Do You Hand Code or use WYSWYG editors?

USALUG · #1 (**permalink**) 08-30-2003, 12:23 AM

I learned the old fashioned way. Windows 95 and the simple text editor. Sounds funny, Windows 95 and old fashion, in the same sentence, but that was 5 or 6 years ago and what seems like eons in terms of computing advances. With processors doubling in speed every year or so and WYSWYG editors advancing in capabilities, I'm wondering if I'm a dinosaur already :) Does anyone else code by hand ??

I code by hand. For me that is the fun part anyway. Figuring out how to make obscure looking commands do my bidding ! I run my own web design service as a part time business www.iowawebmasters.com, and only as a hobby. (Critique it if you want, but it's never done ;P ) I don't ever expect to make a living doing web design. But with that in mind, I ENJOY doing the coding and getting the clean design in the code that can only be done by hand.

The majority of the websites I visit seem to use Frontpage, Dreamweaver, or some other code generating program. I don't like the idea of "having" to use the same program that generated the code to update a page, because it's an unreadable scrambled mess. The one exception I find is that Dreamweaver actually creates somewhat elegant code, but it's still bloated and sometimes obscure in what it's actually trying to do. I've tried them, and always get irritated that something isn't just right and end up working from the source code again anyway.

I usually start out designing a template page. Getting the basic layout of the page the way I want. I then decide which parts will be changed often and convert that to some sort of include file so that I can update ONE file to change ALL the pages at once. Usually this is some of the meta tags, and the copyright, and if I don't require css, then the <body > tag is also an include file. Usually a header / body / footer system. More or less, depending on the site.

Then I can just "copy" the template page and get to work on adding content for the site. Seems fast enough to me. Now you know how I do things. Any thoughts on which way is the best? Hand coding or WYSWYG ??

GooMoo · #2 (**permalink**) 08-30-2003, 01:06 AM

i whole heartedly agree, hand coding is by far superior. you can't find an editor that can make as clean, concise, and quick loading as hand code. i started the very same way in notepad. i do admit to using dreamweaver nowadays, just for the color coding. i follow a similar process to creating my pages, though i start in photoshop and do the complete layout there. then i set guidelines as my cut lines for each seperate image (and define whitespace), and use different layers to create rollovers and such. good luck with your coding!

Narasinha · #3 (**permalink**) 08-30-2003, 01:34 AM

I've always preferred to write my code with a simple text editor. I actually started writing HTML with a text editor on my Amiga 500 computer. Interestingly enough, I had no graphical web browser in which to view the pages. I would ask friends on IRC to look at a page, then I would make adjustements. I would look at my pages using Lynx to make sure they were navigable.
Later, in '96, when working for a small web design company, I had the experience of "fixing" a site that someone had designed using a WYSIWYG eidtor. I'm not sure if it was an early version of FrontPage, or something on a Mac. Whatever it was, the output was horrendous and bloated. Took me forever to get it to work properly in IE and Netscape and AOL at the same time. All those tiny little table cells, and space-holding graphics... aaarrrgghhh!
These days I look at sites and check the soure and see the same problems. The worst problem I see is that the code never ever validates. These programs still use proprietary and deprecated HTML tags. I strive to have valid HTML and CSS all the time.
People often use the argument that 92 percent of their visitors are using IE5 or IE6, so if it looks good there, they don't care. If you had a brick-and-mortar storefront, would you turn away 8 percent of the people coming to your door because they weren't wearing what you deemed the proper shoes to walk in your store?

Narasinha

jdiben · #4 (**permalink**) 08-30-2003, 02:10 AM

I learned to design websites by using a text editor. Now I use Dreamweaver to create a quick draft of my websites, save it, then open it in a text editor to clean up the code and add the finishing touches. I save the file as template.htm and create the rest of the pages in the site in the text editor using template.htm. I've done a couple of websites that I needed to use imagemaps and I was thankfull that I had dreamweaver I couldnt imagine plotting all those points by hand.

I use Edit Plus as my text editor. What does everyone else use?

