If dreamweaver is a pro grade tool, I'm the new Mahatma. Major shmucks you mean who would be fired in an instant if the suits knew ANYTHING about "that web thingy we make money off of" - Sleazing by on the fact that Joe Sixpack has no clue. No, I only ran my own for six years and retired at 32... (wow, has it been five years?) ... and the majority of cookie cutter crap churned out by these charnel houses usually have horrific rendering errors in Opera and Safari, and WORSE have major layout issues on 'large font/120 dpi' machines. They do not gracefully degrade to lesser hardware, they do not pass accessability standards, and most of the time it is nothing short of a miracle if their garbage even VALIDATES. Yup, the wysiwyg made crap, the code editor got in my way auto-doing **** I didn't need, and frankly it wasn't worth the money so I never bothered to buy it. My Condolances. Just because it passes validation it doesn't make it good code - and frankly I find it hard to believe DW can even produce valid code given the volume of total RUBBISH every DW produced site I've seen has for code. Which Shallowink hit the nail on the head with - so you're using it as a overglorified NOTEPAD? Actually, that's a bit of an understatement since on top of using it as a bloated expensive notepad, it's saddling you with a preview window that doesn't even follow the specifications introducing ANOTHER rendering engine to the equation (the LAST thing designers need at this point), 'autocompletion' nonsense that usually results in piss poor formatting and sloppy coding/formatting habits, and in fact can not only slow down development but waste time correcting it's corrections. **** THAT. Funny guy... Ok hotshot, how about a link to your code - feel free to have a look here at my recent coding: http://battletech.hopto.org/for_others/ that directory is full of free recodes I've done for people on this and other sites. Ignore the shit on the rest of the server since it's all four to five years old. (any coder that doesn't look at their work of a few years ago in disgust needs to hang up their shingle NOW) I will admit some of my own preferences colour my opinion of dreamweaver and many other editors - I've been working multi-monitor for a decade and a half... locking everything into a tabbed system without the ability to separate them into their own windows is a strike against most editors. (Why I like Opera for browsing, you can 'detach' the tabs' since they are actually MDI windows under the hood) I've been writing code for 30 years, I find the dayglo acid-trip inducing syntax highlighting agonizing to look at and more hindrance than help. (To me, punctuation stands out like a sore thumb! More so if you LEARN TO USE THE TAB KEY)... Autocompletion just pisses me off because 99% of the time it puts it where I don't want it, forcing me to waste time editing it out or repositioning it or what-have-you. See to me, Dreamweaver is just frontpage without the bad reputation, and I'd REALLY like to change that because frankly, you use the wysiwyg it's the EXACT SAME THING - you use it just for code view, you just dropped a few hundred bucks on the functionality provided by most free editors. But then, my big fancy choice for development work is win32pad. I'd use notepad++ except it won't let you turn off or detach the tabs, which is a step BACKWARDS in functionality for me... But then in a lot of programs tabs make little or no sense, since I've mastered how to use the TASK MANAGER. (and run it in portrait view flush left on my left display)
I am using DW since version 2.0 and i will never change it. I use it as a plain editor now as i have greater experience in hand writing code but there are times that i switch to "design mode" and see what my page looks like. It has its strength but i agree that there are better editors out there. It's how someone is used to do things.
First off, if anyone doesn't like the fact that I just replied to every single post in this thread (ok, except for the last two - they were posted while I was composing this), feel free to ignore it at your own peril. It's your right, and I'll consider it an honor to die to defend that right should it ever come to that. Now that I have that out of the way... Because the crap that M$-Weird spits out isn't HTML. It looks like HTML, it acts like HTML, it even works like HTML, but it isn't HTML. Not only that, but HTML is the foundation of the entire Web. It's the only "baseline" language that browsers and other user agents recognize and understand. Sure, you could make the same claim about XML, but browsers simply don't know what the semantics of custom elements created with XML mean, and search engines sure as hell don't know either. It's the lingua franca of the Web for a reason. Tell me about it. Eh, more like comparing a corvette to a horse and buggy, but yeah, same thing. Oh really? If you care about things like accessibility, semantics, Search Engine Optimization (there, I said it), and usabililty, YOU NEED TO LEARN AND UNDERSTAND HTML. Period. End of story. It's a structural markup language for a reason. It's also the best we have at the moment, especially given how slow browser vendors are to take up new technologies to improve how the Web works (not to mention the W3C - specifically the CSS Working Group, but that's a debate for another thread). If you're not going to care about the people using your site, then use a crap WISIWY(May)G editor and feel smug and secure. The real professionals will go about improving the way the Web works and making it better for people to use the sites they develop. No, you need to learn and understand how HTML really works because the Web will fall apart without it. Also mastering the language (and it's not as easy as it looks, trust me) will also help ensure that the sites you develop are easy to access, easy to use, and easy for the search engines to crawl and index. Actually FrontPage was discontinued. Frankly though it's one of the few smart things Microsoft's done this decade as far as I'm concerned. Precisely. That means two things - and Jack left town. If you don't know SEO from a hole in the ground, then you sure as heck don't understand how HTML really works. As I said, it's a structural markup language, and learning all the rules (semantics especially) is not as easy as it looks. HTML is NOT dying out. It's stable (though not rock-solid), it works, and it works well. The only thing changing about the language is how it's evolving. That's it. Furthermore, any server-side programming language will require HTML to be produced since