Prof.Wizard
Wannabe Storage Freak
- Joined
- Jan 26, 2002
- Messages
- 1,460
What web authoring tool used?
- Thread starter Prof.Wizard
- Start date
Tannin
Storage? I am Storage!
Looks like real coding to me Prof, i.e., a plain text editor. The code is clean and has no crap in it. That makes it just about certain that the page was written by an actual human being. So far as I know, there is no "page authoring tool" that can produce code as clean as that.
It could have been done with homesite. I use homesite sometimes, but I still write all my own HTML. I use homesite for its color coding ability and for HTML tag valedation which is nice.
Overall it doesn't put a load of crap into the HTML if you use it to design your page. I'm sure if you start getting fancy with layers and allow homesite to automate some areas of your page you will find messy code.
I prefer to use editpad lite as my HTML editor. It's nothing special, just a simple plain text editing program that has a tab feature which I love very much.
Overall it doesn't put a load of crap into the HTML if you use it to design your page. I'm sure if you start getting fancy with layers and allow homesite to automate some areas of your page you will find messy code.
I prefer to use editpad lite as my HTML editor. It's nothing special, just a simple plain text editing program that has a tab feature which I love very much.
e_dawg
Storage Freak
That looks like Macromedia DreamWeaver style, but as Tannin said, a quick look at the coding says it's not. DreamWeaver would have MM_ functions strewn all over the place.
Sol
Storage is cool
Prof.Wizard
Wannabe Storage Freak
- Joined
- Jan 26, 2002
- Messages
- 1,460
Plain text editor?Tannin said:
Wow! That's surely something I would have never imagined. I mean, such a harmonious structure I would have only expected to see with a little "help" by some web authoring tool (Macromedia I thought)...
Question: Why all you webmasters (professional, amateur, and home) get so upset about code placed by the authoring program? Fine, it IS something you didn't type, but why is it something so "hated", if you permit me the word...
Pradeep
Storage? I am Storage!
Dreamweaver MX uses homesite for the coding section I believe.
Tannin
Storage? I am Storage!
Essentially, Prof, because web authoring programs creats such terrible ugly code. Front Page is particularly horrible, but all of the ones I have seen are pretty similar. (There may be such a thing as a good web authoring program, but I have not seen such a thing.) (Mind you, after looking at a half-dozen or so a while back, I pretty soon stopped bothering to look at any more. Maybe they got better, but I doubt it.)
As a rule, authoring programs create great excresences of crap in the middle of your page. But surely, if this doesn't show up in your browser it doesn't matter? Yes it does matter, and for several reasons. First, it is inefficient: it is nothing for a Front Page generated page to be six times larger than it needs to be. So it loads much more slowly, is more likely to bugger up your browser, and costs your visitors more in bandwidth charges.
Second, it makes the page very difficult to maintain. The code becomes uneadable, and being unreadable, it is very difficult to understand or update.
Third, it is just plain ugly. Only ugly if you look at the code, of course, but I think that an attractive, well-designed building should have an attractive, simple structure, not just some nice fake plaster pillars stuck on the front to cover it up. Similarly, an attractive person is more tan just a pretty face, they have a healthy body. And an attractive web page is well-coded underneath.
Hated? No, it's not hate, Prof. Perhaps "distaste" would be a good word for it.
As a rule, authoring programs create great excresences of crap in the middle of your page. But surely, if this doesn't show up in your browser it doesn't matter? Yes it does matter, and for several reasons. First, it is inefficient: it is nothing for a Front Page generated page to be six times larger than it needs to be. So it loads much more slowly, is more likely to bugger up your browser, and costs your visitors more in bandwidth charges.
Second, it makes the page very difficult to maintain. The code becomes uneadable, and being unreadable, it is very difficult to understand or update.
Third, it is just plain ugly. Only ugly if you look at the code, of course, but I think that an attractive, well-designed building should have an attractive, simple structure, not just some nice fake plaster pillars stuck on the front to cover it up. Similarly, an attractive person is more tan just a pretty face, they have a healthy body. And an attractive web page is well-coded underneath.
Hated? No, it's not hate, Prof. Perhaps "distaste" would be a good word for it.
e_dawg
Storage Freak
I offer up my own laughable website that was developed on FrontPage.