Joe

USALUG · #5 (**permalink**) 08-30-2003, 02:17 AM

I use BlueFish http://bluefish.openoffice.nl/

It is a great html/text editor for Linux. Very configurable and has a great tabbed interface for multiple page display. A few of it's features include:

# Multiple document interface, easily opens 500+ documents (tested 3500 documents simultaneously)
# Customizable syntax highlighting based on Perl Compatible regular expressions, with subpattern support and default patterns for

* PHP
* HTML
* C
* Java
* XML
* Python
* ColdFusion
* Pascal
* R

# Anti aliased text window
# Multiple encodings support, can convert between different character sets, supports multibyte characters, unicode, UTF8 etc.
# Nice wizards for startup, tables, frames, and others
# Dialogs for many HTML tags, with all their attributes
# HTML toolbar and tearable menu's
# Compliance with the Gnome and KDE user interface guidelines where possible
# User-customizable toolbar for quick access to often used functions
# Open files based on filename patterns and/or content
# Fully featured image insert dialog
# Thumbnail creation and automatically linking of the thumbnail with the original image
# Multi thumbnail generation for easy creation of photo albums or screenshot pages
# Line numbers along the document
# A custom menu, specify your own tags or sets of code, and define your own dialogs
# Custom search and replace pattern support for the Custom menu
# Very powerful search and replace, allowing POSIX and Perl Compatible regular expressions and sub-pattern replacing
# Excellent undo/redo functionality
# Function reference browser, including reference files for PHP and HTML
# Configurable recent documents and recent directories functionality
# Translations in da fr es it ja hu pl no ru sv and de
# User customizable integration of many programs, including weblint, tidy, make, javac etc. etc.

For image maps, I use the gimp under linux. Works great.

twobuck · #6 (**permalink**) 08-30-2003, 02:21 AM

OK, here I go...splish...that was the sound of a can of worms opening up. Here's my two bits.

I come from the other side of the tracks, I started off as an artist and went into graphic design, then web design. I use Adobe GoLive to build my websites, but I design websites using paper, pencil and photoshop.

I dont think it makes much of a difference to the end user what or how you built your website. If it was poorly designed but coded by hand without any errors, it will still be a poorly designed website. What the customer wants is a nice looking, fast loading website that is relavent to what they are looking for without crashing their machine.

Here's a thought: When you want to manipulate a digital image, do you do it in binary? Or do you use an image manipulation program like photoshop? If you have an easier, convenient, and time saving way to do something, do you use and embrace that program? Or do you continue to do it as its always been done? I haven't heard of very many people today that hand retouches their images for the web.

If it takes you twice as long to code by hand, is it worth it? Does the client notice the difference? Some things I see the need to code by hand, but this isnt one of them. Wouldn't your time be better spent elsewhere?

By the way I can read and edit the html code, but I have so much other work to do I can't justify spending my time writing it all by hand.

USALUG · #7 (**permalink**) 08-30-2003, 02:50 AM

I see your point twobuck, and I'm not disagreeing at all. I can see what your saying and that your production amount could definately increase, but at the expense of some insignificant stuff no one may ever notice anyway. It makes sense I guess. In almost every business, the need to speed up production many times takes it's toll on quality in some way. That you can edit the html and understand it must be a saving grace for you. I can't imagine NOT being able to read/understand the code and try to design with a WYSWYG editor. I make no claims to being a graphics oriented designer. Like I said, I'm more into making php, perl, and other stuff interact on the web. Graphics is usually my shortcoming, as I'm not blessed with an overly artistic hand !

The more I think about it, the more I think that a mix of the two worlds is needed by the average webdesigner. Knowledge of html and ability to code along with the ability to run Dreamweaver or other WYSWYG editor -- for speedier design. I will probably code by hand for quite awhile, as it is the most fun for me, and my biz is actually more of a hobby, so I'm not under the time constraints some of you might be. When time and production is an issue, I can definately see where a WYSWYG editor would be a requirement in some instances.

