CoolwebTeacher: USOE/WebDevelopment2009/TextEditors

Text GUI Editors

There are many ways to edit HTML code and literally hundreds of software programs, or editors, that will do it. The most important thing about editing HTML, Javascript, and any other source code is that it be done as plain text. Using any rich text editor including M$ Office, WordPerfect, NotePad, M$ Works, OS X Pages, and others will results in either mangled code or no code at all. Most of these programs can, in some way or another export HTML code but it always come out horrible mutilated and usually non-functional. MS Word is particularly terrible at exporting HTML. You would think it would at least work in Internet Explorer, but it usually doesn't even work well there.

A note about Dreamweaver

This is commonly used among people learning about web development. It makes many tasks very easy and will do much of the work of designing a website in static HTML code. The thing is, most developers can point out a site developed in Dreamweaver from a mile away. Many sites were developed with it and you can tell. There is usually a definitive feel to it because of the common tools used. Many developers call it a "sledgehammer" tool when all you need it a toothpick. There are so many tools that doing some simple tasks can be more complicated than necessary. Dreamweaver also provides a "GUI" view that allows one to edit an HTML file as if it were almost a word document. Some people can be "lolled" into feeling like HTML is easy. The thing is that Dreamweaver doesn't write that clean of code either and I have spent hours cleaning it up. My personal feeling is that Dreamweaver is an expensive tool that I don't need. Since HTML is not that complicated of a markup language, I feel like I don't need the GUI Dreamweaver provides.Obviously I am a little bias against it.

Text Editors

In my opinion, there are several very important properties that a plain text editor should have. Here they are:

• Syntax highlighting
• Good search and replace
• Line numbers
• Fast
• Allow me to edit the raw code and not be in the way
• Leave the code intact so I could feasible open it in any editor and make changes. I don't want to be stuck editing a document in Dreamweaver because of some proprietary syntax that only working in Dreamweaver.
• Allow me to do as much as possible without touching the mouse.
  • I'm editing text, not a photo. I just need to type

With that list in place, here is a list of editors I would recommend trying.

You'll notice that Notepad is not in the list. I would reccomend not using notepad for any type of editing. It doesn't do syntax editing, line numbers, multiple files at once, or good line breaks. I repeat, do not use notepad.

*(My Personal Favorite)

WYSIWYG Editors

WYSIWYG stand for "What you see is what you get". M$ Word is a WYSIWIG editor and so is Dreamweaver. Some prefer one of these over editing the text itself. It can be advantagous sometimes when editing a table or list.

From Wikipedia:

"WYSIWIG HTML editors provide an editing interface which resembles how the page will be displayed in a web browser. Some editors, such as ones in the form of browser extensions allow editing within a web browser. Because using a WYSIWYG editor does not require any HTML knowledge, they are easier for an average computer user to get started with.

The WYSIWYG view is achieved by embedding a layout engine based upon that used in a web browser. The layout engine will have been considerably enhanced by the editor's developers to allow for typing, pasting, deleting and moving the content. The goal is that, at all times during editing, the rendered result should represent what will be seen later in a typical web browser.

While WYSIWYG editors make web design faster and easier; many professionals still use text editors, despite the fact that most WYSIWYG editors have a mode to edit HTML code by hand. The web was not originally designed to be a visual medium, and attempts to give authors more layout control, such as CSS, have been poorly supported by major web browsers. Because of this, code automatically generated by WYSIWYG editors frequently sacrifice file size and compatibility with fringe browsers, to create a design that looks the same for widely used desktop web browsers. This automatically generated code may be edited and corrected by hand. "

I don't often use a WYSIWIG editor, a fairly complete list can be found on wikipedia. Below is a chart of popularity of many of them. You'll notice that Dreamweaver is not there.(http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/2008-linuxquestions.org-members-choice-awards-83/ideweb-development-editor-of-the-year-695656/)