[thelist] WYSIWYG editors (was: WebReview responds to WaSP)

[Charles F. Johnson]

aardvark <roselli at earthlink.net> typed:

> well, while the statement may not be qualified correctly, it is still
> accurate... those who use WYSIWYGs *exclusively* (which is the
> missing qualifier) are still going to churn out non-compliant code...

strong agreement here! i've seen this many times, and i've had to clean up
some really ugly pages created with WYSIWYGs.

but i do think Dreamweaver 4 has advanced to the point where it's very
useable; it does not create bloated, unreadable code with weird tags like
another WYSIWYG editor (GoLive) that shall remain (GoLive) nameless. i use
it primarily to get all the mundane housekeeping stuff out of the way
quickly, then go to BBEdit for most of the code and comments.

clean, tight, compliant code is possible with DW 4, but not unless you have
a solid understanding of HTML. if you don't, it's all too easy to create
nightmare tables with unnecessary column and row spans and tangled thickets
of redundant FONT tags.

from the web review article that started this thread:

"There is no excuse at this point for any of us working at the professional
designer or developer level to not have at least a working understanding of
how to write decent markup. The information is out there."

charles johnson
lgf web design
http://littlegreenfootballs.com