What Html Editor do you use?

I am new and I'm currently using Kompozer/NVU. Is this program suitable? I find it quite simple to use. Im also learning html/css.

On a side note, what web host do you use? I am looking towards hostmonster. any suggestions?

 

nope. Never use a WYSIWYG editor for a website. They might be easy to use, but they write bad code and are the least professional tool to use.

Some people like notepad, but I'm fond of a simple text editor that has syntax highlighting. jEdit's a wonderful editor, notepad++ if you're on windows, textmate is a good one for mac, although pricey.

Seriously though, jEdit is nice.

 

I use Dreamweaver MX

 

how do you like see what you put down. like wouldnt you have to tell it how many pixels to the left. etc.?

 

I do it with code and I have a firefox window open and when I make a change, I save it and hit refresh in my firefox window and I see it in the web browser isntantly.

trust me, WYSIWYG editors are very very unprofessional and create big headaches further down the road.

 

well I use jedit/gedit and use firefox web development extension.

 

firebug is also a great firefox extension for web design, just pointing that out!

 

I have used HTML Kit for many years.

James

 

ah! I've never heard of HTML-kit. It looks very lightweight and to-the-point. I can see why you'd stick with it for a long time

 

i always trust notepad nd remembring all html tags

 

what I don't like about notepad is the lack of interface and display options.....oh, I mean I'm not on windows, but that's what bugged me about it back i the day. But I'd rather have notepad than wordpad....wordpad is for losers who like RTF

Acutally, my preferrred editor is in the KDE desktop suite and it's a simple little app called Kwrite. Not unlike gEdit, only done in Qt and not GTK interface.

It's my favorite enough that I downloaded a few GB's of KDE for mac just so I could run it. No joke. The things one does for love haha....

 

I use Edit+ here. Best $30 I ever spent.

 

man coding by hand seems pretty hard core. im pretty tech savvy and ive learned the basics of html. i havent delved to deep yet. i plan on learning css as well. how long did you guys take before you actually knew what you were doing?
in kompozer. you can write your own code as well if you want to.
also, by unprofessional, do you mean the code will look unprofessional? does it really matter if it does if the page looks fine? yeah im new. teach me

 

A few months once it "clicked" but I just happened to be self-taught and a real book worm while learning the subject. If you really want to code HTML by hand you're going to have to learn that it's a structural markup language that defines how a page should be structured (header, menu, content, sidebar, footer, headings, paragraphs, lists, form controls, anchors, data tables, and so on) rather than how it should appear (that's what CSS does).

What I do with all my sites is start from a basic template that I use everywhere. For the most part, no matter what "design" I end up going with, I can make it appear pretty much however I want without changing this basic structure much, if at all.

<div id="container">
	<div id="header">
		<img src="#" width="200" height="80" alt="Logo" title="">
	</div>
	<ul id="menu">
		<li><a href="#">Menu Link</a></li>
		<li><a href="#">Menu Link</a></li>
		<li><a href="#">Menu Link</a></li>
		<li><a href="#">Menu Link</a></li>
		<li><a href="#">Menu Link</a></li>
		<li><a href="#">Menu Link</a></li>
	</ul>
	<div id="content">
		<div class="wrapper">
			<h1>Web Page Title</h1>
			<p>
				Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. In quis erat.
				Nulla auctor consectetuer erat. Sed est tellus, laoreet et, faucibus et,
				cursus ut, lectus. Nulla scelerisque, mi vel commodo consequat, turpis
				ligula congue ligula, eget pellentesque turpis augue quis diam. Nulla
				facilisi. Etiam commodo quam in metus. Etiam nec nisi ac nisl molestie
				fermentum. Donec ligula ipsum, venenatis in, egestas vel, commodo
				bibendum, est.
			</p>
			<h2>Second Level Heading</h2>
			<p>
				Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. In quis erat.
				Nulla auctor consectetuer erat. Sed est tellus, laoreet et, faucibus et,
				cursus ut, lectus. Nulla scelerisque, mi vel commodo consequat, turpis
				ligula congue ligula, eget pellentesque turpis augue quis diam. Nulla
				facilisi. Etiam commodo quam in metus. Etiam nec nisi ac nisl molestie
				fermentum. Donec ligula ipsum, venenatis in, egestas vel, commodo
				bibendum, est.
			</p>
			<h2>Second Level Heading</h2>
			<p>
				Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. In quis erat.
				Nulla auctor consectetuer erat. Sed est tellus, laoreet et, faucibus et,
				cursus ut, lectus. Nulla scelerisque, mi vel commodo consequat, turpis
				ligula congue ligula, eget pellentesque turpis augue quis diam. Nulla
				facilisi. Etiam commodo quam in metus. Etiam nec nisi ac nisl molestie
				fermentum. Donec ligula ipsum, venenatis in, egestas vel, commodo
				bibendum, est.
			</p>
		</div>
	</div>
	<div id="sidebar">
		<!-- sidebar content goes here -->
	</div>
	<div id="footer">
		<em>
			Copyright &169; 2006-2008, The Monster Under the Bed. All Rights to Scare
			Unsuspecting Children Reserved.
		</em>
	</div>
</div>

Code (markup):

 

For every web coding I use Notepad and Firefox to view it.
Notepad is fast and I don't really care if it has 'complex' designs or not.

 

I use UltraEdit. I think notepad and firefox also enough.

 

html and css is all integrated correct? i should know html before i learn css right?

 

It'll help if you know at least the basics of HTML before learning CSS. How much experience with HTML do you have?

 

Well, hardcore or not, it's the only way to do it. It would be like saying using paint and a paintbrush is a hard way to make a painting when there are stencils around.

No, you're right when you say that Kompozer has a code view mode and you can edit it, but there's a certain visual quality to code that is written by hand and that is that is is human-readable.

They could have made HTML just some hex code or binary - the computer wouldn't have cared, but they took the time and effort to create a semantic structure that was logical, human readable and editable and makes sense.

When you use WYSIWYG editors they tend to write OK sites the first time, but as you work in them, make something bold and then unbold, then bold again you start getting redundant and unnecessary bits of code that do nothing but pile up.

Think of it like the code version of those little calcium deposits that build up in your faucet over time, eventually they restrict the waterflow right? sooner or later your site will break, and by the time it does, it will be so jumbled up you wouldn't be able to clean it up by hand even if you had the skills!

Try this, make a website or save an existing website from the web and make a ton of useless changes, font size, bol and unbold, over and over again, save it, save it again and again. After a while, compare the code to the first version. Although you've edited it, they are both still the same, but you can see how the edited one is messed up.

Honestly, it's not hard to learn HTML - real people designed it so anybody could learn how to make a website. They designed to to be as easy to learn as would permit. Same with CSS. There's nothing to be afraid of, and once you get it it's like riding a bicycle - you don't really lose it.

I highly recommend you check out the W3Cschools website, they'll walk you through the HTML and CSS standards bit by bit. It's made by the people who made the HTML and CSS standards, and they still explain it best.

I also recommend the HTML and CSS Cheat Sheets over at ilovejackdaniels.com - whever I do code I make sure I have one of those handy because the genius that made them managed to accurately summarize *all* of HTML or CSS onto one single page for you as a quick-guide.

Best of luck, once you catch the web design bug you won't ever recover! A good place to find free (open-source) templates you can 'just use' and a great way to expand your understanding of HTML&CSS is by downloading and playing around with the designs at OSWD.org

 

i use Macromedia Dreamweaver and Notepad++ (really great ! supports about 150+ languages )