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November 22, 2004
The Best HTML Editor?
If you are a newbie, the day will come when you will ask yourself this question: "Hmmm, I which is the best HTML Editor for me?". I can tell you that this question will lead to you days of research and assessing conflicting opinions.
At the end of my days of reading, I've come to the understanding that there are 2 best options:
- Dreamweaver Or
- A "Raw" HTML Editor
Dreamweaver and WYSIWYG Editors
Dreamweaver is the only WYSIWYG HTML editor that produces "clean" HTML. If anyone thinks I'm wrong about this please let me know. But my understanding is that all other WYSIWYG editors will leave crappy tags in your HTML. At best, these will just bloat to your pages, or make it difficult or impossible to edit those pages in another editor. At worst, they can prevent you from your page from being seen clearly in different browsers.
However, whichever WYSIWYG editor you pick, your first step -- and its an essential step -- is to learn some basic HTML. I learned most of my basics from a site called Pagetutor.com which is a really excellent place to learn HTML - recommended by many.
I can assure you that you need to learn HTML before grappling with those WYSIWYG editors. I've been using Dreamweaver for the last few days and I even this super WYSIWYG tool requires you to know some HTML to operate it properly.
"Raw" HTML Editors
I was speaking to a software site owner 2 days ago and asked him which HTML editor he used - he recommended AceHTML which has a highly acclaimed freeware version. "Its better than Dreamweaver" he said with feeling. I understood where he was coming from - a large group of people prefer Raw HTML editors to WYSIWYG ones.
WYSIWYG editors give you rigid options, which if used, will do something for you. Raw HTML editors immediately let you do it. With WYSIWYG you have to learn where something is in the menu. With Raw HTML Editors, you just have to know the bit of HTML code. With Raw HTML editors you can easily see a bit of code you like on a site, and just paste it into your site. On the other hand WYSIWYG editors let you manage your site better with things like templates, and link bars and other repeated site components.
You can't beat WYSIWYG editors for ease of use and convenience. But Raw HTML Editors give you true power. For me personally, I went for ease of use and a WYSIWYG HTML Editor. And so far I'm pretty happy.
Posted by onelukey at November 22, 2004 05:51 PM