View source for this frame:
http://www.catalytic.ca/mainstart.htm
Notice all the paragraph styles and other crap inside all my table elements? Compare that with the nice clean source code of the site you linked to (although if I used CSS as well, it would be more tidy).
View source for this frame:
http://www.catalytic.ca/mainstart.htm
Notice all the paragraph styles and other crap inside all my table elements? Compare that with the nice clean source code of the site you linked to (although if I used CSS as well, it would be more tidy).
Tannin
Storage? I am Storage!
Even without CSS, it ain't hard to make a nicer job of it than Front Page does.
Here is the Front Page source:
Yuk!
And here is the exact same page, rendered in primitive but reasonably clean HTML:
You can view the result of that clean-out of the code here: http://www.redhill.net.au/sf/dog.html Excuse the odd sloppy bit of editing there, it ain't a work of art. But is at least readable. Let's look at some fragments of the two side-by-side, so as to make the differences plainer:
That's Front Page.
And that is a human.
I think my point is clear.
Oh, by the way, I didn't trouble to duplicate the exact line spacings for some of the headings. You could claim that this was cheating. On the other hand, if you look at the line spacings of the Front Page document (look at the page with your browser, I mean, not the code) you will see that the spaces for the "Computers" and "Resources" table headings are too big relative to the top two headings ("e-Commerce" and "Links"). Then look at my human-coded alternative, and you will see that all the headings are the same size and the overall result is more pleasant. You might say that "oh well, E_dawg made a mistake and Front Page faithfuly duplicated it". But the real point is that it's easier to get things right when you use the proper tool for the job. And whatever else Front Page may be, it ain't a "proper tool".
Here is the Front Page source:
Code:
<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Language" content="en-us">
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=windows-1252">
<META NAME="description" content="Repository of e-commerce / e-business, management of new technology, innovation, change management, and IT related knowledge.">
<META NAME="keywords" CONTENT="e-commerce, e-business, change, management, leadership, business model, strategy, vision, electronic commerce, electronic transactions, security, payments, search engines, advertising, e-tailing, alberta">
<meta name="GENERATOR" content="Microsoft FrontPage 4.0">
<meta name="ProgId" content="FrontPage.Editor.Document">
<title>Home</title>
</head>
<body bgcolor="#000000" topmargin="1" leftmargin="3">
<table border="0" width="640" height="552" cellspacing="8" cellpadding="10">
<tr>
<td width="50%" height="1" valign="top" bgcolor="#FE503D">
<p style="margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><font face="Arial">[b]e-Commerce[/b]</font></p>
</td>
<td width="50%" height="1" valign="top" bgcolor="#33CC33">
<p style="margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><font face="Arial">[b]Links[/b]</font></p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="50%" height="225" valign="top" bgcolor="#B2CAE7">
<p style="margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 6"><font face="Times New Roman"><u>[b]Courses[/b]</u></font></p>
<p style="margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><font face="Times New Roman"><a href="http://courses.bus.ualberta.ca/orga488-poohkay">ORG
A 488</a></font> | <font face="Times New Roman"><a href="http://courses.bus.ualberta.ca/mis418-barrett">MIS
418</a></font></p>
<p style="margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"></p>
<p style="margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><font face="Times New Roman"><u>[b]e-tailers[/b]</u></font></p>
<p style="margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><font face="Times New Roman">[url="http://www.amazon.com"]Amazon[/url]</font>
| <font face="Times New Roman">[url="http://www.chapters.indigo.ca"]Chapters-Indigo[/url]</font></p>
<p style="margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 6"></p>
<p style="margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 6"><font face="Times New Roman"><u>[b]University
Programs/Clubs[/b]</u></font></p>
<p style="margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><font face="Times New Roman"><a href="http://www.comcepto.com" target="_blank">U
of A E-Commerce Club</a></font></p>
<p style="margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><font face="Times New Roman"><a href="http://www.business.mcmaster.ca/esociety/" target="_blank">McMaster
e-commerce society</a></font></p>
<p style="margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"></p>
</td>
<td width="50%" height="225" valign="top" bgcolor="#B2CAE7">
<p style="margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 6"><font face="Times New Roman">[b]<u>Cars</u>[/b]</font></p>
<p style="margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><font face="Times New Roman">[url="http://www.vwvortex.com"]vwvortex.com[/url]</font>
| <font face="Times New Roman">[url="http://www.edmunds.com"]Edmunds.com[/url]</font></p>
<p style="margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><font face="Times New Roman">[url="http://www.motortrend.com"]MotorTrend[/url]</font></p>
<p style="margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 6"></p>
<p style="margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 6"><font face="Times New Roman">[b]<u>Investing</u>[/b]</font></p>
<p style="margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><font face="Times New Roman"><a href="http://finance.yahoo.com" target="_blank">Yahoo!