there's no other language that can be sent to the client-side which a user agent (browser, assistive device, mobile device, search engine spider, et cetera) will be able to understand and render properly (and sorry, but XML doesn't cut it, since it doesn't follow a set of rules, it's just a language for creating other language, and user agents have no idea how to interpret the semantics of the languages created with XML). Furthermore, server-side programming languages have "dominated" the Web as long as there's BEEN a public Web to begin with. Back in the day it was CGI. Now you can practically take your pick. Again, you need to learn how to code by hand if you ever want to be able to create a truely accessible Web site. You also have to know how HTML, CSS and JavaScript work from browser to browser (and even version to version), not to mention other user agents such as mobile devices, or even assistive devices. You also need to learn how to code HTML by hand if you care one iota about making your sites usable as well. Ah, Gary. Nice to see you around again. How's it been? Or just go to your local public library and check out a copy of Build Your Own Web Site The Right Way Using HTML & CSS by Ian Lloyd. Learn the language, and then decide which tool you want to use to author it in (I personally use Edit+ because I like having the multiple tabs, and it's also more intuitive than NotePad++ and other open source text editors). That's actually not true. You can make a great Web page that works well, is accessible and easy to use just using HTML. It won't look good, but it'll work. Of course this requires using HTML to define the structure of the content on the page rather than how it looks, but that's the whole point of HTML. It's a structural markup language, not a visual language (that's CSS). With the exception of a contact form, most basic (read: personal) Web sites can actually get by on just HTML and CSS. Which I said earlier. Just use it properly, as a structural markup language. Exactly. Not to be rude, but yes. A ready coder is able to work in any environment he's placed in. Just because I hate Dreamweaver with a passion (I gave up after MX came out if that means anything to you) doesn't mean I can't use it. I'll just use it in code view and to hell with the rest. That was one of the things that turned me off to Dreamweaver. Especially when I'd create an element that was going to nest other elements and content inside them. Or just read the book I recommended earlier in this post. It's not a good way, actually. Especially if you rely on Dreamweaver's crappy rendering engine to "show you" how the Web page may look (since it won't actually look that way). A text editor and five browsers (IE 6, IE 7, Firefox, Opera and Safari) is all you need. Especially if you "debug" as you go along during development. I don't charge extra. I just rip out the content and slap it into my Lycanthrope template system and go from there. True, and with few (if any) changes to the overall structure of the HTML code as well. Oh brother. Let me grab my CBW suit. I woudn't say it creates content (people do that), but everything else you said is accurate. Done properly, all (X)HTML will be doing is defining how the page is structured. The display would be governed by a stylesheet (CSS file). Actually, I'm a Web developer and I don't touch the design aspect of the industry. My focus is on accessibility, clean minimal semantic and valid (X)HTML markup authoring, SEO and usability, and it shows in not only my work but also the sites I clean up for other people (both on forums and for profit). I'll agree with that - especially since many people claim to be designers yet don't know the first thing about actually designing for the Web (since they're stuck with the "print media" mentality). Another reaosn why I don't "design" sites - I suck at design and I'm not afraid to admit it. Though my expertise in other areas more than makes up for it. Actually it has its limits, and it's not hard to run into them if you use the language as it was originally meant to be used. Hence the creation of CSS to handle the "presentation" aspect for instance (and JavaScript for the behavior/complex interaction). Or as I said earlier learn how to code. Especially if the site is going to be accessible and easy to use, not to mention optimized for both the people using it (there goes the accessibility and usability again), but also optimized for the search engines while also being able to work properly regardless of which user agent is used. No, it's not a professional software application. It's a crutch. A damn useful crutch, but still a crutch nonetheless. And yes, I did use Dreamweaver. I cut my teeth on it. I felt lacking, and wanting more. If you don't believe me, ask deathshadow. He was with me the whole time (and he'll even tell you how far I came along since I gave it up and "learned to walk" on my own). As for your claim about the majority of Web design companies using Dreamweaver... How many of them had to scramble to "fix" their sites when IE 7 came out? How many of the sites they create are accessible and usable (and don't think for a minute that those online accessibility testers are accurate - because they're not) How many of those sites use between 20-85% more code than they need to? I could go on, but I'll stop here since I'm sure I'm about to hit the 20K character per post limit. Never trust a markup program to handle UI design. Programs like Dreamweaver were never meant for design anyway. As for the valid code, is it accessible? Can you navigate through the site with JavaScript turned off, using a keyboard, or resize the text without the layout breaking? Even when you use the code view, Dreamweaver has a nasty habit of "rewriting" your code for you, at least that's been my experience. At the very least it would FUBAR the formatting, at worst it would literally replace entire sections of the page. Actually he knows how to write valid HTML. I'm kinda partially responsible for that. And I'll agree as well (again). That's pretty much what he's saying, actually. I love that analogy. May I please use it in an upcoming article I'm planning to write? Not really. Even Notepad has issues, such as lack of proper character encoding support, and not being able to handle files larger than 64KB (but then again, if the HTML file is that large, then there are much bigger issues to worry about - UNLESS the file is being used by a coder to write a server-side script that will author the HTML, and even then the coder should probably get a brick upside the head).
