 'previewing' in your browser.

If you're a total newbie (we all were once), try coolpage (http://www.coolpage.com/cpg.html) or arachnophilia (http://www.arachnoid.com/arachnophilia/). Both are free drag and drop editors which is maybe what you're looking for.

I haven't seen any extra coding added by dreamweaver...but I clean up the html and click the option 'remove dreamweaver comments'. Perhaps this is why...:D

[urlybird]

1. Typed DIRECTLY on site (server); ignoring ALL text editors?

2. How does one KNOW when "what you see IS what you get"??

3. WHY is it necessary to use text editors??



P.S. I appreciate the replies that I received, but still confused.

[Nightfire]

Yeah it can be put straight onto the server, but you'll need to code a program in a text editor to make the program you need to edit text straight on a server.

WYSIWYG - Can't answer, never used one

Complete control over your pages, that's why I use notepad. If you get an error, you can see what you've done, as you know all of your code, but if you use a WYSIWYG you'll probably get lost in all the code that the program throws in (from what I've heard). Plus notepad is just a simple ctrl+alt+right mouse click for me ;)

[Flakbait]

Dreamweaver is like any other Wizzywig editor in that it still produces junk in the code. With something like Netscape's Composer, page breaks usually end up getting a non-breaking space just because the editor feels like it. Others have their own...quirks. FrontPage obliterating code because it doesn't like it (Javascript, ASP, PHP, CGI) is one of 'em. The funny part is, both Dreamweaver and FrontPage are expensive payware and don't do a real nice job. Composer is free, but next to useless for clean code. (side note: two years later and I'm still cleaning up pages composer hosed).

The reason for doing pages in Notepad initially is simple; you see exactly what will show up. Wizzywig editors usually show you what the browser will show, and not any errors or editor-added junk in the code.

Arachnophilia I've used, and while a little ham-handed (for me anyway) it works pretty well. AceHTML is another one I tinkered with for a bit, and didn't find all that usefull. The layout was simply too strange to cope with.

In the end I settled with 1st Page 2000. It's at www.evrsoft.com and all I can say is that it works. No junk goes in the code, there aren't any comments added unless you add 'em, and the HTML tag library has come in handy more than once. Plus it highlights the code based on the language (css, javascript, etc...) which is the one thing that sold me.

All in all it depends on your preference. If you want things done for you, and don't care what the code looks like, go for a Wizzywig editor. If you're anal (like the rest of us code nuts :D ) get a good one that'll only put down what you tell it to. After cleaning up forty pages today in 1st Page (so I could read 'em, let alone edit 'em) I believe all Wizzywig editors should get "recycled"



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Flakbait

[ronaldb66]

1. Typed DIRECTLY on site (server); ignoring ALL text editors?
Maybe, but i would consider that highly impractical.
Web pages are created as text files, stored as text files, and uploaded to servers as text files, so i can't for the love of God understand your resistence against using a text editor (ANY text editor) to create those text files.

2. How does one KNOW when "what you see IS what you get"??
The only real proof of the pudding is in the eating, or in the viewing of the result when it is on the designated server, preferably by a number of different browsers. WYSIWIG editors try to emulate a browser view as closely as possible but can never really achieve the same result as a browser would generate.

3. WHY is it necessary to use text editors??
See 1.

[zoobie]

Umm...He's a beginner, folks...http://www.stopstart.fsnet.co.uk/smilie/lol.gif

Originally posted by Flakbait
Dreamweaver is like any other Wizzywig editor in that it still produces junk in the code.

Not really. Some comments are there for beginners. Simply clicking the "tidy html" gets rid of them.

Dreamweaver is really the best because the split window allows you to see your results as you type the code.

[Alex Vincent]

Case in point regarding text editors: Amaya. It's a web page editor that writes standards-compliant web pages.

But it doesn't support JavaScript. If you want scripted XHTML pages, you can't do it all in Amaya. That's why I usually start writing my pages in Amaya, and then open up WordPad to insert the scripting I need.

[Morgoth]

LOL, this is a funny post.
My point has already been made by people, I wont interupt.