Finance</a></font> | <font face="Times New Roman"><a href="http://www.cbsmarketwatch.com" target="_blank">CBS
Marketwatch</a></font></p>
<p style="margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><font face="Times New Roman">[url="http://www.cnbc.com"]CNBC[/url]</font>
| <font face="Times New Roman"><a href="http://moneycentral.msn.com/home.asp" target="_blank">MSN
MoneyCentral</a></font></p>
<p style="margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 6"></p>
<p style="margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 6"><font face="Times New Roman">[b]<u>Traveling</u>[/b]</font></p>
<p style="margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><font face="Times New Roman">[url="http://www.cruisecritic.com/"]CruiseCritic.com[/url]</font>
| <font face="Times New Roman"><a href="http://www.epinions.com/trvl" target="_blank">Epinions
Travel</a></font></p>
<p style="margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 6"></p>
<p style="margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 6"><font face="Times New Roman">[b]<u>Weather</u>[/b]</font></p>
<p style="margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><font face="Times New Roman">[url="http://weatheroffice.ec.gc.ca/scripts/citygen.pl?client=ECCDN_e&city=YHM"]Hamilton[/url]</font></p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="50%" height="36" valign="top" bgcolor="#66CCFF"><font face="Arial">[b]Computers[/b]</font></td>
<td width="50%" height="36" valign="top" bgcolor="#FFFF00"><font face="Arial">[b]Resources[/b]</font></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="50%" height="225" valign="top" bgcolor="#B2CAE7">
<p style="margin-bottom: 6">[b]<u>Equipment Review</u>[/b]</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0">[url="http://www.anandtech.com"]AnandTech[/url]
| [url="http://www.storagereview.com"]StorageReview[/url]</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0">[url="http://www.epinions.com/cmhd"]Epinions[/url]</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"></p>
<p style="margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 6"><font face="Times New Roman">[b]<u>Online
Magazines</u>[/b]</font></p>
<p style="margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><font face="Times New Roman">[url="http://www.zdnet.com"]ZDNet[/url]</font>
| <font face="Times New Roman">[url="http://www.cnet.com"]CNet[/url]</font></p>
</td>
<td width="50%" height="225" valign="top" bgcolor="#B2CAE7">
<p style="margin-bottom: 6">[b]<u>MBA</u>[/b]</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><a href="http://www.catalytic.ca/m600">M600
Class Slides</a></p>
<p style="margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"></p>
<p style="margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 6"></p>
<!-- deactivated
<p style="margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0">[url="shabbag1.htm"]Shabba[/url]</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0">[url="shawng1.htm"]Shawn[/url]</p>
-->
</td>
</tr>
</table>
</body>
</html>Yuk!