Edited for spelling :)

Narasinha · #8 (**permalink**) 08-30-2003, 04:34 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by twobuck

Here's a thought: When you want to manipulate a digital image, do you do it in binary? Or do you use an image manipulation program like photoshop? If you have an easier, convenient, and time saving way to do something, do you use and embrace that program? Or do you continue to do it as its always been done? I haven't heard of very many people today that hand retouches their images for the web.

Hahahaha.. I can just imagine being stuck with MSPaint for all my graphics needs! But can you imagine a graphics program that you simply give a command to like "Give me a logo with a stylized blue upper-case 'A' on a round light-blue background"? Would you get what you wanted? Or would you prefer to use the tools in PhotoShop to create it yourself?

Quote:

Originally Posted by twobuck

If it takes you twice as long to code by hand, is it worth it? Does the client notice the difference? Some things I see the need to code by hand, but this isnt one of them. Wouldn't your time be better spent elsewhere?

I don't think the client would notice the difference when he looks at the site. I think the difference comes in the operability, updatability (Is that a word?), accessibility, and search engine rankings.

Quote:

Originally Posted by twobuck

By the way I can read and edit the html code, but I have so much other work to do I can't justify spending my time writing it all by hand.

Well, if you need someone to handle some of your HTML work while you do more graphic-intensive things... :)

Actually, I definitely sympathize with your problem. It does get time-consuming. I'm editing 472 pages of my personal site at the moment, and it's a daunting task. The HTML was generated by my genealogy software, but it isn't HTML 4.01 compliant, and I need to make other changes to conform to the style of my site. I used to simply do a global search-and-replace based on a template, but now I'm making more refined changes. It's a fine line, really. What it really comes down to, I think, is what you mentioned: "Is it worth it?" There's a point where it costs more than it's worth, but where is that point?

carju1 · #9 (**permalink**) 08-30-2003, 08:55 AM

The first commercial site I built was in a DOS text editor (A fancy trick in those days '93/94' was to include an image), I then built a large corporate intranet on a SUN system and used the unix 1 line ED for that.

Since them as things progressed I've tried a variety of WYSIWYG's and now-a-days I tend to bung the first draft together in FrontPage then tidy up the code and get it exactly how I want using notepad. The reason I use Frontpage is I think it puts the least rubbish in.

Julian

GooMoo · #10 (**permalink**) 08-30-2003, 11:43 AM

Yep that was deffinately a can of worms. I too started as a graphic designer in college before I was a web designer, BUT when I started web design I started coding by hand in notepad. By now I can type HTML, CSS, Javascript, ASP code at 90 wpm because they are "second languages" to me. Using a WYSIWYG editor DOES slow me down. I have my mouse slowed down below normal to do precise graphic imaging and all the point&click and fill out the wizard garbage that an editor presents me is a real pain. All the different windows and things flyin around and half the screen graphics and half code, really makes me quite scatterbrained and I loose track of what I'm doing. When I edit images for the web, no I don't edit them in binary, any more than I would write an email in binary. But yes when I edit my images for the web, I hand edit them in photoshop; I get in there with my air brush and touch up what needs it, apply filters and blends and transform and color manage all that good stuff, before it's cut up and optimized. If I had to say which was more time consuming, I would say the graphical part 90% of the time. It's deffinately worth it though, I know my pages are going to have functional code, but when it looks good, it looks good on me.

Paulo · #11 (**permalink**) 08-30-2003, 12:01 PM

Started handcoding in Notepad for a couple of years until I found Dreamweaver 3 and 4. DW is good for quick and complex table layouts, then I go back to the code and clean it.

Fireworks exports fully-working complex HTML layouts to DW but throws up a ton of code that is totally long-winded and also needs stripping down.

And then there's HomeSite for those Server Side Includes in a site which the developer hatcheted up so roughly that DW can't read them!

I really don't know what I'd do without coloured code highlighting, couldn't go back to just black & white LOL

OSFan · #12 (**permalink**) 08-30-2003, 12:25 PM

Vim and Notepad all the way!