I'm what you call a Rational Mastermind. If I find it useful, I'll use it. You of all people know that.
I could never sound like you, I'd rather be coding than type out that much stuff that has been repeated several times in the last week. Oh, and Deathshadow, who the hell is Mahatma? *dredgy walks off to Wikipedia. Anyway, this year the computing classes at my school will teach Dreamweaver 8 (which I have a certificate in, before I learnt the value of code), my teachers know I have a cert. so pulls me over in class today for me to show her around Dreamweaver - so I set it to code view, loaded up w3schools and spent 50 minutes teaching her the basic structure of HTML, and the importance of standards. So , wile the rest of the class is playing around with Fireworks, I get to teach my eacher HTML . If I got paid, I may actually enjoy school.... I do not want to see my class (which has a load of intelligent people) bough up with Dreamweaver - they are not who I'd want managing my websites in the future.
You'll get the mouth of an East Coaster if you keep it up, Dan : ) I'm not the brightest lamp out there, and it took me a while (a few months back) to get the constant reference to "and Jack left town." Still trying to figure out the #DDD one... looks grey. Mahatma I'm assuming is Ghandi. Deathshadow being the non-violent Ghandi is pretty funny idea. As for your teacher, (s)he's not alone-- there are LOTs of teachers out there apparently, teaching only WYSIWYGs to kids... there was one on the other Point site and he didn't think Strict or decent HTML was a big deal... another person was a student and his/her teacher was teaching the class to write only in XHTML1.1 which only worked because the server was sending out a header with content-type text-html... heh.
I'll PM you the #DDD reference. Just be warned, it's NSFW (nothing explicit or sexual, it's just really offensive to some people).
Ah-- Dan, never EVER worry about anything offending me... I AM the offender. I can offend someone just by sitting down somewhere. It's like a gift I have.
I'm the same way! (No, really. I am.) And yet someone who hasn't bathed in a month can sit down nearby and nobody will be offended by that person's stench.
and took his **** with him. They way I use it indicates the situation is more bleak than the traditional saying "It means two things: Jack and ****" Carlos Mencia reference. Dee Dee Dee. Close, Ghandi was a Mahatma - in the same way Harland Sanders was a Kentucky Colonel. It is an honorific applied to living people in buddhist cultures the same way Christians apply the word Saint to dead ones. (being I'm a warmongering agnostic...) Which is your typical computer education and why degrees in computer sciences aren't worth as much as a roll of toilet tissue. (so we give them all trophies) Continuing education - you need to keep continuing because we aren't actually teaching you a damned thing. (so we lower the standards) Enjoy the job flipping burgers with that bachelors... who knows, get a doctrate they might make you manager... of flipping burgers. But then I've never met a career educator I'd trust to find their way out of a piss soaked paper bag with a hole in the bottom. Been gaming with the ChicagoLand group again?
You must mean Hindu, right? For buddhists, when someone's enlightened, they are a buddha (or a bodhisattva).
dan, go ahead and use that analogy if you would like. I was trying to think of something that fit this topic. Oh I'm not to far from you, I'm in the birth place of the Band Cheap Trick.
Why not learn HTML? It's not like it's hard... It's by-far the easiest coding language ever, it is also the only coding language of it's kind. You can't make a web-page without HTML. PHP doesn't render to your browser, it outputs HTML (and only what you tell it to output with the "echo();" and "print();" functions) For those of you who say Dreamweaver is horrible and that note-pad is awesome: I agree in the sense that you should know the language you are typing in and not rely on the application to do stuff for you, but DW saves time and energy and also makes organizing your files much easier. Just my two cents.
Kind of a stupid question really..if you want to make web sites/pages you should learn HTML. Sure you don't need to because there's WYSIWYG editors, but in all honesty if you make sites using them and don't bother to learn the code you're a noob. Hand-writing your code is also >= professional than what any software can produce, aslong as ofcourse, that you code it right. I started out about 6 or 7 years ago with Arachnophilia (4 I think), using it to show instant previews of what I was working on and to generate code I hadn't yet learnt. Once I knew a lot more about it I still used Arach. for colouring the code and for previews, however I stopped because the internal browser uses IE and I was getting pissed off with how IE displays sites. Although you can make it launch in another browser externaly, I decided just to use notepad from then on. I think editors/generators can be good when you're learning, aslong as they output the correct code. Noone should use WYSIWYG software. Yes it makes it easier, but if you're coding a layout that take's what..a day at most? I use photoshop to make the images and slice it then put it together myself...which tbh I see like a nerd's puzzle. CMS on the other hand, although I've never personally used any for more than 5 minutes I can see an advantage to it. Though, I'm speaking on a personal level, I've no idea what web design companies use.