And here is the exact same page, rendered in primitive but reasonably clean HTML:
Code:
<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Language" content="en-us">
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=windows-1252">
<META NAME="description" content="Repository of e-commerce / e-business, management of new technology, innovation, change management, and IT related knowledge.">
<META NAME="keywords" CONTENT="e-commerce, e-business, change, management, leadership, business model, strategy, vision, electronic commerce, electronic transactions, security, payments, search engines, advertising, e-tailing, alberta">
<meta name="GENERATOR" content="Human">
<title>Home</title>
</head>
<body bgcolor="#000000" topmargin="1" leftmargin="3">
<table border="0" width="640" height="552" cellspacing="8" cellpadding="10">
<tr>
<td width="50%" height="1" valign="top" bgcolor="#FE503D">
<font face="Arial">[b]e-Commerce[/b]</font>
</td>
<td width="50%" height="1" valign="top" bgcolor="#33CC33">
<font face="Arial">[b]Links[/b]
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="50%" height="225" valign="top" bgcolor="#B2CAE7">
<u>[b]Courses[/b]</u>
[url="http://courses.bus.ualberta.ca/orga488-poohkay"]ORG A 488[/url] |
[url="http://courses.bus.ualberta.ca/mis418-barrett"]MIS 418[/url]
<u>[b]e-tailers[/b]</u>
[url="http://www.amazon.com"]Amazon[/url]
[url="http://www.chapters.indigo.ca"]Chapters-Indigo[/url]
<u>[b]University Programs/Clubs[/b]</u>
[url="http://www.comcepto.com"]U of A E-Commerce Club[/url]
[url="http://www.business.mcmaster.ca/esociety/"]McMaster e-commerce society[/url]
</td>
<td width="50%" height="225" valign="top" bgcolor="#B2CAE7">
[b]<u>Cars</u>[/b]
[url="http://www.vwvortex.com"]vwvortex.com[/url] |
[url="http://www.edmunds.com"]Edmunds.com[/url]
[url="http://www.motortrend.com"]MotorTrend[/url]
[b]<u>Investing</u>[/b]
[url="http://finance.yahoo.com"]Yahoo! Finance[/url] |
[url="http://www.cbsmarketwatch.com"]CBS Marketwatch[/url]
[url="http://www.cnbc.com"]CNBC[/url] |
[url="http://moneycentral.msn.com/home.asp"]MSN MoneyCentral[/url]
[b]<u>Traveling</u>[/b]
[url="http://www.cruisecritic.com/"]CruiseCritic.com[/url] |
[url="http://www.epinions.com/trvl"]Epinions Travel[/url]
[b]<u>Weather</u>[/b]
[url="http://weatheroffice.ec.gc.ca/scripts/citygen.pl?client=ECCDN_e&city=YHM"]Hamilton[/url]
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="50%" height="1" bgcolor="#66CCFF"><font face="Arial">[b]Computers[/b]</font></td>
<td width="50%" height="1" bgcolor="#FFFF00"><font face="Arial">[b]Resources[/b]
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="50%" height="225" valign="top" bgcolor="#B2CAE7">
[b]<u>Equipment Review</u>[/b]
[url="http://www.anandtech.com"]AnandTech[/url] |
[url="http://www.storagereview.com"]StorageReview[/url]
[url="http://www.epinions.com/cmhd"]Epinions[/url]
[b]<u>Online Magazines</u>[/b]
[url="http://www.zdnet.com"]ZDNet[/url] | [url="http://www.cnet.com"]CNet[/url]
</td>
<td width="50%" height="225" valign="top" bgcolor="#B2CAE7">
[b]<u>MBA</u>[/b]
[url="http://www.catalytic.ca/m600"]M600 Class Slides[/url]
</td>
</tr>
</table>
</body>
</html>You can view the result of that clean-out of the code here: http://www.redhill.net.au/sf/dog.html Excuse the odd sloppy bit of editing there, it ain't a work of art. But is at least readable. Let's look at some fragments of the two side-by-side, so as to make the differences plainer:
Code:
<p style="margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 6"><font face="Times New Roman"><u>[b]Courses[/b]</u></font></p>
<p style="margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><font face="Times New Roman"><a href="http://courses.bus.ualberta.ca/orga488-poohkay">ORG
A 488</a></font> | <font face="Times New Roman"><a href="http://courses.bus.ualberta.ca/mis418-barrett">MIS
418</a></font></p>That's Front Page.
Code:
<u>[b]Courses[/b]</u>
[url="http://courses.bus.ualberta.ca/orga488-poohkay"]ORG A 488[/url] |
[url="http://courses.bus.ualberta.ca/mis418-barrett"]MIS 418[/url]And that is a human.
I think my point is clear.
