[TriLUG] web authoring packages

[Brian McCullough]

On Mon, Aug 04, 2008 at 11:26:56AM -0700, Kevin Hunter wrote:
> At 10:36a -0700 on Mon, 04 Aug 2008, Brian McCullough wrote:
> 
> Very true.  Firebug is *not* a tool to write new code, HTML, DOM, etc.
> It's a tool to help debug what you've already written.
> 
> Failing that, I might suggest a hybrid work model, where you design it
> basically in Dreamweaver et al., then do the behind-the-scenes touch up
> with a good ol' text editor and a W3 compliant validator[1].

Of which there are several, although I always rely on the good, old, W3C
Validators, since I am a bit of a "standards bigot," at least where
*HTML is concerned.



> Preferably, your text editor is XML aware and has syntax highlighting,
> etc. etc.  (Eclipse, and jEdit, with plugins both do for sure.  I
> believe gEdit can as well, but I haven't messed with it.)

I seem to have seen a few occaisions where VI( or more likely VIM or
VI-Extended ) was definitely syntax aware for these languages.



> To be less snobbish/elitist than I fear I'm sounding, I'll point out
> that I originally used an online tutorial to learn the basics of coding
> a webpage in Notepad, oh say in HTML 3.2 days.  Then I found and used a
> WYSIWYG editor for a couple of sites.  Netscape Composer, I think, from
> the Communicator series.  (I turned my father on to it, and he uses it
> to this day on his Windows box to maintain a local soccer website.  It's
> definitely functional.)  About 4 years ago, I migrated to writing all my
> code entirely in a text editor.  It's definitely a learning process, and
> one that is not helped by tools that are still fledgling.

I'm afraid that people still look at me strangely, because I still use
me, myself, I[1] and ( usually ) VI to write ALL of my HTML, XHTML, JS, 
CSS and PHP code, and always have done so, because of the really UGLY 
job that any of the WYSIWYG editors has produced.



Brian


[1], and don't forget O'Reilly, W3C.org and a few other useful
references for proper syntax and usage.