I actually learnt using Frontpage Express, then when I got rich, I bought Frontpage 2000. It was ok at first, but then I realised the look was unprofessional, and it sometimes rendered badly in Netscape etc...

I then decided to learn to do it by hand, and now I do it all by hand. If I want to play with a look, I sometimes still use frontpage to produce a quick prototype to get an idea, and then I write using notepad or VIM if I happen to be in linux from scratch.

I can also make my HTML valid if I code by hand, and it renders perfect on most browsers, meaning all my users see what I intended them to see.

On my travels I see websites using WYSIWYG editors, you can tell by the source, numerous no break spaces to format the page, and tag overlapping.

One thing I can't understand is web design companies who charge $$$s to make websites in WYSIWYG editors. You can buy these programs for much less than the service charge, and produce the same content yourself.

Moondancer · #13 (**permalink**) 08-30-2003, 03:15 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Paulo

Started handcoding in Notepad for a couple of years until I found Dreamweaver 3 and 4. DW is good for quick and complex table layouts, then I go back to the code and clean it.

Fireworks exports fully-working complex HTML layouts to DW but throws up a ton of code that is totally long-winded and also needs stripping down.

And then there's HomeSite for those Server Side Includes in a site which the developer hatcheted up so roughly that DW can't read them!

I really don't know what I'd do without coloured code highlighting, couldn't go back to just black & white LOL

This is pretty much me, too... I use Dreamweaver to throw up the pages, clean the code by hand... etc etc... I might also add that I'm a lousy typist.. It's not that I can't do it by hand but sure would take a lot of time finding all the typos...

carbonize · #14 (**permalink**) 08-30-2003, 03:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Moondancer

Quote:

Originally Posted by Paulo

I really don't know what I'd do without coloured code highlighting, couldn't go back to just black & white LOL

This is pretty much me, too... I use Dreamweaver to throw up the pages, clean the code by hand... etc etc... I might also add that I'm a lousy typist.. It's not that I can't do it by hand but sure would take a lot of time finding all the typos...

Since when did coding by hand mean not using a HTML editor with syntax hilighting? Ultraedit is a plain text editor that offers syntax highlighting and ftp uploading/downloading. Also I personally consider that using a HTML editor with a preview window to be coding by hand as you are still writing the code. Topstyle pro is a good HTML/CSS editor with built in preview window as well as tag suggesting.

USALUG · #15 (**permalink**) 08-30-2003, 03:57 PM

Agreed, alot of html/text editors have code highlighting features and preview features. NoteTab Pro (www.notetab.com) and I know 1st page 2000 (http://www.evrsoft.com/1stpage2.shtml) both work great when using windows. Bluefish and several other editors do the same for me while running linux.

When I speak of "coding by hand" I mean creating the code and typing it out..... not letting a machine do it for you after you drag-n-dropped your forms/images/and clickable buttons etc. In theory making it possible for someone to NOT know html and create a webpage. Some examples...

Coding by hand....

Notepad
notetabpro
1st page 200

Coding with WYSWYG editors

Dreamweaver
FrontPage

grease · #16 (**permalink**) 08-30-2003, 04:31 PM

I can write a letter by hand, walk 1km to put in a mailbox, wait 2 days for my friend to read it OR I can write him in an email in 5 minutes and have him read within 10 seconds. Failing to embrace technology means you have less time to focus on what really matters - the content,the design and the time it takes to develop. I know there are exceptions for specific types of sites, but overall denial of the tools that make you a more efficient worker, in the name of 'purism' is simply ignorance. Your client deserves the best - use the tools that make the most sense for the task at hand. And if you would like to program in machine code - please...do this in your free time, not on your clients time.

Grease

carbonize · #17 (**permalink**) 08-30-2003, 04:47 PM

Wysiwyg editors nearly always make sloppy, non valid, HTML and are nearly always geared towards how the page will appear in Internet Explorer rather than any other browser.

By all means use a wysiwyg editor but only if you know enough about HTML to go through the code afterwards and clean it up.