Oh, by the way, I didn't trouble to duplicate the exact line spacings for some of the headings. You could claim that this was cheating. On the other hand, if you look at the line spacings of the Front Page document (look at the page with your browser, I mean, not the code) you will see that the spaces for the "Computers" and "Resources" table headings are too big relative to the top two headings ("e-Commerce" and "Links"). Then look at my human-coded alternative, and you will see that all the headings are the same size and the overall result is more pleasant. You might say that "oh well, E_dawg made a mistake and Front Page faithfuly duplicated it". But the real point is that it's easier to get things right when you use the proper tool for the job. And whatever else Front Page may be, it ain't a "proper tool".
Jake the Dog
Storage is cool
i’ve written many a website some entirely in text editors, written to suit both IE and Netscape , but nowadays i much prefer the ease of a simple to use editor geared to IE since 94% of my website visitors use IE, Opera or Mozilla/NS6.2+, all of which render my sites just fine.
i start with some basic pages in notepad, have them run off style sheets and then do the rest in FP2002, making sure i don't work in 'web' mode. the result is honestly very little superfluous and MS/IE specific code and what does end up in there is easily removed with no impact on the final result. simple really yet with all the ease of an editor with the many featured the FP has.
i start with some basic pages in notepad, have them run off style sheets and then do the rest in FP2002, making sure i don't work in 'web' mode. the result is honestly very little superfluous and MS/IE specific code and what does end up in there is easily removed with no impact on the final result. simple really yet with all the ease of an editor with the many featured the FP has.
Tannin
Storage? I am Storage!
So how do you explain the above crapsville code?
e_dawg
Storage Freak
Tannin said:
Strangely enough, the heading spaces are correct when viewed with IE6. Everything views correctly with IE6 except for the e-tailers heading. FrontPage, for all its shortcomings, does build pages fairly compatible with IE6. Unfortunately, the less popular but more W3C standards compliant browsers like Opera and Mozilla get the shaft.
I am impressed by the effort you made in editing my code to illustrate your point. However, I wouldn't say I made a mistake and FrontPage duplicated it, because everything viewed correctly in FrontPage and IE6 when creating the page. But, I do agree that when you are using an automagic code generator like FrontPage, you do have to go back and hand-edit the code if you want to (a) make it readable, (b) make it lean and efficient, and (c) clean up coding errors that sometimes go undetected. In other words, if you know HTML and CSS, it is often better to do it by hand.[/u]
Tannin
Storage? I am Storage!
It is indeed strange that the original page renders correctly with IE, E_dawg. I hadn't realised that this was yet another example of Microsoft standard breaking - double standard breaking in this case, as the bad browser corrects the error of the bad code generator. (Deliberate? Or just the usual MS incompetence? Probably a bit of both.) The Front Page original produces the following results on the browsers that I have conveniently available to me:
Opera 6.x Win FAIL
Mozilla 1.1b OS/2 FAIL
Mozilla 0.9.9 Win FAIL
Netscape Navigator 4.08 BAD FAIL (semi-readable at best
IE 5.0 Win PASS
The hand-coded version results in:
Opera 6.x Win PASS
Mozilla 1.1b OS/2 PASS
Mozilla 0.9.9 Win PASS
Netscape Navigator 4.08 PASS
IE 5.0 Win PASS
Oddly enough, Netscape 3.0 (which I keep around for page testing purposes) passes on both, but I excluded that one from the tables above on the grounds that the only reason it passes the Front Page page is that it's too stupid to understand most of the code and just ignores a good deal of it.
Effort? Not to speak of. Five or ten minutes and a good text editor with global search and replace was all it took. (I use EditPlus but most anything would do.) To see Front Page's bad code in action, consider the following two fragments:
and
Notice how different they are? Nope, the second one is not my hand-coded alternative, it is still Front Page. And yet Front Page is trying to produce two heading lines that are exactly the same! No wonder they don't render correctly. FP, for some reason quite incomprehensible to me, attempts to specify quite different table sizes for the two identical elements - in the first one it specifies height = 1 but in the second it specifies height = 36! The astonishing thing about this code is that it actually renders correctly in IE - God knows how. One assumes that IE ignores the height attribute - but if that is the case, why on earth does Microsoft's own web page generator issue the command in the first place? It certainly isn't for compatibility reasons; as we have seen, FP's code is dysfunctional in every browser tested bar IE.
Anyway, now that I've seen it in IE, I withdraw my claim that you made a mistake. (Well, apart from when you installed Front Page, I mean.) The mistake is clearly entirely Microsoft's.
Would another page generator do a better job? Maybe. Maybe not. Perhaps Cas would know.
Opera 6.x Win FAIL
Mozilla 1.1b OS/2 FAIL
Mozilla 0.9.9 Win FAIL
Netscape Navigator 4.08 BAD FAIL (semi-readable at best
IE 5.0 Win PASS
The hand-coded version results in:
Opera 6.x Win PASS
Mozilla 1.1b OS/2 PASS
Mozilla 0.9.9 Win PASS
Netscape Navigator 4.08 PASS
IE 5.0 Win PASS
Oddly enough, Netscape 3.0 (which I keep around for page testing purposes) passes on both, but I excluded that one from the tables above on the grounds that the only reason it passes the Front Page page is that it's too stupid to understand most of the code and just ignores a good deal of it.
Effort? Not to speak of. Five or ten minutes and a good text editor with global search and replace was all it took. (I use EditPlus but most anything would do.) To see Front Page's bad code in action, consider the following two fragments:
Code:
<tr>
<td width="50%" height="1" valign="top" bgcolor="#FE503D">
<p style="margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><font face="Arial">[b]e-Commerce[/b]</font></p>
</td>
<td width="50%" height="1" valign="top" bgcolor="#33CC33">
<p style="margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><font face="Arial">[b]Links[/b]</font></p>
</td>
</tr>and
Code:
<tr>
<td width="50%" height="36" valign="top" bgcolor="#66CCFF"><font face="Arial">[b]Computers[/b]</font></td>
<td width="50%" height="36" valign="top" bgcolor="#FFFF00"><font face="Arial">[b]Resources[/b]</font></td>
</tr>Notice how different they are? Nope, the second one is not my hand-coded alternative, it is still Front Page. And yet Front Page is trying to produce two heading lines that are exactly the same! No wonder they don't render correctly. FP, for some reason quite incomprehensible to me, attempts to specify quite different table sizes for the two identical elements - in the first one it specifies height = 1 but in the second it specifies height = 36! The astonishing thing about this code is that it actually renders correctly in IE - God knows how. One assumes that IE ignores the height attribute - but if that is the case, why on earth does Microsoft's own web page generator issue the command in the first place? It certainly isn't for compatibility reasons; as we have seen, FP's code is dysfunctional in every browser tested bar IE.
Anyway, now that I've seen it in IE, I withdraw my claim that you made a mistake. (Well, apart from when you installed Front Page, I mean.) The mistake is clearly entirely Microsoft's.
Would another page generator do a better job? Maybe. Maybe not. Perhaps Cas would know.
e_dawg
Storage Freak
In fairness to FrontPage, I did hand-edit some of the HTML elements. Perhaps some of the height parameters and other things that were different were from me. I don't remember since it was quite a while ago, but it is entirely possible that some of the inconsistencies are my fault.
As for the coding not looking right on every browser except for IE, I made a conscious decision NOT to code for nor test for compatibility for other browsers. I checked my website logs for a number of pages and looked at the server logs at our university for browser usage to find that IE was by far the dominant browser in use -- almost 85% on average, IIRC. Since I absolutely hated Navigator 4, Mozilla was not ready for prime time, and Opera only commanded 3% of the market, I did not care to cater to the other 15% who didn't use IE. Now that Mozilla and Opera represent respectable alternatives to IE, I will make sure to test for compatibility with other browsers in the future.
That EditPlus program looks pretty neat, Tannin. Do you use that for HTML coding?
As for the coding not looking right on every browser except for IE, I made a conscious decision NOT to code for nor test for compatibility for other browsers. I checked my website logs for a number of pages and looked at the server logs at our university for browser usage to find that IE was by far the dominant browser in use -- almost 85% on average, IIRC. Since I absolutely hated Navigator 4, Mozilla was not ready for prime time, and Opera only commanded 3% of the market, I did not care to cater to the other 15% who didn't use IE. Now that Mozilla and Opera represent respectable alternatives to IE, I will make sure to test for compatibility with other browsers in the future.
That EditPlus program looks pretty neat, Tannin. Do you use that for HTML coding?
Prof.Wizard
Wannabe Storage Freak
- Joined
- Jan 26, 2002
- Messages
- 1,460
Well, I got the picture.
To speak frankly, being able to create web pages viewable by all kinds of browsers is paramount for a web authoring tool. Under this aspect, indeed FrontPage 2002 is very bad... just watch Tannin's PASS/FAIL test above.
The thing is, not all of us know or want to bother with the details of HTML, especially in the initial phases of the web designing procedure. What I mean is that even if an elaborate authoring program creates extra (+50%?) code, the time you lose to setup the site is sometimes not worth the "neat" HTML structure which, afterall and according to one's own capabilities, can be trimmed at a later time.
FrontPage 2002 can be set to compatibility layers, so to have minimal problems with other browsers... of course then you lose the fancy MS web tricks (FrontPage Extensions 2002, etc.) and the possibilities become severely handicapped.
To speak frankly, being able to create web pages viewable by all kinds of browsers is paramount for a web authoring tool. Under this aspect, indeed FrontPage 2002 is very bad... just watch Tannin's PASS/FAIL test above.
The thing is, not all of us know or want to bother with the details of HTML, especially in the initial phases of the web designing procedure. What I mean is that even if an elaborate authoring program creates extra (+50%?) code, the time you lose to setup the site is sometimes not worth the "neat" HTML structure which, afterall and according to one's own capabilities, can be trimmed at a later time.
FrontPage 2002 can be set to compatibility layers, so to have minimal problems with other browsers... of course then you lose the fancy MS web tricks (FrontPage Extensions 2002, etc.) and the possibilities become severely handicapped.
Dozer
Learning Storage Performance
I've recently developed and posted my web site (under development) and used FrontPage to get the ball rolling: http://planetdozer.dyndns.org
I am learning to write HTML, and eventually plan to rewrite the code by hand, as FrontPage has pretty much made chop suey of the code for the site. The site is supported by Apache on my Mandrake Linux box, and I'd like to do the coding on that box--any suggestions on Linux web-editing software?
My thoughts on the Web Editor vs. writing HTML debate: 7th grade English essay vs. novel written by Hemingway
Jake the Dog
Storage is cool
Tannin said:
99% of that formatting code would be replaces by a single style sheet Tannin. CSS is your friend :wink:
Jake the Dog
Storage is cool
"would be replaced..."
miksmi
What is this storage?
Does anyone use GNU Emacs or XEmacs as a "simple" HTML/XHTML editor? I'd like it to run on Windoze XP and Unix/Linux. Like Mercutio, I'm at home with vi but I think emacs will have more HTML support than vim.
BTW I found a nice Emacs Wiki.
BTW I found a nice Emacs Wiki.
Fushigi
Storage Is My Life
sechs
Storage? I am Storage!
miksmi said:
Back when I did everything by hand on Unix, I always used Xemacs. It's automatic tag balancing is hard to beat. And it's free!
Adcadet
Storage Freak
I admittedly create many pages full of crap. I blame laziness, a lack of time, the ues of Dreamweaver, and my university. But since I do this for free, I better not hear any complaints.
www.student.med.umn.edu/class2007
www.student.med.umn.edu/class2007
Adcadet
Storage Freak
ah, since Dozer posted his personal site, I might as well do the same. My under-maintained personal site - www.tc.umn.edu/~calv0016
blakerwry
Storage? I am Storage!
Mercutio
Fatwah on Western Digital
On my linux systems all things emacs are symlinked to vim. This is as it should be. It is the one true editor. All others are teh suck.
Buck
Storage? I am Storage!
I use EditPlus2.
I use zends development environment 3.5.2 as my HTML (and php) editor. It does basic code completion and color coding for both php and html.
Zend offers the development studio as a 21 day trial. After 21 days you can obtain a new license that makes the studio a "personal edition" with unlimited non-commercial use. There is some functionality disabled, but I've not missed using any of it.
Zend offers the development studio as a 21 day trial. After 21 days you can obtain a new license that makes the studio a "personal edition" with unlimited non-commercial use. There is some functionality disabled, but I've not missed using any of it.
ddrueding
Fixture